Carter was speaking to Sheppard. “Colonel, I want you to escort Rodney to the Odyssey rendezvous. I’ve seen the knowledge contained inside the Asgard Core, and it’ll be like giving him the keys to the candy store. I need someone to keep him on-mission.”
Sheppard hesitated. “With all due respect, Colonel, I’m on-mission here. I don’t like ducking out in the middle of this.”
“I’ve got it covered at this end, John. And that’s not the only reason. I want a military officer there as well, someone who can make tactical sense of what he sees… In case we have to take steps.” Sheppard nodded grudgingly as she spoke.
“Steps?” said Teyla. “Against Fenrir? You speak about him as if you have already decided he is a threat to us.”
“We don’t know what he is,” Sheppard replied. “All we do know it that he kidnapped people against their will, you and Ronon among them, and exposed them to toxic nanites either deliberately or by accident.”
“I do not believe it was intentional,” Teyla insisted. “That is my… My instinct.”
Carter turned away. “I’m sorry, Teyla,” she said, “but I’m going to need more than that.”
Chapter Nine
A silent landslide began on the surface of Heruun’s prime moon. Streams of powdery stone and lunar dust shifted and fell away in slow floods, seeping back towards the crater basin beneath the concealed Asgard starship.
On landing, all those years earlier, the vessel’s automatic defensive systems had scanned the descent site and activated a camouflage subroutine. Tailored gravity wave generators drew the grey sand over the ship like a blanket, an emergency defensive measure to protect it from cursory visual detection; but now the vessel was shrugging off sleep, rising with stately power from its resting place. It was a steel phoenix clawing its way from the ashes.
Damage that would have taken years more to repair using the Taken and the Risar had been completed in days, thanks to the intervention of the Atlanteans, although the vessel was still far from being fully operational; but once more it returned to the ocean of space, the airless void where it belonged. Such craft were not made to be shackled by the forces of gravity — the starships of the Asgard were their art as much as they were their conveyances — and Fenrir’s vessel seemed to welcome its freedom, the huge hammerhead prow turning to catch the light from the sun.
In profile, the Asgard ship resembled a massive iron claw, vertical fins extending from the dorsal and ventral hulls, and curved wing-like sections fanning out from the main fuselage. The light of new energy glittered through numerous viewports along the length of the craft, and at the stern the thruster grids of the massive sub-light engines glowed a soft honey-yellow as they idled at station keeping. But still the ship’s ascent, quicker now, a falling feather in reverse, was marred by the lines of damage across the steel-grey hull metal. Great scratches carved by the burning touch of Wraith energy weapons were visible across the bows and along the starboard side, mute reminders of a salvo delivered by a Wraith cruiser’s broadside batteries. The enemy that had inflicted those wounds was long destroyed, ashes and wreckage that had burned up in Heruun’s atmosphere, lighting the night as falling stars.
The moon dropped away and at last the ship was in free space, drifting in the orbit between the satellite and the mother planet. Turning in a long, steady arc, the Asgard ship brought itself to bear on Heruun. The thruster glow grew brighter and it coasted forward at a fraction of its available power, moving toward the slow-turning world.
The ship that bore the name Aegis took up a high orbit above the planet and the people it had protected, and like an animal awakening from hibernation, it began to stretch its muscles and test its boundaries.
“Have we been detected?” spat the commander, glowering at the scientist.
The other Wraith shook his head, the long white streaks of his hair plastered to his face with fear-sweat. “No… No.”
The uncertainty in the words made the commander’s lips peel back, revealing his fanged mouth. “Be certain!” he snarled. “If we are found, we are dead!”
“We are safe.” The scientist turned from his console and gave the commander a defiant look. “For the moment, at least.”
The ship’s master glared at the flickering image on the viewer lens before him. The gunmetal alien craft turning, moving slowly through the darkness. It was a battleship, of that he had no doubt. The design of it was all threat, a brute force expression of menace. Unlike the graceful sculpting of a Wraith cruiser, with its spindly arachnid lines, this vast craft was a war hammer, a weapon poised to smash its enemies. As he watched it move, the commander understood why so many of his clan had been killed by this intruder; it radiated power. Nothing so large should have turned so quickly… It seemed wrong that such agility could be present in such a behemoth.
Fear was a rare commodity for a Wraith to experience; so much of their existence was spent in the creation of that emotion in their prey that they seldom experienced it themselves. And yet… A cold prickle lanced through the commander’s flesh as he grasped the scope of the alien ship’s power. His tiny scoutship was no match for the intruder. It would crush it like an insect.
But fear was not the only sensation that came to him. Quickly, the first was overpowered by a second, greater emotion. Avarice.
The scientist shared it with him. “What secrets it must hide,” whispered the other Wraith. “What power. If our clan could possess it —”
The commander gave a terse nod. In the war with the hated Asuran machine-beings, a ship of such magnitude could tip the balance; and it would seal the ascension of their clan above the others of their species. “Our Queen must know of this. Plans must be drawn, and quickly. It is time for us to depart.”
“Is that possible?” The scientist was fearful again. “If we move from our hiding place in the rings, we will be detected!”
“If we do not, we will be found cowering and culled like humans!” he snapped back. “Observe the alien’s aspect; it has yet to reach orbital stability. Until then, we have a window of escape open to us that will soon close.” The commander nodded to the drone at the navigation podium. “Set a stealth course. Follow the rings around to the far side. We will place the planet’s mass between us and the intruder craft. Even if our hyperspace transition is detected, they will not have time to intercept us.”
“The risk is great,” grumbled the scientist.
“You are correct,” agreed the commander, as he studied the alien vessel once again. “But the reward will be so much greater.”
“This vessel is…impressive,” said Teyla. The word hardly seemed enough to encompass the ship’s quiet power. She glanced at the unmoving figure in the stasis capsule; it felt odd speaking to a holographic avatar when the real being was lying nearby in suspended animation.
The simulated Fenrir turned from the screen in front of them. “The Aegis is a Beliskner-class starship, the mainstay of the Asgard starfleet. An old design but a reliable one.”
She nodded. After the conversation at Jaaya’s lodge, Teyla felt uncomfortable in the company of the alien, as if she feared the secret she held would suddenly slip from her lips. “I must admit, I am unsure why you invited me to witness this. Colonel Carter, perhaps —”
“She is below, on the engineering decks,” said Fenrir. “She is quite intelligent for a human of her evolutionary status.” The Asgard made a small noise in its throat. “Ah, forgive me. I do not mean to appear patronizing. The ship would still be planetbound if not for the help your kind have given me.”