SGA-17 Legacy 2 - The Lost

by Graham, Jo

  “If there’s air circulating, there’s another way out,” Ronon said.

  “So, let’s take a look.” She shone the flashlight carefully over the walls. It caught the glimmer of metal in two places, both toward the other end of the pit. “It looks like the fans are set into the wall. There must be ventilation shafts, but…”

  “They’re small,” Ronon said. “So, only one way out.”

  “Which is a good thing, right? Because that means there’s only one way in.”

  Ronon nodded, although he still looked like he was waiting for someone to leap out at him. It occurred to her that it might actually be normal to have a problem sitting around with somebody’s dead body a few meters away. She hadn’t been particularly spooked by cadavers since med school, but a lot of people did find tombs pretty creepy, in more than a ‘haunted house at the amusement park’ kind of way.

  “So, sit down and let’s talk about this. We’re both in this together. I just want us to make decisions as a team, not have you tell me what to do.”

  Ronon looked reluctant, but he did come to sit down on one of the other boxes, his back to the wall so that he had a clear view of the trap door above. “It’s my call,” he said. “We’re in the field, and you’re a civilian.”

  “I’m a civilian, sure, but I think I may be better at handling the Wraith than you are.”

  “I can handle the Wraith.”

  “Kill them, sure,” Jennifer said. “I’ll be the first to say you’re awfully good at that. But I think right now what we need to do is talk to Todd, and try to get him on our side about this — ”

  Ronon shook his head sharply. “He’ll never be on our side. They’re Wraith. We’re food to them.”

  “Maybe most of them think that way, but I don’t think Todd thinks of all of us as food,” Jennifer said. “Teyla’s not just food to him, because he still sort of thinks of her as a Wraith queen. And Sheppard… actually, I have no idea what goes on there, but maybe Todd thinks Sheppard is, I don’t know, our version of him.”

  “Sheppard’s nothing like a Wraith,” Ronon said.

  “We have to find the ways that we are like them,” Jennifer said. “The ways they are like us. Because we need their help right now, and to get them to help us, we have to talk to them. Like we’re all people.”

  Ronon let out a breath in the darkness. “They’re not people.”

  “Then let me do the talking,” Jennifer said. “I can do this. Just… let’s work together, here. Let’s talk about what to do, and we can decide together. Don’t just tell me what you’ve decided we’re going to do.”

  “Like you do?”

  Jennifer frowned. “What?”

  Ronon shook his head. “We’ve talked enough.” He looked a little calmer, but he still didn’t look very happy with her.

  “I don’t think so,” Jennifer said. “What are you talking about?”

  “That’s what you do,” Ronon said. “You’re the doctor, so you tell people what’s going to happen. When McKay had that brain parasite — ”

  Jennifer remembered those days all too well, how it had felt to watch Rodney slowly deteriorate before her eyes and not be able to stop it, to make anything better for him, no matter how hard she tried. Ronon had wanted to take him to the Shrine of Talus, a folk remedy to give him one more day with his mind intact. She hadn’t believed there was anything more to it than wishful thinking until it was nearly too late. To give up her search for a cure to take him to a magic shrine —

  “I was trying to save his life,” Jennifer said.

  “We told you what would work, and you wouldn’t listen to us. To me.”

  Jennifer felt her cheeks heat, and was suddenly grateful that he couldn’t see her face. She searched for the right words. There were right words, words she’d learned for dealing with difficult patients, difficult people. She’d been told often enough not to let them push her around because she was young and pretty and looked harmless. I’m the doctor, she told herself.

  “You didn’t think yourself that there was any chance of saving Rodney’s life,” she said.

  “You’re the doctor. It took you, what, fifteen minutes to figure out how the place worked once we got there?”

  “I am the doctor,” Jennifer said. “I made the call based on my experience and my judgment.” She was tempted for a moment to add it’s hard enough for me to trust either one.

  “If I were a doctor, would it have mattered?”

