Sheppard emerged from a low tunnel on to a catwalk several meters up, running parallel to a long corridor overlooking a dozen clawed cradles, each one grasping a dormant Dart fighter and heavy with webs from a million generations of spiders. Observation gallery, he decided. When the Hive Ship was fully active, anyone standing down there would be able to direct the launches of multiple Dart flights, something akin to the catapult officer on a naval aircraft carrier. Right now though, the corridor was alight with pulses of deadly energy as a group of armored Wraith enforcers traded fire with a single figure at the far end of the gallery. From his high vantage point, the colonel saw their target moving and firing, and recognized the tall warrior instantly. He went through a bunch of emotions in quick succession; pleased to see that Ronon Dex was still alive; confused about how it was the Satedan had got on board the Hive Ship; and then worried by the overwhelming enemy opposition that Dex was trying to hold off.
Sheppard sighted down the barrel of his P90 and looked for a good angle to give Ronon some covering fire. He had to make it count. The moment he squeezed the trigger, he'd lose the element of surprise. The colonel had to get as many of those Wraiths in the kill zone as possible. "If I had a SAW, I'd be able to take them all in one burst," he said under his breath; but they had left the heavy M249 support weapons back on Atlantis. Sheppard waited, the seconds ticking by, anticipating the moment for the perfect shot. From up here, the whole confrontation was visible, and he had his choice of targets.
There was a noise behind him. The same noise as before, the same click of Wraith feet on Wraith decks, the faintest rasp of a hungry predator's breath as it closed in for the kill. One of the aliens had clearly had the same idea as Sheppard, slipping away from the firefight to clamber up here and take out Ronon from the catwalk. This time, however, John didn't have a shouted call over the radio to warn him. The Wraith slammed into him with all the force of a linebacker, the impact making the bone gantry clatter and rock from side to side. The alien's body check knocked Sheppard's gun from his grip and it swung away from him like a pendulum, still connected to his gear vest by a lanyard, although at this moment it might as well have been on Mars. They traded hard and rapid blows, Wraith and human punching at places where nerve bundles and soft tissues could be damaged. The colonel fell into the combat training he'd learnt from Teyla, remembering the Athosian two-strike combo that always hurt like hell whenever the woman used it on him.
The Wraith lashed out at him with its claws, screeching at him from a frenzied face framed by a storm of stringy white hair. The razor-tipped nails raked over his vest, ripping open pockets and spilling their contents, tearing a rent in his blue jacket. That's two of them I've ruined on this mission. He feinted and threw another punch, but the Wraith anticipated and hit him hard in the head. John stumbled and fell among the mess of ration packs, field dressings and other gear on the catwalk. By now the two fighters were attracting fire from the other Wraith down in the gallery, streaks of white lightning spitting past them.
By sheer reflex, he grabbed at a black plastic cylinder near his hand and smashed it into the face of the alien as it came down to feed on him. The ferocity of the blow staggered the Wraith back a step and Sheppard hit him again, suddenly aware of what he was holding in his grip. The colonel jammed the object into the folds of the Wraith's body armor and snatched back his hand, clutching a metal pull-ring. He brought his palms up to his face and spun away just as the flash-bang grenade went off.
An ululating scream tore from the lips of the Wraith as the burning phosphorus elements and explosive charge burnt into its chest. Flash-bangs were supposed to be an indirect, nonlethal weapon; but stuffed down a guy's shirt it would still do a horrific amount of burn damage. Dazzled by the glare from the grenade, the Wraith staggered over the lip of the catwalk and fell into the midst of its comrades.
Sheppard shook off the ringing in his ears to see Ronon race out from behind his cover, taking advantage of the mayhem. John grabbed his dangling P90 and after a moment of applied lethality, the two men had the gallery to themselves. Ronon blew out a breath and saluted Sheppard with his short sword. "Messy," he called out, with a hint of gallows humor, nodding at the Wraiths.
John hauled himself over the edge of the catwalk and halfclimbed, half-slid down one of the bone support stanchions. "I prefer to think of it as improvised." Sheppard tried to force his usual smile to the surface but it was hard to find. This day had turned into one long and painful ordeal, and he still couldn't be sure if there was an end in sight. He glanced at Dex and for the first time Sheppard saw that the Satedan was streaked with dark blood. "Whoa, Ronon! You're hit, you're bleeding, man!"
The ex-soldier shrugged. "It's not mine."
"Then whose blood is it?"
He nodded at the walls. "The ship's. I cut my way in. It got a little…"
"Messy?" offered Sheppard.
"Yeah. You find Teyla or McKay?"
John shook his head. "Not yet. But they gotta be on board. There's nowhere else on this planet they could be." He quickly reloaded the P90. "I'm thinking we need to find the control center for this tub and bring it to heel, if Lord Daus's boys haven't already snafu'ed the whole damn thing."
Dex nodded. "Scar will do the same. I was on my way there when I got pinned down."
"You know where to go?"
He pointed. "Wraith held me on board one of these ships for weeks after Sateda fell. I got away from them a couple of times. I have an idea about the layout."
Sheppard gestured with his gun. "Great, you can play tour guide — "
A rasping crackle of static from his radio cut him off in mid-speech. "Colonel Sheppard? Ronon? I hope you can hear this…"
"Beckett?" John toggled the mike. "Carson, we read you, what's your situation, over?"
"My situation?" Beckett repeated into his headset. "Never mind me, what about you? We thought you were dead in there!"
"Doctor," Sheppard said firmly, "are you all right? Is the medical team safe?"
Carson glanced up at Erony's worried expression in the seat across from his inside the flyer cabin. She was gripping another walkie-talkie, listening in, her knuckles white around the radio. "Aye, I think so. Corporal Clarke's back in the city. I'm here with Mason and Lady Erony."
"Where the hell is `here', Carson? You were told to stay in the capital!"
"Ah, well. We came out looking for you in the lass's flyer. We found Ronon… Although he's since got another lift… We're going to head back and pick up the Jumper where you left it."
Beckett heard the exasperation in the colonel's tone. "Listen to me, if you're anywhere near this Hive Ship, you have to back off right now! We don't know who's in charge of this thing, and you could get your asses shot out of the sky"
The doctor craned his neck to peer through the flyer's porthole. "That's just it, John, we can't keep up with it!" The Wraith craft was now the size of a dollar coin, the beetle-like shape no different from a garden insect clinging to the outside of the window. With every passing moment it grew smaller as it gained altitude. "The Hive Ship is picking up speed and climbing. It's heading for orbit."
In the nexus chamber, Daus's rifleman stared at the radio in his hand in stunned silence as Sheppard and Beckett's conversation went back and forth. McKay made a sour face. "Thank you, Carson," he said to the air, knowing full well that the doctor wouldn't be able to hear him, "thank you for confirming the completely obvious level of trouble we are now in." Before him, the control center's eye-like view ports showed nothing but blue sky, the color deepening toward dark magenta with every passing second. Consoles all across the chamber that had been dark and dormant were now alive with color, alien displays casting strange light over the fearful faces of the Halcyon scientists.