Stargate Atlantis: The Chosen (Stargate Atlantis)

by Whitelaw, Sonny

  Ford spoke up as Lisera finally managed to shoo the children away. “We should at least evacuate everyone who can’t fight or operate a Shield.” He turned to address a nearby warrior. “Get everyone from the Sanctuary Halls and bring them to the highest areas that are still accessible, around here and near the Enclave. As much as is possible, they’ll be protected from the smoke—and the Wraith if they get through.”

  The warrior glanced at Rodney, who nodded absently, and left to comply. The man disappeared through the door at almost the same moment that someone passed him to enter.

  “The healer comes,” Lisera said, moving aside and quietly dissolving the argument for the time being.

  A stooped man with greying hair and long beard approached and took a seat beside Sheppard. “He was struck in the head?” asked the healer, studying his new patient.

  “Twice,” confirmed Ford. “And he was deprived of air for a couple of minutes.”

  While Lisera instructed two nearby women to fetch soapwater and vegetable oil, the healer checked the Major’s pupils and studied the impressive bruises forming on either side of his head. “I do not believe the blows have caused his brain to swell,” he said at last. Rodney wished he could have some confidence in that assertion.

  The commotion around him seemed to rouse Sheppard. He stirred minutely, his eyes sliding half-open before closing again.

  “Wake, son,” coaxed the healer, patting a tar-coated shoulder. Ford and Teyla crowded in, as did Peryn. Rodney hung back, partially to avoid overwhelming the battered Major, but mostly out of a dislike for dense huddles of people.

  Sheppard managed to open his eyes fully, but they were bright and unfocused. “Welcome back, sir,” Ford smiled. “You freaked us out a little back there.”

  There was a faint response, but it was hardly more than a groan. The Lieutenant’s grin faltered. “You remember what’s going on, right? And who you are, and all that?”

  The ensuing pause was unnerving enough to them all that Rodney broke in. “For the love of God, Major, just give us something to demonstrate that your brains aren’t running out your ears.”

  After another beat of silence, the reply came, weak but unequivocal. “Shut up, Rodney.”

  Ford smirked. “He remembers, all right.”

  The healer lifted a gnarled hand. Sheppard’s eyes followed the motion, but with a sluggish delay. Seemingly satisfied with that result, the healer withdrew a small bottle from a pouch at his belt and helped the Major to drink its contents before easing his head back to the pillow. “Rest now,” he said kindly.

  Sheppard looked inclined to obey, but momentarily fixed a disoriented gaze on Ford. “We safe?” he murmured.

  Ford’s flinch most likely went unnoticed by his CO. “We’re on it, sir.”

  The swiftness with which Sheppard sank back into oblivion bothered Rodney. “What was in that stuff you just gave him?”

  “The potion will allow him to sleep through the night,” the old man replied, returning the bottle to his pouch.

  “What?” Rodney snapped at him. “You gave him something to sleep at a time like this? We need him awake and alert—”

  “You are of the Chosen.” The healer stood and stared at Rodney from beneath a pair of fuzzy white eyebrows. “It rests with you to decide what must be done. But I warn you that forcing him to wake now will only confuse him and delay healing. If you seek his counsel, then you must wait until morning.”

  While he had never been much of a champion of the medical profession, Rodney wasn’t about to grant a glorified witch doctor the same deference Carson Beckett had earned. “And you’re convinced that’s prudent based on a five-second exam and some hand-waving?”

  “Dr McKay,” Teyla said, her tone carrying a familiar admonition.

  “Not this time, Teyla.” He watched the healer step back with a slight bow, unruffled. The old man’s composure only heightened Rodney’s anxiety. “I’m willing to respect their ways up to a point, but the Major could have intracranial bleeding for all that guy knows. Not to mention the fact that we could do with a little tactical advice here!”

  “Athosian healers have developed many treatments without the benefit of sophisticated equipment,” she countered, her features carved in stone. “These people did manage to survive for many generations without our assistance.”