  “Of course it — ”

  “If it had been Melena telling you, or any of the doctors from Sateda, would you have believed it then? She didn’t know exactly how it worked either. But she knew it did work. Everybody knew that.”

  “Sometimes the things everybody knows are wrong,” Jennifer said. “Folk remedies can be dangerous. At best, they’re usually harmless, and that’s when they don’t involve taking a critically ill patient to a planet full of Wraith. It’s magical thinking, a way for people to feel better when they can’t really do anything to make a situation better. Like sleeping with the lights on when you’re scared.” That was probably not a very useful way to put it, she realized. “Not that I expect you — ”

  “When you saw it, you didn’t think it was magic,” Ronon said. “You thought there had to be some reason for it, some scientific thing you didn’t understand.”

  “That’s right,” Jennifer agreed, but cautiously. Ronon’s tone suggested there was a catch somewhere in that question, like the questions in med school that sounded simple and ended with congratulations, you’ve just killed your patient.

  “But you didn’t believe it when I said I’d seen it.”

  That would be the catch, then. Jennifer hunted for words. “It’s not that I don’t trust you,” she said finally.

  “You don’t trust me,” Ronon said. “You’re like McKay that way, at least the way McKay used to be. You won’t do what people tell you because you think they don’t know what they’re talking about. You won’t ask people what they want to do because you think if you do what anyone else wants you to, you’ll get hurt.”

  “I am not like Rodney,” Jennifer said.

  “You think?”

  There was a long silence after that. It was too quiet in the underground space. That was probably good, though. It was probably too soon for the other Wraith to have left, so footsteps above them wouldn’t mean anything good. She wasn’t sure whether they’d even be able to hear footsteps through the thick earth ceiling above them. Ronon would probably know.

  “If that’s what you think, then why…” Jennifer began. It took her a minute to figure out how she wanted to finish that sentence, but Ronon waited while she did. She got the feeling he would have waited much longer if he’d needed to. “Why are we still friends? If we, you know, are.”

  “I can live with that stuff,” Ronon said. “In a friend.”

  “Right,” Jennifer said. She smoothed back her hair, feeling it trying to work its way out of its ponytail. Teyla always managed to come through these kinds of situations looking neatly put together. Jennifer always suspected she looked like anything but a professional.

  “The thing is, I’m not Carson,” she said finally. “He has enough experience that if he says he has no idea what to do, people are just going to think it must be a tough problem. If I say that, they’re going to think I’m not ready for this job. If I ask other people what to do — if I act like I’m not in control of a situation that’s gotten scary — then I don’t think anybody’s going to take me seriously.”

  She stopped, struck by how well the words applied to more than just herself. She glanced over at Ronon, wishing she could see his face better in the dark. “You get that, right?” she said tentatively. “How maybe it might seem like a good idea to just tell people what to do, so they won’t doubt that you know what you’re doing? And maybe so you won’t look scared.”

  “Maybe so,” Ronon said after a while.

  “But, you know, maybe I could do a better jo
b of listening to people who might actually have useful ideas about how we could get out of the bad situation,” she said. “You think?”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “Is that a deal?” Jennifer asked. She held out her hand hesitantly, not sure if it was even the right gesture to make, but after a moment Ronon clasped her arm, squeezing hard before he let go.

  “So,” he said. “We’re stuck down here. There’s a bunch of Wraith up there. We don’t know if it’s a trap. What do you think we should do?”

  Jennifer took a deep breath. “I think we should wait a while and see if Todd comes back,” she said. “If a bunch of Wraith burst in here trying to eat us, then we can probably move on to plan B.”

  “Plan B being ‘shoot the Wraith and fight our way back to the Stargate.’”

  “That’s the one,” Jennifer said. “You guys seem to get a lot of use out of that plan, to read your reports.”

  “It’s simple,” Ronon said. “I like simple plans.”

  “So do I,” Jennifer said. “They just never seem to work out that way for me.”

  Chapter Seventeen: Quicksilver

  After five sleeps, Quicksilver went with Dust to the gaming room. He felt stronger, though the sense of unreality continued to plague him, things being difficult that should have been easy.

