The other Risar moved into her line of sight, watching her. “You are pregnant.”
“Yes.” There seemed little point in hiding the fact.
“There is more,” continued the other creature. “Traces of genetic modification across scan reading datasets. Correlation match with alternate DNA source.”
The first Risar blinked, as if it were thinking. “You are a human. Yet you possess a quanta of genetic material sourced from the species colloquially known as ‘Wraith’. This is an anomaly.” It leaned closer. “Explain.”
She saw an opportunity. “Release me first.”
The Risar didn’t consider her demand worth answering. “I have never encountered this irregularity before. I wish to know more.”
“As long as you hold me as your prisoner,” she spat, “I will give you nothing!”
Again, the alien made the strange quizzical motion of its head. “You are not a prisoner,” it explained, as if it were speaking to a particularly slow child. “You and the others have been brought here to help me. When tasks are completed, you will be returned.”
“You are the Aegis, then,” Teyla retorted.
“Aegis.” The Risar repeated the word. “I have been addressed by the term before. It is not entirely incorrect.”
A low tone sounded through the chamber, and at once every Risar in the room stopped what they were doing. Teyla shifted on the floating platform to follow them as they moved as one to the middle of the chamber.
A dash of white light flickered in the air over their heads and a holographic panel unfolded, streaming with more glyphs. The text was unlike the writing of the Earth people or the Ancients; it reminded the Athosian of the angular footprints made by birds. The writing shimmered and was replaced by an exterior view. Heruun and its rings lay to one side of the display, and beyond there was nothing but the black of space… Teyla shifted again, the gravity field pressing down hard on her as she turned in place, craning her neck.
A reticule swept across the holo-screen and circled a fast-moving dot. It had to be a ship; it was drifting right and left in a zigzag course, gradually closing on the larger moon.
Hope bloomed in her thoughts, but Teyla was afraid to form the words she wanted to say in case she was mistaken; but then the screen shimmered and shifted again, magnifying the image. There, clear and unmistakable, was the barrel-shaped form of a Puddle Jumper. Fear and elation pulled at her in equal measure; suddenly the chance for rescue was very real — but at the same time she had no way to communicate with the ship, no way to tell them where she was, or to warn them of the dangers of the Risar.
A voice issued out of the air; it was the same voice all the Risar spoke with. “New priority task. Isolate unidentified craft and capture for disassembly and repurposing.”
The aliens broke apart from their group, ignoring the work they had been conducting, and Teyla found herself being carried away once more, back down along the endless, featureless corridors.
The chorus of beeps from Rodney’s computer drew Sheppard’s attention immediately. “Got something?”
McKay gave a slow nod, his fingers dancing over the keyboard of the silver laptop. “A particle trace, leading away from the planet.” The scientist’s brows knitted for a moment. “Yeah, I got it. It’s faded almost to nothing, but it’s a trail. From a ship, most likely.”
“Leading where?” Sheppard turned the Puddle Jumper to angle up and away from Heruun, the sweep of the glittering ice rings falling below the prow of the ship.
Rodney glanced up and pointed toward the larger of the planet’s two moons, now drifting into the middle of the canopy’s view. “Right there, in fact.”
The colonel eased the throttle control up a notch and the Jumper broke orbit, crossing into cislunar space without a bump. Within moments, the ship’s scanners registered something moving up from the surface of the airless moon.
“Cloaking device!” Rodney insisted, his voice rising an octave at the sight of the new arrivals.
Sheppard agreed. “Yeah, good call.” He tapped a control pad and a faint ripple of warped light glittered through the canopy as the Jumper became invisible.
There were three objects, discernible as bright metallic shapes as they closed the distance. McKay’s gaze flicked between the laptop and the viewscreen. “Wait. No. What?”
“I need a bit better intel than that, McKay. What are they? Darts?”
“Not even close,” Rodney replied. “Scans are coming back garbled, like they’re being partially reflected off of… Well, something.” He sucked in air through his teeth. “This is a whole different style of technology.”
“So unless the Wraith stole themselves some new hardware — which, knowing them, isn’t impossible — we’re looking at something new. The Aegis.” Sheppard could see the alien craft more clearly now, moving in line formation. They were strange shapes, vaguely triangular in cross-section, but curved like an inverted dish. Or a saucer. He blinked as the odd thought popped up in his mind
What happened next was so quick that he almost missed it; in total violation of the laws of physics, the three ships broke apart in three different directions, each one moving away at a ninety-degree angle to its initial course with no loss of speed or any sign of a thruster discharge. A heartbeat later, great radial plumes of energy bloomed on the Jumper’s HUD, expanding out from each of the craft.
“What the hell…?” Sheppard’s pilot training took over and he automatically jinked, throwing the ship into an evasion pattern.
More pulses followed the first waves. The sky above the Heruuni moon was rapidly filling with the discharges. “They know we’re here…” said McKay suddenly.
“They’re beating the bushes,” said the colonel. “Like a surface ship using sonar to flush out a submarine.”
“I’d rather not be flushed by anything,” McKay retorted.
“You may have a point there, Rodney,” Sheppard offered, vectoring the Jumper around. He upped the throttle a notch more, navigating via the HUD, trying to thread the ship between the expanding balloons of energy. The Jumper turned as fast as he could make it, but against the staggered, irregular motions of the alien ships it was a whale among sharks.
Another trio of pulses throbbed across the darkness and enveloped the Jumper before Sheppard could turn away. The instant they touched the hull, a wash of crackling sparks raced down the length of the cabin. The colonel cursed as he snatched his hands back from the flight controls, and at his side McKay gave a yelp as his laptop vomited smoke and crashed.
“Sonar, my butt!” Rodney snapped. “That was some kind of the disruption field!” The acrid smell of flash-burned plastic filled the cockpit.
“We lost the cloak,” Sheppard saw the glowing glyph on the console blinking its shutdown warning. The other systems stuttered and rebooted; when the short range scanner came up, it showed three targets converging on the Jumper’s flight path at high velocity.
The alien ships fell toward the Puddle Jumper, disruption beams stabbing out into the dark, tracking like searchlights toward their target. The Jumper turned into a spiraling course, crossing through the fire zone and emerging safely by only the narrowest of margins.
The triangular craft broke apart once more, the formation shattering. A single ship continued the pursuit while the other two cut sharp-edged courses through the dark, moving ahead and to the fore of the Jumper in an attempt to box it in and cut off any chance of escape.
The Ancient ship’s outriggers flared, the glow of the twin thruster grids a bright yellow-white. It twisted into a hard kick-turn, coming about to face the craft behind it. Compared to the uncanny abilities of the alien vessels, however, it was a slow and languid maneuver.
Without pause, the alien ship was suddenly moving backwards, away from the Jumper; with no visible means of determining which end of the craft was prow or stern, no obvious engine pods or other identifying structures, the vessel was a lethal enigma.