  “Noted, but I’ll once again point out that current conditions make it improbable that they’ll survive for many generations more without our assistance.”

  “I must take my leave,” the old man announced. “There are many who are more gravely injured than this Chosen, and Dalera has commanded that all should be treated equally.”

  “Guys,” Ford said quietly, flicking his gaze toward the foot of the bed. Lisera had returned, flanked by two older women holding buckets and cloths.

  “It does not serve Major Sheppard well to remain covered in oil,” said one of the women hesitantly, her discomfort surely caused by the tension humming between the team members. “With your permission?”

  After a moment, Rodney realized that she was looking to him for a go-ahead. “Sure, yeah. Just, ah, understand that our people aren’t too fond of being unclothed in front of others, all right?”

  The women looked at him oddly, while Lisera blushed a little and ducked her head. Rodney made a mental note to mock Sheppard later for sleeping through his sponge bath.

  Now he just had to ensure that he’d get that chance. “Anyone have any information on the status of the North Channel?” Rodney asked the room in general, turning back to the problem at hand.

  “Word comes from West Bridge that the oil is flowing as strongly as ever,” one of the townspeople answered promptly. “It continues to feed the flames.”

  The unqualified success of his previous plan gave him far less satisfaction than it had earlier, since major modifications were now required. “All right. We need to flow more oil into the South Channel. I need—” Rodney snapped his fingers repeatedly, trying to recall the name of the engineer, but then he remembered that the man was dead. That memory gave him pause. Artos had saved his life. “The men who walked the boom across the channel,” he said in a subdued voice. Clearing his throat of something that seemed to have caught there, he added, “They’ll have to lengthen it.”

  “I will locate them and set them to work,” Yann determined.

  “What, while I wait here and babysit the Major? I’m sure it won’t shock you to learn that my trust doesn’t run that deep. I’m going out to supervise. This is too important.”

  “Go ahead,” Ford said, folding his arms across his P-90. “I’m going out to do some recon on the Wraith positions. Like it or not, we can’t do without intel.”

  “Have it your way,” Rodney retorted, tired of arguing. The Lieutenant appeared fixated on his role of playing commando. So be it. “Take that previously mentioned contingent of guards, and do me the favor of remembering my dissent if you should happen to get yourself killed.”

  “Four men only. Any more and we risk being heard.”

  “I will accompany Lieutenant Ford.” Teyla checked the clip of her P-90. “We will also need a Gene to operate the transport.”

  “I can go,” Peryn chimed in, stepping away from where he’d been hovering near Lisera.

  “No,” Ford started to say, but Rodney cut him off with a wave.

  “Take him. He’s quicker and more maneuverable than just about everyone else around here.” The idea of sending someone who was hardly more than a child off to face the Wraith struck a dark chord in his mind, but again, options were limited. Besides, if the Wraith broke through into the Citadel, it was only a matter of time before they were all dead. “Do what you have to do, and we’ll meet back here.”

  Checking his collection of Shields one more time, Rodney picked up his weapon and spared another glance toward Sheppard. We ’ll meet back here, he repeated to himself.

  The two groups made their way downstairs and out into the streets. The glow fr
om the fire along the entire North Channel was marginally reassuring, but the desperate expressions of the evacuees inside the dimly lit Sanctuary Hall was not. Eyes peered out of bloody, dust-covered faces. It felt to Rodney as if they were claiming pieces of him, or the desired outcome, for themselves. He swallowed and cringed. He didn’t want to be here. In fact, he just wanted to lie down and sleep. This wasn’t his job; it was the Major’s. But the faces urged him on, pushing him from behind, crowding him until he was almost relieved to escape into the transport.

  That’s when he noticed the gaggle of children trailing in his wake. “When did I become the Pied Piper?” His recollection of the outcome of that particular Grimms’ tale was that things had not ended well for the children. At Yann’s blank look, Rodney rolled his eyes. “Go back,” he told the kids, attempting to brush them off. “Seriously, get lost! You can’t help me, and you’re better off in the Station.”

