Stargate Atlantis: The Chosen (Stargate Atlantis)

by Whitelaw, Sonny

  Sheppard turned the ceramic over. It was identical to the skull caps worn by the Wraith. His gaze slid from his teammate to the Queens, then back to Rodney. He didn’t need to voice his concern. This contraption could very well link his mind in some way to the Wraith. But as usual, they were out of options. Jamming the thing on his head, he said, “This is Wraith tech, right? I’m gonna try something a little different.”

  Choking back his panicked impatience, Rodney watched as the scene playing over Sheppard’s head changed to a three-dimensional map of the Citadel and surrounding countryside.

  Behind them, the transport doors opened and a wild-eyed Peryn staggered to the entrance, but did not step out. “The Wraith have invaded the Enclave. Lieutenant Ford…ordered me to tell you.”

  Teyla ran to him and caught him in her arms before he fell to the floor.

  “Don’t let that transport recycle or we’re all dead!” Rodney directed his order at Teyla, but then his eyes fell to the Shield on Peryn’s belt. It had stopped glowing. Swinging around, Rodney saw that Sheppard’s had also ceased to glow. Desperately, he grabbed his own methodically accumulated collection of Shields. “No, no, no no! This can’t be happening!” Every one of the Shields had turned black.

  “Wraithlight! Wraithlight!” people screamed.

  “What the…?” Aiden looked up and saw hundreds of Darts crossing what he had thought of as the no-fly zone. Glancing at the Gene beside him, he noticed that the man’s Shield had gone black. The momentary surge of panic that hit Aiden was brief, but it was just long enough to allow the Wraith he’d been pumping bullets into to reach him. Next thing he knew, he was on the ground and the Wraith was standing over him with its hand upraised.

  For the second time in less than ten minutes, Rodney felt his knees give way. He clasped the edge of the console, swallowing against his suddenly dry mouth. This time they were dead, no question about it. The little girl squealed and ran into the transport, trying to hide behind Peryn. Several of the other children followed—until Teyla slowly stood and walked toward him, her eyes fastened to a point over Sheppard’s head.

  Rodney turned and looked up at the hologram. The images of dozens of frighteningly familiar lights shot out of multiple locations around the Enclave.

  The expected impact of the hand on Aiden’s chest never came. Abruptly the Wraith vanished in a liquid blue beam.

  Around him, the sounds of the battle ceased and everything went strangely quiet. He picked himself up, grabbed his weapon, which had been knocked out of his hand, and looked around the Enclave. The Wraith were gone. He staggered across to the upended fountain where most of the creatures had been pouring out, and looked down. All he could see was the remains of plumbing. There was no sign of the Wraith anywhere. The Major had done…Aiden wasn’t entirely certain what he’d done, but he turned to the group with a yell of triumph. “It’s Dalera’s weapon. Major Sheppard is using it to attack the Wraith!”

  Just at that moment, the transport doors opened and a second group came rushing out. But then they paused and, along with the first bunch of refugees who had been fighting off the Wraith, looked skyward.

  Yann stepped out behind them and came across to Aiden. Like everyone who stood amid the ruins of the once elegant temple, the Gene watched in awe as the watery blue beams streaked across the sky, cutting through the squadrons of Wraith Darts—which began falling from the sky. Even through the thickening black smoke of the oil fires, they caught sight of balls of fire where the craft hit the ground.

  “How can this be?” breathed a villager. “Who does this?”

  “We do!” Yann shouted, jabbing a victorious fist into the air. “Our brothers and sisters hold the power of Dalera’s Weapon now. By joining together we have made ourselves worthy of her glory and driven the Wraith from our world!”

  Cheers swept through the crowd. The warriors congratulated each other and mingled with the townspeople, reveling in the moment. Yann slapped Aiden on the back, nearly knocking him off his feet in the process. For the first time since Aiden had set foot on the planet, he heard the sound of Daleran laughter.

  “Finally,” he said under his breath. Finally, these people believed they had a future.