  “Perhaps the company of other men will make you feel more settled,” Dust said, and though he was uncertain, Quicksilver accompanied him. “We need not stay long.”

  Thus they sat at one of the tables that dotted the room, a gameboard between them, while Dust explained the rules as though to a child. Looking around the room, at blades and clevermen relaxing over dice or over other games like theirs, the sheen of shiplight on white hair, the soft colors relaxing and pleasant, Quicksilver thought he ought to be at peace. The ship Bright Venture cruised through hyperspace, its passage smooth and effortless. They had taken no damage, and there were no wounded men missing from their number. All should be well.

  And yet he bent over the board and could not remember a single move.

  It was a simple game, Dust said. It should be simple, a logic puzzle of strategy and counterstrategy, but he could not remember. What moves did the purple pieces make? Was it that they were the ones who only went backwards from their initial placement? He could not remember.

  “It will come to you in time,” Dust said soothingly in a low voice. “Just play as best you may. It will strengthen your concentration.”

  “Of course.” Quicksilver nodded, bending his head over the board again, caressing the purple piece with his feeding hand. Its edges felt sharp as glass against the sensitive tissue.

  Sitting on the floor a few paces away, a group of blades clustered about a low table, a dice game in progress. Their voices were loud, almost loud enough to be impolite in the quiet gaming room.

  “He might have been sharp once, but I doubt his blade’s half so sharp anymore!” one of them laughed, a suggestive waggle of the hips leaving little to doubt. “Not for a pretty young queen like that!” He was slight and pale faced, a slight greenish tone to his skin that spoke of the lineage of Night.

  One of his companions snorted. “If Queen Steelflower isn’t dead. She probably is, you know, and Guide is just keeping up the pretense. He gave no account of her absence when he was here. Stranger things have happened than a Consort carry on pretending to act in a Queen’s name.”

  Quicksilver’s ears pricked, and he looked at Dust across the board. “Isn’t Guide the Consort in Atlantis?”

  Dust scanned the board casually, thinking of his next move. “They are speaking of a different Guide. The one they mean is an old blade who is Consort to Queen Steelflower, one of the lesser queens who has only recently joined our alliance. Guide was here not long ago to pledge himself to Queen Death, but his Queen did not come.” Dust shrugged. “Perhaps it is politics, so that if she wishes later she may disavow Guide and the alliance. But she will learn that such a course would be suicide.”

  “I’m just saying she could do with a better!” the original wit suggested. “Come, what can that dried up corpse give her?”

  “Better service than you,” one of the others said, laughing, his teeth bared. “Let us know when you get your full growth!”

  The wit hissed, his fingers flexing, but his companion held his ground.

  “Don’t be silly, Ardent. You’re not ready to be Consort yet. Not even to a minor queen such as Steelflower.”

  “They said she was beautiful,” the third blade said. “Tiny little feet and a spill of hair like midnight. And she took out one of Locust’s hives without quarter when they trespassed on her feeding grounds.”

  “That story’s probably exaggerated,” the one called Ardent said, the slender blade who had spoken first. “Anyhow, it was probably Guide’s battle, not hers.”

  “He’s a dried up corpse and he commands his queen at once?” the second blade said, rolling a dice between his long fingers. “Which is it, Ardent?”

  “I’m saying that she’d do better with another,” Ardent said smugly, lifting his chin so that his hair fell in soft waves of silver. “And who better to seal a magnificent alliance than myself, our Queen’s own brother?”

  “Our queen’s own fruit-fed brother,” the second snorted. “When you are a man you may speak of such things.”

  “I am man enough now,” Ardent said, getting to his feet, his long leather coat flicking against the cushions. “As you will see if you try me.”

  The second looked him up and down, and then closed his feeding hand deliberately. “I’ll try you now if you like. Just take it like a good boy.”

  Ardent sprang, but there were hands to pull them apart, the third blade grabbing Ardent while Dust leaped to his feet.