  “We’d rather go,” one little girl informed him almost cheerfully. It was the same child that had been carelessly tossed against him by Balzar’s clone.

  “I’m sorry, did I miss the part where I asked what you’d rather do?”

  “Give it up, Doc,” Ford called from inside the transport. “They’ve bailed us out more than once already.”

  “Some days it doesn’t pay to get out of bed,” Rodney sighed. Looking up at his teammates preparing to depart, he could only offer a feeble, “Good luck.”

  “To you as well,” Teyla replied.

  The doors closed on them, and Rodney jerked away from the little girl, who’d somehow taken an interest in his fingers. “The moment any one of you asks me for chocolate, I’m calling the whole thing off.”

  Teyla must have picked up on Aiden’s misgivings, because when Peryn closed the doors of the transport, she turned to him and said, “Dr McKay is worried for Major Sheppard.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  “Have you given thought to how we will proceed if he does not regain consciousness?”

  Aiden’s mouth abruptly went dry. Among other things, it’d mean relying on McKay to pilot the jumper. Great. Now they were bound to have transportation issues. Still, the immediate problem was of more importance.

  “Where do you wish us to go?” Peryn was staring at the map mounted inside the transport.

  “We should take a look around the area south of where the Wraith are amassing their forces.” Aiden indicated a light about five miles out on the southern side of the Citadel.

  “We must not let our arrival alert them.” Teyla pointed out. To Peryn, she said, “As soon as you select the destination, hand me your Shield.”

  The four warriors—two of them trainees—who had volunteered to accompany them readied their axes. Holding the Shield over Teyla’s palm in one hand, Peryn pressed the lights that Aiden had selected. The moment the doors began to unfold, he released the Shield, which was a bad move. The doors continued to fold back, revealing an inn full of Wraith with their stunners trained on them.

  Aiden instantly fired a round into the leading Wraith’s chest, but then something knocked him off his feet, and everything went black.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The transports near the bridges differed from their more common counterparts. Instead of being located in an inn or one of the Sanctuary Halls, each opened directly into the street leading to the bridge itself. “It is for the purpose of moving goods,” Yann explained when Rodney expressed surprise at their destination. “This way, carts may enter the Citadel from the bridges and be transported into the Sanctuary Halls to unload.”

  Recalling something of that nature in the initial briefing, Rodney’s interest was quickly diverted to the sight through the closed portcullis of the West Bridge. Flames crawling up into the night sky cast an orange glow over the entire North Wall. Although the wind had dropped with the fall of night, the hot air generated by the blaze and the sheer cliff face leading up to the Enclave seemed to propel most of the oil-laden smoke away. The force of the heat surprised him—it felt like a physical presence. Despite nearly burning his hand on the heavy iron of the portcullis, he would, if pressed, have admitted to a certain fascination. People who battled massive forest fires and oil blazes spoke of fire as a living entity. Watching the way the flames curled and danced across the waters of North Channel, he was beginning to understand the analogy.

  Glancing west, Rodney was pleased to note that the oil was flowing at a satisfactory pace.

  “It is good that you survived.” Turning, he met the grim faces of the men who had dragged the boom across the channel the previous evening. The warrior added, “We heard that the Wraith culled all those who had remained behind.”

  The unspoken question hung between them like an embarrassing smell. “Yes, well, the Shield fell off when I was in the river.” Rodney saw no reason to elaborate on exactly when that unfortunate event had occurred.

  A hand clasped his shoulder and he was reluctantly drawn into a display of male bonding that involved embraces and back thumping. Moving past the moment as quickly as possible, he explained what needed to be done, adding, “Once again, we’re a little pressed for time. And we’ll need rope, lots of rope.”

  The men, supported by a gaggle of chattering children, led the way to a subterranean passage, claiming it allowed access outside the Citadel near where the end of the boom was secured.

  “Are there many more of these tunnels?” Rodney asked, stooping to pass through the low entrance.

  “Thousands,” the lead man, another of the engineers, replied. “They provide access for workers to service the sewers and the pumps that supply the Citadel with water.”