  In the weapon room, the din of celebrating young voices was piercing. Rodney cringed, sure that the noise wasn’t doing the Major’s headache any favors. “All right, enough already,” he snapped, locking his fear back up behind a familiar veneer of annoyance. “Imminent doom averted and all that. Next.”

  His relief was so strong it hurt, and the best way to conceal that was to move briskly on to the next problem. They’d won the battle, but the unchecked oil fire was likely to make the Citadel and nearby countryside—possibly even the entire planet—unfit for life. Nor was there any guarantee that the hive ships wouldn’t wait around and send in more Darts as soon as evacuations began. Yet another unanswerable question he’d inevitably be required to answer.

  Rodney opened his mouth to instruct the Major to explore any other functions the device might have—and stopped mid-thought when the activation lights died out. Whether through the departure of one of the Genes or through some malfunction in the device, the grid had failed. He resisted the urge to kick something—could they not get a break for once?

  Without a word, Sheppard dropped his hand and opened his eyes. At the same time a distant explosion made itself known. Even from inside the room, they could feel a tremor. Rodney stared at Sheppard. “What did you do?”

  Sheppard merely returned his gaze. “What’s the one way you can extinguish an oil fire?”

  Another wave of relief washed over him, and once again Rodney was surprised and impressed by the pilot’s resourcefulness. “Nice work.”

  “A guy’s gotta make himself useful.”

  Oddly enough, Sheppard’s shield turned aquamarine. Rodney glanced down at his own and noted that they had begun to glow. Of course. He should have realized sooner. “The Shields went temporarily inactive because the device doesn’t allow you to defend and attack simultaneously.”

  “That’s how it works on the Enterprise, so it seemed worth a try.” Stepping out of the chamber, Sheppard stumbled, listing to one side. Rodney instinctively reached out to steady him. “It’s okay. I’m good.” The Major tried to smile, but seemed to recognize that he wasn’t fooling anyone.

  For Sheppard’s sake, the sooner they got back to Atlantis, the better. Unfortunately, there was still the minor matter of the hive ships in orbit around the planet.

  Rodney took one last look around before stepping into the transport. The Wraith that had been swept up in the reconfigured beams had to have been transported somewhere. And then there was the issue of leaving two Wraith Queens behind—

  —which was suddenly was no longer an issue. Features tightened against the pain, Sheppard was standing at the door of the transport, unleashing a hail of bullets into the stasis chambers.

  When the clip was finally empty, Rodney batted away at the cordite-smelling smoke. “Was that really wise?”

  Turning back toward him, Sheppard said simply, “Yes.” The grim look on the Major’s face told Rodney a great deal more. It had also answered his question of whether the device had brought him into contact with the minds of the immature Queens.

  Swallowing again, this time against a momentary surge of nausea, Rodney nodded to Peryn, signaling it was time to leave.

  Somewhere between the weapon room and Nemst, they’d managed to lose most of their entourage, while acquiring Ford and Teyla. John wasn’t entirely certain what they were doing in the village. Something about Teyla needing to be outside the influence of the Shielded Citadel to sense whether or not the Wraith had departed. It sounded like it would have made sense had his brain not been fairly scrambled.

  When the doors to the transport opened, it was to a scene of devastation. The roof of the inn had collapsed, and they could see outside to the sky, now more or less free of the ubiquitous oily smoke. A large group of people, most
ly men that John recognized as residents of Nemst, were surveying the area and looking mighty unhappy. He didn’t recall suggesting that anyone could safely leave the Citadel, but then, just staying upright was enough of a challenge for him at the moment. Having extra eyes and weapons around the place was probably a good idea in case they ran into any Wraith he hadn’t managed to scoop up with Dalera’s nifty anti-Wraith beam.

  “The Wraith,” Teyla stated, her voice edged with a familiar bitterness. “They have retaliated by destroying much of the town.”

  Rodney opened his mouth to correct that misconception, but seemed to think better of it. Which was fortunate. Concussed or not, John knew the makings of a lynch mob when he saw one, and he’d already had a taste of Daleran ‘gratitude’.

