And then the hive rolled, thrusters flaring. The tac screen brightened, showing Daedalus closing, all guns firing. Hammond’s autopilot fired thrusters, too, trying to match the hive’s maneuver, and Sam ran to the weapons console. There was still power to the railguns, and more in life support. She moved with frantic speed, diverting every scrap of power to the guns, glancing over her shoulder at the main tac screen. The hive was turning, showing its already-damaged stern.
Come on, she thought, working the railguns’ controls. Come on, turn… And then the hive was in her sights, and she slammed her fists down on the firing controls. The railguns fired, and she counted five heavy pulses before the power gave out entirely. Life support was gone, too; the depressurization alarm had been sounding for a while, and now the inertial dampeners were off-line. In the screen, the hive ship exploded, glorious as fireworks. Without inertial dampening, she was as good as dead, but at least she’d seen it go —
The air shimmered, and she was suddenly on the bridge of the Daedalus, blinking in the sudden normal air. She took a breath, hoping she didn’t look as shaken as she felt, and Caldwell swung to face her.
“Nice shooting, Colonel.”
“Thanks,” Sam said. She realized with pleasure that her voice was steady. “Very nice timing, too.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
Last Chance
John looked around the table, wishing the coffee would kick in. He’d managed to shower and shave, but he’d been up well into the early hours of the morning reading the various reports, and he was still kind of surprised they’d done as well as they had. From the look of the faces around the table, he thought the others might be feeling much the same way.
The door of the briefing room slid open to admit Colonel Carter. She looked as though she hadn’t slept since they’d managed to wrestle the Hammond down safely onto the West Pier — probably hadn’t, John thought, and nodded a greeting.
“Sorry,” Carter said, generally, and reached for the coffee.
Caldwell slid his chair aside to make room for her, and Keller looked up with a wincing smile. Might as well start there, John thought, and took a breath.
“Dr. Keller. How are the injured doing?”
She gave him another nervous smile, glanced down at her tablet. “Actually, not badly. We’ve got six people with moderately severe burns, all of whom I believe can be successfully treated here. Dr. Flecha has a broken shoulder from falling debris, but everyone else has been treated and released. That includes those of Hammond’s crew that were beamed to the city during the fight.”
That was unexpectedly good news, John thought. “Speaking of damage to the city — ”
Zelenka looked over the top of his glasses. “We have been lucky there, too. The three smaller towers on the Northwest Pier took structural damage, and I have placed them off limits until we can shore up the supports, but that is the worst of it. I have a team resurfacing the hole on the South Pier, the area that we use as an auxiliary landing pad for the jumpers, but they expect to be done by nightfall. The rest is broken glass and blown fuses.”
Repairing the landing pad wouldn’t be much fun in this weather, John thought. The wind was strong out of the south, dropping the apparent temperatures below freezing again. But it was better than he’d expected. “Keep me posted.”
“Yes, I will do that.” Zelenka frowned at his tablet, made a note of something there. “I have also put every available person to help with the repairs to the Hammond, and there will be more, Colonel Carter, as soon as our repairs are in place.”
“Which I appreciate,” Carter said. “Very much. There’s a lot of work to be done.”
“Which brings us to the bigger issue,” Caldwell said. “The Wraith have got an energy shield. And I think we all know where they got it.”
That was the elephant in the room, pirouetting in a tutu in the middle of the table. John bit his lip, not sure what to say that wouldn’t make things worse, and Carter looked up from her coffee.
“They’ve got a shield,” she said, seriously, “but it’s not a very efficient one. I don’t know about you, Steven, but it seemed to me that when the shield was up, the hive was significantly less maneuverable.”
Caldwell gave a reluctant nod. “I’ll agree with that. And I’ll agree that it’s not effective as ours. But it’s still something they didn’t have before they got McKay.”
There was another little silence, and then Zelenka said, “It is possible that they have reverse-engineered it on their own. The Wraith have always been very quick to react to our technology, to counter anything we have done.”
“Do you really think that’s likely?” Caldwell asked.
“They’ve done it before,” John said.
Carter wrapped both hands around her coffee mug. “I hate to say it, but I think this is McKay,” she said. “Or at least information obtained from him one way or another. The Wraith never had enough power to make energy shields practical — and still don’t — so the decision to try it seems to have had to come from outside.”
“I am not sure I entirely agree,” Zelenka said. “They are well aware that energy shields are more effective. Perhaps they have decided it is worth the power drain.”
“Rodney McKay has already led an attack on this base,” Caldwell said. “Why wouldn’t he go ahead and develop shields, too?”
“This may be why he took the ZPM,” Carter said.
Zelenka sighed. “That makes sense. And if he has it…”
There was a depressed pause, everyone thinking about the attack on Earth, the super-hive powered by stolen ZPMs. John took a breath.
“McKay doesn’t know who he is. He thinks he’s a Wraith, that’s pretty obvious, so he’s not going to think he knows a lot of things. And he hasn’t told them how to get to Earth, or they’d be there already.”
“Hasn’t told them yet,” Caldwell said. “Colonel Sheppard, I know he’s your friend, but we’re going to have to face facts here. Leaving McKay in their hands is increasingly dangerous.”
“So we get him back,” John said. “I’m open to suggestions, Colonel.”
Caldwell’s face darkened, and Carter said, “I think this discussion is premature, given our current resources. Right now, I’m more concerned about getting the Hammond spaceworthy again.”
Caldwell nodded, and after a moment, John copied him. “OK,” he said. “If that’s everything?”
“There is one small matter,” Zelenka said. “But it does not concern everyone.”
“OK,” John said again, and pushed himself to his feet. The others filed out. Carter paused in the doorway, seeming about to say something, but then she thought better of it, and turned away.
“So,” John said. “What’s up, Radek?”
“First, there is the Wraith cruiser,” Zelenka answered. “It is in an unstable orbit around the planet, so at some point we may need to send a jumper up to finish it off. Otherwise, it will make an uncontrolled reentry, and, although the chances of it hitting something important — ”
“Like us?” John asked.
Zelenka smiled. “Yes, like us — are fairly small, still we may not wish to take the risk.”