Another one was trying the same attack — maybe not a suicide run, it was slower, and she pitched the 302 into a steeper dive to intercept it. Warnings chattered on her console, the shields hazed with the fires of re-entry, and then she leveled out, lining up on the Dart. Fire control refused to operate, the 302’s skin too hot still, and she shoved the throttle forward again, ready to ram if the Dart kept its course for Atlantis. The Dart’s pilot peeled away, and she followed, trying to stay on his tail until the computer would let her shoot again. Energy beams flashed past her cockpit, and the 302 rocked to impacts on the right wing. Shields were at seventy-five percent and holding — and at last the weapons light went green. She pressed the firing stud, and the Dart erupted in a cloud of smoke.
The HUD was showing another one behind her. She corkscrewed up and around, clawing for altitude, and the Dart broke away, making another run for the city. He’d caught her wrong-footed, but Blue Five was on him; she let him go, rolling over to circle the city. They probably had jumpers out, cloaked, and she hoped they had the sense to stay out of the way.
Another Dart was coming in, lower this time, leveling out as though it planned to strafe the towers. She pitched the 302 over, but it was faster than she’d thought, slipped past the intercept point before she could fire. She swore, followed it between two towers, not daring to fire for fear of hitting one of the buildings. But she was on its tail, tight in its slipstream, and the pilot was too busy trying to shake her to complete his attack. He curved around the main tower, and she followed. Just a little more, just a fraction — but he banked hard again, keeping himself close to the buildings. If he got time to signal, the hive would know the city was undefended —
And then the moment came, the clear shot she’d been waiting for, and she took it, energy beams sizzling across the gap between the ships. The Dart blew in an instant, the sound barely audible over the roar of her own engines, and she pulled up into a tight spiral, scanning the HUD. Two Darts left, she thought, and in the same instant saw twin explosions.
“Blue Flight, Blue Leader,” she said. “Nice shooting.”
“Blue Leader, this is Atlantis.” She didn’t know the voice, only that it wasn’t Sheppard’s. “We show all Darts destroyed. No further waves incoming.”
“Thanks, Atlantis,” she said. “You need us to stick around?”
“Negative, Blue Leader. It looks like Hammond could use some help.”
Mel glanced at her HUD again, pressed the toggle to select the larger picture. Daedalus was still dead in the water, no more than a few thousand meters from where they’d left her. Hammond had come closer to the planet, the hive in pursuit. From the numbers on the screen, she was taking a pounding.
“Colonel Carter would appreciate any distraction you can provide,” Atlantis continued.
Crap. “Roger that,” Mel said. “Blue Flight, Blue Leader. We’re going after the hive.”
Lorne switched over to long-range sensors for a moment as the 302s peeled away, just to see that Hammond was apparently still holding her own, but he didn’t have the luxury of sitting and watching. It hadn’t sounded good up there, Colonel Carter’s voice too deadly calm as she requested assistance, but there was nothing he could do about that at the moment.
“Teyla, what have we got?”
“I do not sense the Wraith,” Teyla said over the radio. “We are continuing our security sweep, but I do not think any Wraith are within the city.”
“There are no signs that any Wraith beamed off of the Darts,” Radek said from his station behind Lorne. “At least we may not have that problem to worry about at the moment.”
“That’s one,” Lorne said. They had plenty of other problems. He wrestled with his chair for a moment, trying to find some way to sit close enough to the console that didn’t involve running his bad leg into it every time he turned to look at somebody, and decided there wasn’t one.
“I have damage reports coming in,” Salawi said. “Some windows broken by debris, some minor structural damage. No reports of casualties yet.”
“We need to get everybody clear of any damaged areas,” Lorne said. “We don’t want a building falling on anybody.”
“No, that would be bad,” Radek agreed absently. He shook his head. “The hive has sustained damage, but it is still perfectly capable of attacking the city.”
“It hasn’t got a lot of other choice, unless it can get its hyperdrive engines back online,” Lorne said. “Where else are they going to go?”
“What’s going on up there?” Ronon said over the radio.
“Security teams, please stay in position,” Lorne said as a city-wide announcement rather than answering Ronon directly. “The incoming Darts have been destroyed, but there are probably going to be more. If you’re not on a security team, and you’re not evacuating an area of the city that’s taken structural damage, please stay where you are and keep the radio chatter to a minimum.”
Beside him, Banks was giving a quick account of the space battle so far over her radio. Probably to Ronon, who didn’t have any reason to need to know at the moment other than being frustrated by not knowing, but Lorne didn’t know that for sure, so he let it go.
“This is Sheppard,” Colonel Sheppard said over the radio. “Get some of the security teams up to the gateroom. I don’t know if Hammond can hold off that hive ship forever, and if they get here, they’re going to want to bring in reinforcements.”
“Yes, sir,” Lorne said. “Ronon’s team, Captain Cadman’s team, fall back to the gateroom to protect the Stargate. Dr. Zelenka — ”
“Yes, I am locking down the dialing computer,” Radek said without looking up from his console. “There is no telling how long that will hold them if they gain access to the main computer system, but since it is not likely that they have Rodney with them, maybe at least a little while.”
“Let’s hope a little while is all we need,” Lorne said.
“Personally I am still hoping that the Wraith do not invade the city,” Radek said. “Call me an optimist.”
“Me, too,” Lorne said, and not just because he suspected that getting into a firefight with the Wraith when he couldn’t walk without crutches was going to end badly. If the Wraith made it to the city, it was probably going to be because they’d lost Hammond. Colonel Carter would do everything in her power to stop them, and if that wasn’t enough…
He pulled up long-range sensors again, hoping Hocken and her 302s were enough to turn the tide. If they could get in a few solid hits on the hive, take out its power generation or its sublight engines, that would do it.
Below in the gateroom, Ronon had arrived and was directing the security already stationed there into a different formation as his own team took up their positions. Lorne didn’t argue with that; Ronon was the one who was going to be down there in a position to see what was happening if the Wraith beamed troops in.
“We’re in position,” Ronon said over the radio.
“I have nothing incoming yet,” Radek said.