  They climbed over more wreckage until they were standing in what had once been the inn’s entrance. “This is the way of the Wraith. Even when they are able to cull most of a population, they destroy much that remains behind.” The Athosian was directing her speech to the citizens of Nemst. Her stance and the quick look she sent John told him exactly what he needed to know. The Wraith had left. Even in his admittedly addled state, he understood what the Athosian was now trying to achieve.

  Outside the inn they found a sight familiar to John. The men with them reacted with astonishment and anger. One of them released a cry of despair. “The wheel! The waterwheel that has stood for countless generations—it’s gone!”

  Someone else began talking about the forge, and all too soon, the murmurs began turning to blame. “The Wraith destroyed our village because of the blackwater.”

  “Why should we have to bear this burden alone?”

  “Who will rebuild our beautiful forge?”

  Beautiful forge? John ran an unsteady hand across his eyes. He was about to snap out a reply, but Yann beat him to it. “Thank Dalera that you still live to see and speak of such things. When the Wraith have departed, we will rebuild.” He strode out purposefully behind Ford as they made their way across the splintered wreckage to the impressive crater that had replaced most of the hill.

  The bitter complaints and recriminations dropped to muttered whispers. Yeah, there was no getting around it. This place was going to face some serious social and political fallout.

  “I do not believe Major Sheppard is well,” Teyla said softly. “Try telling him that.” Aiden used his binoculars to look out across the Citadel. When one of the blue beams had targeted a squadron of Darts heading west toward Nemst, Aiden hadn’t been entirely certain what to expect. But the Major had apparently taken a page out of Red Adair’s book. By using the beam to remove their Wraith pilots at just the right moment, the uncontrolled Darts had plunged into Black Hill. The massive explosion had starved the raging oil fire of oxygen just long enough for the flames to be extinguished. True, a few of the Darts had overshot their mark and crashed into Nemst, but when the bulk of the hill had collapsed its center, it had cut off the flow of oil. With nothing to feed it, the fire around the Citadel also was rapidly dying down. Although the resultant haze would provide a spectacular sunset, the strong afternoon west wind had blown the worst of the smoke away.

  Teyla sighed. “Were I in his position, I would be much the same.” Aiden met her eyes, and she added, “As would you.”

  Shrugging, he replied, “As long as we don’t have to go one-on-one with any Wraith who might have been left behind, he should be okay, but we really need to get him back to Atlantis.”

  “The Wraith departed soon after the Major unleashed the weapon. None remain. Of that I am now certain.”

  “And that’s a perfect end to a perfect day.” McKay turned back from the edge of the cliff, where everyone else was gathered, and strode across to the two of them. It hadn’t taken the scientist long to regain his typical bluster. “The oil flow has stopped, all right. Which of course was the desired outcome, but only if the Wraith don’t come back.”

  “No!” came the forceful voice of one of the Nemst townsfolk. The guy marched up to the Major and waved a threatening finger under his nose. “It is your fault that our magnificent town is in ruins. You will not now bring the full force of the Wraith down upon us—”

  “And steal our livelihood,” another injected.

  “—by destroying what little remains of Black Hill!” finished the first man.

  McKay gestured in the direction of the men. “As I was about to explain.”

  Aiden moved the same instant as Teyla. Letting the Dalerans think that the Wraith had blown up Nemst seemed the wisest course of action. The Major was in no shape to be fielding an argument.

  “Do you deny that releasing the blackwater onto the river defended the Citadel against the Wraith?” Yann yelled back just as loudly.

  “The Citadel, yes. But what of our home?”

  “It was the will of Dalera that the Citadel be your place of refuge during a Wraith culling,” Teyla began. “Never in all my travels have I seen a world untouched by the Wraith. They destroy what humans have built in order to stop us from finding ways to defeat them. What you call Wraithcraft—” She paused and shook her head.

  “What you call Wraithcraft,” McKay continued, “interferes with the operation of the Shields. But in and of itself, it isn’t bad. For the most part, it isn’t even designed by the Wraith, but they’d prefer you to remain ignorant of it in order to prevent you from developing a functioning civilization.”