  “The Queen will not like this quarreling,” he said quietly, “Nor knives pulled in the zenana.”

  “Be quiet, Cleverman,” Ardent snapped. “You are above yourself.” His eyes flicked over Quicksilver. “And you bring that among us, to sit among men!”

  “Watch your tongue,” Dust said, his tone still even. “Quicksilver has the Queen’s favor.”

  Ardent twisted about, shaking off the blade’s hands, and his eyes raked Quicksilver from toes to crown. “Queen’s favor!” he spat, his handsome face contorting. “Ha!”

  Quicksilver got to his feet, his heart pounding. “I do not know what bad blood there is between us,” he said carefully. “I have been ill and cannot remember. But I do not wish to name myself your enemy.”

  Ardent shook his head, his feeding hand contracting. “You do not wish to name yourself my enemy! That is rich! As though you would for a moment be worthy of being the enemy of a blade of the lineage of Night, misbegotten…”

  “Ardent.” The third blade put his hand to Ardent’s shoulder. “That is enough. Your sister will not like it.”

  “My sister is foolish to listen to such as Dust,” he said, and spun about on his heel. “I will not stay in the gaming room when you bring in such creatures!” He left in a flurry of leather and silk, the heels of his boots hard on the floor.

  “Come,” Dust said quietly, and took Quicksilver by the arm.

  He did not protest. He felt their eyes on him, their guarded glances.

  In the corridor outside their sleeping room he stopped, his hand to Dust’s sleeve. “My brother,” he said softly, “What have I done?”

  Dust shook his head. “Quicksilver, it is nothing. Ardent is the younger brother of the Queen, and he is hot blooded. He speaks without thinking and he has little respect for clevermen and the battles that can be won with the mind rather than the knife.”

  “Oh,” Quicksilver said. “I have heard of such. But it seemed that rather he held some personal grudge against me.”

  “There is nothing,” Dust said, but his eyes did not meet Quicksilver’s. “Put it from your mind.”

  And so they spoke of it no more.

  Chapter Eighteen: Avenger

  “Ok, let’s do thi
s thing,” John said. The vacuum suit was ungainly as he sat in the helmsman’s chair. He’d prefer to be in the captain’s seat, but they didn’t exactly have a helmsman.

  Teyla had come to take the other forward terminal, which could be done sitting down, though most of the systems that terminal controlled were inoperable. They had no shields or weapons. For that matter, they had no long range communications. So there wasn’t really a lot Teyla could do.

  Dahlia Radim stalked around the back of the bridge, checking the various power control consoles. “We’re as ready as we’re going to be,” she reported.

  John wondered if it wouldn’t be better to lock her in one of the crew quarters, given everything. But the fact remained that she was the only engineer he had.

  Carson was in one of the seats to the side, the one usually reserved for the communications officer. He looked pale inside the helmet of his vacuum suit.

  “Ok,” John said. “Sealing the bridge.” The heavy bulkhead doors slid shut, and the faint draft from the overhead ventilation ceased as ducts and automatic shut offs closed.

  Dahlia looked up. “You will have to restore active life support to the bridge before long.”

  John nodded. “Yes. But there’s plenty of air in here for a couple of hours. Let’s get out of the atmosphere and see what holds before we open up any connections again. I’d rather not have to go on suits if we don’t have to.”

  Teyla ran her hands over the console, clumsy in the suit’s big gloves. “I will watch damage control.”

  “I will watch damage control,” Dahlia said from the back. “You do not know what to do.”

  John glanced at Teyla. “Dahlia will take it,” he said. “She knows how to reroute the power if we need it.” He hated to trust the Genii scientist that way when she had made her opposition to the plan so clear, but he didn’t see that he had any choice. Yes, Teyla had trained on the Daedalus’ equipment, but the Ancient interfaces were entirely different and the systems were put together according to different protocols. Damage control, especially with a dangerously crippled ship, required someone who understood Ancient systems more than it required someone he could trust.