Lorne saw the soldier with the assault rifle take a round in his leg and stumble. The armed Wraith dove at him, wild for new prey. He led the target and bracketed it with a full-auto discharge, knocking it down; but incredibly, the alien was still alive. The major ripped out a spent stick of ammunition and slammed a fresh clip into the breech.
“There’s two,” shouted Carter, firing and moving, trying to draw a bead on the other attacker. “There were three in the cell! Where’s the other one?”
The door hummed opened and a dead Risar was thrown into the chamber. Teyla saw the two flash bang grenades that had been stabbed into its flesh and instinctively threw herself away from the corpse, down behind the cover of a console.
The concussion wave clipped her as she moved, the magnesium-bright flare of white light blazing through the room.
Unprepared for the shock effect, the two Risar gave off strange, low groans and touched their faces in a peculiarly human gesture. They blundered about, dazzled and stunned.
Teyla smelled the Wraith before she saw it, sensed it entering the smoke-wreathed room behind her. Snatching the stunner pistol from her belt holster, she pivoted, turning to come up on one knee.
She heard Fenrir call her name in warning. The alien warrior was already upon her, and with a savage kick, it connected with her wrist and knocked the gun flying. She staggered, stumbling backwards, trying not to lose her balance.
It was the same Wraith she and Ronon had encountered in the cells. He gave a hissing chuckle. “You again. I thought I could feel you.” It tapped its head. “In here.” The alien drew two blades from its belt; they were USAF-issue combat knives, and one of them was still wet with human blood. “I wonder, what will it feel like when I kill you?”
Chapter Eleven
Rodney reached out and touched a virtual tab on one of the holo-screens. The panel unfolded, panes extending and shifting, infinite boxes building upon one another until they had grown to encompass the entire room. Instead of the data cascades or the unreal images of the star system, new scenery projected itself over the walls of the compartment, building simulated ceilings and walls, sketching in metallic chairs and tables, an arching bench and an enclosed dais; he had the immediate impression of a courtroom.
The detail was indistinguishable from the real thing. McKay and Sheppard were no longer in a cramped room aboard the starship Odyssey, they were standing in a long vaulted chamber on the far distant — and now long since destroyed — planet Hala.
As a last touch, the holo-projectors conjured images of a handful of Asgard, each one standing at a different podium. Most were unadorned, but some wore metallic collars about their throats, ornate devices that appeared to be as much technological as ceremonial.
The last of the aliens to appear stood alone, isolated and off to the far side of the room.
“Fenrir…” muttered Sheppard. There was no-one else it could have been.
McKay glanced around. The illusion of being there was total, the actual walls of the core room hidden beneath the false reality of the Asgard chamber. As long as they didn’t stray to far from where they stood, there would be nothing to break the artifice of it.
One of the Asgard took the tallest of the podia and swept a gaze across the room. “Here comes the judge,” said Sheppard, from the side of his mouth. “This is like A Few Good Asgard…”
“This assembly is gathered to address a matter of most serious import,” said the alien. “Let the record show that I, Thor, First Scientist and Commander, have opened this conclave.”
“That’s Thor…” whispered McKay. “He’s not what I expected.”
“Did you think he’d be taller?” Sheppard eyed him. “And why are you whispering? It’s not like they can hear us.”
Rodney nodded. “I know that,” he said defensively. “I was just, uh, paying attention.”
Another Asgard bowed. “I, Eldir, Healer and Biologist, second the word of Thor.”
The other aliens ranged in a semi-circle bowed their heads and spoke one at a time.
“Freyr, Commander, accedes.”
“Penegal, Counselor, consents to this.”
“Jarnsaxa, Commander, agrees.”
“Hermiod, Engineer, gives consent.”
Sheppard wandered closer to the alien engineer and studied him. “Our little buddy from the Daedalus,” he noted. “Guess this was him in his younger years…”
Thor looked right through the colonel to the podium where Fenrir stood. “You know why you have been called to this place,” he began. “You must answer for your crime.”
Fenrir’s eyes flashed and he looked up. “I committed no crime.” There was real heat in his retort. “What transpired was an accident. I deeply regret it, but it was through no deliberate action of mine.”
“That is open to definition,” said Jarnsaxa; the Asgard’s voice had a slightly feminine timbre. “How would you characterize the action of negligence? Is that deliberate, or not?”
“Warnings were given,” stated Hermiod. “On more than one occasion, as I have documented.” A panel of text floated into being before him, runes filling the space. “They were ignored.”
Freyr leaned forward. “Is that so, Fenrir?”
“I did not ignore Hermiod’s counsel…” muttered the alien. “I merely considered it to be… Too conservative.”
Eldir nodded. “The engineer’s cautious nature is well known to all of us, that is so.” Hermiod made a tutting noise as the biologist continued. “But surely there were other concerns?”
“Nothing I considered insurmountable,” Fenrir replied.
Thor seized on the comment. “So you concede that you were aware the collapsar device was flawed?”
“Not flawed,” came the firm reply, “only untested.”
McKay watched the action unfold, his head going back and forth as if he were observing a tennis match. Fenrir seemed different from the alien he had briefly met aboard the Aegis; this other version of him seemed more arrogant and cocksure, defiant in the face of the assembly’s displeasure.
“And so you deployed an untested device that you were aware could malfunction, within a populated star system.” Freyr’s words were flat and damning. “The result is known to us all.”
“I’ll say,” added Sheppard.
“It was an accident!” Fenrir snapped; McKay had never heard of an Asgard shouting before, but there it was. “The detonation profile was never meant to progress beyond the initial phase! But there was radiation interference —”
“Has that been confirmed?” Penegal, who had remained silent until now, addressed the question to Hermiod. Clearly he was of important rank; when he spoke, the others fell quiet.
Hermiod gave a terse nod. “Yes, counselor. But it was a known phenomena. It should have been guarded against.”
“It was,” insisted Fenrir, “just not well enough.”
A question was forming in McKay’s mind at the same moment Jarnsaxa gave it voice. “Why did you choose this system to test the collapsar device? Why not another, with no indigenous life?”
Fenrir’s hands reached out and clutched the podium before him. “It was the best profile in our database. The presence of life was not an issue. I expected no complications. I was secure in the knowledge of my own skills.”
“Huh,” said the colonel. “Who does that remind me of?”
“Are you ever going to let that drop? I blew up one planet with nobody on it,” scowled Rodney. “He destroyed a whole star system. Big difference.”
Eldir was speaking once again. “Then you are not guilty of negligence. Only arrogance.”
Fenrir drew back. “I have made myself clear. I am not the only Asgard to have made errors in his works.”
“Loki was punished for his misdeeds,” offered Thor, but Fenrir ignored the comment and spoke over him.