  Given the sophistication of their weirs, it made sense that a place this big would have a decent wastewater system. Except of course that it wasn’t exactly operating as designed. Aside from the fact that Gat’s crew had evidently used part of the system to stash their food, there was the little matter of raw effluent in the streets. “And how much service actually gets performed?” Rodney’s breath hitched as the septic smell hit him again. At street level, the oil fire had actually masked the stench for a while, but down here it was another story.

  “To allow the home of Dalera to fall into such a state is unconscionable,” Yann spat.

  The engineers rounded on him. “There were too few of us to more than maintain the water supply coming into the city.”

  “I do not blame you,” Yann elaborated. “This is but further proof that the barbarians failed in their leadership. When this culling is passed, never again shall those who blaspheme against Dalera be allowed into our city, except to take temporary refuge from the Wraith.”

  Apparently speaking ill of the dead wasn’t a concern around here. All Rodney could think was that he’d be damned before he got involved in sorting out this world’s plumbing issues.

  “The sewerage should be the least of our worries,” grumbled another engineer, clutching a torch to light the increasingly claustrophobic passages. “The blackwater has discouraged the Wraith, but it has also made its way into every pump in the city. For the foreseeable future, freshwater will have to be brought in from Nemst.”

  Yet another shortcoming in Dalera’s design, to Rodney’s way of thinking. If the water intakes had only been placed at different levels in the Channels, the ‘blackwater ’ problem would have been entirely avoided. Of course, it was probable that Dalera had never envisioned this particular situation. “Assuming that there will be a foreseeable future,” he muttered, sidestepping a putrid mess that, he was certain, had passed through someone’s intestines.

  The engineer’s complaints continued. Too tired to voice any kind of objection, Rodney concentrated on watching his step, but after a while the droning conversation had a soporific effect. He began to wonder if he was sleepwalking through a particularly tedious nightmare involving children and alimentary canals.

  “Agh!” The engineer kicked out at a rat-sized animal. With a flash of green fur, the creature scuttled down a side
tunnel.

  One of the children, whom Rodney conceded had been unnaturally quiet during this particular part of their excursion, bent low to follow.

  “What are you doing?” Rodney snapped, repulsed by the frothy muck splashing onto his boots.

  “This way,” the engineer said, getting down on all fours in the sludge and following her.

  “What? Are you kidding me?” He could already feel himself hyperventilating. Not a pleasant thought, because it meant that he was inhaling even more of the rank air than previously.

  “The passage is short, and leads directly outside.”

  The wound on Rodney’s arm began to ache. He’d forgotten about it during his immersion in the oil, but now every injury he’d sustained, from the goose egg-sized lump on his head to the splinters in his fingers, throbbed unmercifully. Hell, in the last week he’d fallen into a waste tank and swum through a river of oil. What were a few rat droppings, a little stagnant…water…and a very, very tight black hole?

  Reluctantly crouching on all fours, he pretended to ignore the slimy sensation beneath his hands, squeezed his eyes shut, thought of wide-open meadows, and followed. Spurred on by the brush of a breeze against his cheek, he increased his pace, as much as that was possible when crawling. Of course, nobody had considered warning him that the tunnel came to an end at least two feet above ground level, a fact that resulted in him tumbling down a sand dune and into a shallow pool of sludge.

  The children, naturally, found this highly entertaining. Rodney was slightly mollified by the fact that Yann followed suit, and arrived in the mess face-down.

  By the time Rodney had managed to scrub off the worst of the filth in the questionably cleaner sand, the engineers had fastened the thick rope to the end of the boom and were easing it out into the channel. He suffered a moment’s panic because, unlike polypropylene, the fibrous braid was not entirely buoyant. However, it was soon apparent that, while the rope sunk beneath the oil, it floated on the water. This proved to be ideal, and within a surprisingly short space of time they had ascertained the exact amount they needed to adjust the length of the rope and, hence, the shape of the boom, in order to control the volume of oil flowing down both channels.