  “Dalera offers a truly fortunate defense,” Teyla interjected. “For as long as you work together and use the Shields, you will always have the power to fend off the worst Wraith depravations.”

  “Then the Citadel must pay us for the blackwater you used.” The man’s glare moved from Teyla and Yann to McKay. “But you will not steal from us any further.” He crossed his arms belligerently. “You will not destroy the cliff holding back the last of our blackwater.”

  “So,” Major Sheppard replied with a weary expression. “Where would you like us to take you when the Wraith resume their attack? East wall, maybe? Or would you rather just stay here sitting on your hoard of black gold?”

  The Nemst townsfolk looked unsure. “What of Dalera’s Weapon?”

  “The things specifically used to power it…died.”

  “I don’t know if anyone’s noticed,” McKay said, staring out across the countryside. “But I can’t see any sign of the Wraith. Y’ know?” A confident smile crossed his face, and he eyed his collection of now dull Shields. “I think we really did make them turn tail and leave. It may not be necessary to blow up the remains of the cliff after all.”

  Aiden clamped his jaw shut. Just once, couldn’t the scientist get with the program and see what was happening around him? Another few minutes and the townspeople might have been forced to concede that to survive the Wraith in the long term, they had to follow Dalera’s plan to protect the Citadel. And that meant working together and being willing to employ every resource they had, including their oil. Sure, it was great that they wouldn’t have to use it now, but right at this moment, that wasn’t the point.

  Teyla, too, pursed her lips, while Sheppard just shot McKay an incredulous look. “Thank you, Rodney.”

  The scientist’s supercilious smirk faded into uncertainty. “Well, isn’t that a good thing?”

  “Yes,” Teyla replied, her biting tone leaving no room for doubt. “Truly wonderful.”

  “What do you think?” The Major turned to Teyla. “Are they likely to be hanging around?” He’d obviously abandoned the attempt to get the townsfolk to consider anything other than themselves.

  The golden light from the afternoon sun failed to take the edge off Teyla’s tightly drawn features. Still glaring at McKay, she replied, “The Wraith do not linger when they are finished, but travel swiftly to the next world. I believe Dalera will be safe once more—until the next culling generations from now.”

  “You know,” McKay said. “I stood on this same spot the night before last, watching the Wraith Darts zooming around like they own
ed the place.”

  “Which they did,” Teyla reminded him.

  “Oh, I don’t know.” McKay seemed suddenly aware of the resentful Nemst townsfolk. “While you were all safe and snug inside the Citadel, your engineers didn’t hesitate to put their lives on the line implementing my plan.”

  “And where are those men now?” snapped the guy who’d been doing all the complaining. “One of them was my cousin, and he has not returned.” His eyes narrowed and turned cunning. “Why is it that you alone survived?”

  McKay took a step back. “Hey! That’s not true. What about the rest of the team who readjusted the length of boom across the channel? They’re still around… Aren’t they?”

  “Indeed they are,” Yann interceded. “Your cousin assists in the rebuilding of the East wall. Come, I will take you to him.”

  “What need do we have of this wall now that the Wraith have left? We need the men back here, to rebuild Nemst!”

  “And who will provide the necessary payment for this rebuilding?”

  The argument continued on the walk to the inn, and Aiden let out a soft sigh.

  McKay waited until the Dalerans were out of earshot before saying, “Although those crashed Darts successfully collapsed most of the hill, the bottom of the cliff where Ford and I inserted the C-4 is still intact. I set the charges to go off remotely, but unless I detonate it soon, the flow won’t nearly be sufficient to sustain the blaze.”

  “I do not think it will be necessary,” Teyla said.

  “Seriously? You really, truly don’t think the Wraith will be coming back?”

  “No,” Teyla replied in a barely civil voice. “I no longer sense their nearness.”

  Visibly slumping in relief, McKay let out a long sigh. “Okay. Do you realize I haven’t eaten since—?”

  “McKay!”