Sam chased the Wraith around the chamber, finding it and throwing bursts of blazing gunfire wherever it paused; she had to concentrate hard. The thing was trying to cloud her mind, to throw off her perceptions. She’d read the reports filed by Colonel Sheppard and other members of the Atlantis military contingent; no-one was quite sure how the aliens did it, the effect was some kind of natural psychic aura they gave off to confuse their prey.
Carter was damned if she was going to be that.
The way to beat the Wraith mind games was to concentrate, to burn through it. Fail, and it was a downward spiral; once you were convinced there were more of them, or that they were hiding in every dark corner, they had you. Sam’s eyes narrowed and she focused everything into the small cone of vision down the iron sights of her P90. The fogging flickered, faded —
“Gotcha,” she snapped.
A tongue of muzzle flare leapt from the barrel of her weapon, a fully automatic storm of hollow point bullets ripping into the torso of the alien, shredding the ragged leather jerkin and hammering it backwards. Carter moved up from the partial cover of a console and nudged the Wraith with her boot. The acrid smell of cordite was strong, along with the battery-acid stink of the Wraith themselves.
Black, oily blood pooling in its mouth, the alien fixed her with a glare and did something she wasn’t expecting. It grinned.
“I… Can only die once,” it managed, coughing. “But the Queen… Will take you to death and bring you back, over and over. Kill you a hundred times…” A spasm ran through the Wraith and it fell silent.
“The Queen,” repeated Carter. Ice formed in the pit of her stomach. “Major Lorne!” she shouted. “This isn’t over yet!”
The alert siren was a peculiar ululating whoop, and it reverberated through the chamber. The sound startled Teyla for a split second, and she flinched, ready for the blow that her momentary distraction would allow the Wraith warrior to inflict.
It never came. The warrior grunted with amusement and dropped its guard, clawed fingers flexing as its hands fell to its sides. Teyla held her fighting sticks to the ready, unsure of how to react. What kind of ploy was this? Surrender? A Wraith would only do such a thing if grossly outmatched, and she, as much as Teyla was sure of her fighting skills, was at best only an opponent of level prowess.
The hatchway opened and a quartet of Risar lumbered into the chamber.
“Teyla Emmagan,” said one of them. “Step away from the prisoner.”
“I have the situation in hand,” she panted.
The Wraith chuckled again. The noise was a rattle, like stones in a can. “Nothing could be further from the truth. If you have any intelligence, you will surrender to me now.”
“I see no reason to do so,” retorted the woman, adrenaline still coursing through her.
“No?” It cocked its head, and Teyla felt a brief moment of pressure deep inside her skull. “Ask your friend.” The warrior gestured at the cryogenic pod.
Fenrir’s projection reformed in a whirl of photons. “We are in danger,” said the Asgard urgently. “We must retreat. A battle cannot be won in this state against such odds.”
“What are you talking about?” she demanded, even as a spidery sensation crawled along the flesh of her spine. “No…”
“Oh, yes,” rumbled the Wraith. “Reach out, Teyla. Reach out and know that your defeat is coming.”
A holo-screen sketched itself in above the consoles in the room, displaying an image of Heruun turning slowly beneath a black sky. A shape, a massive insectile form of bone and chitin, crawled inexorably up over the horizon from the planet’s far side, homing in on the orbit of the Aegis.
“Hive Ship,” she breathed, her blood chilled.
The Wraith nodded. “My Queen approaches.”
In the drive core, the siren was accompanied by red-orange strobes that gave the room a hellish, otherworldly glow.
“Teyla!” Carter spoke into her radio. “What’s going on up there? The power systems are ramping up to maximum. What’s Fenrir doing? We haven’t even tested them at half-capacity yet!”
In reply, a flash of light signaled the appearance of the Asgard’s holographic avatar. “Colonel Carter, the status of main weapons and shields remains inactive. Auxiliary craft offensive capabilities are insufficient to match threat. This vessel cannot resist.”
“What threat?” demanded Lorne.
“At a guess, a Hive Ship…” said Carter, fixing the image of the alien with a hard glare. “Or worse.”
“Worse would suggest there is a greater extant threat to the safety of this ship at this time.” Fenrir glanced at one of the control consoles and it lit up, streams of indicators turning a stark blue.
The spinning rings of the power train moved faster and faster, becoming a blur. “Fenrir, what are you doing?” said the colonel. “The sub-light engines may not be able to handle full thrust.”
“I do not intend to employ the sub-light engines,” came the reply. “I would suggest you prepare yourself. Many of the required safeguards are not in place. You may find this displacement uncomfortable.” The avatar winked out, leaving them alone in the engine room.
In that moment, Sam knew exactly what was going to happen. “No—!”
In the skies above Heruun, a skein of coruscating blue-white energy rippled into existence, spilling out from the gap between quantum states, bleeding icy color across the void. The hammerhead shape of the Asgard vessel Aegis turned in a steep, ungainly banking turn and fell toward the phenomenon, retreating from the questing lines of plasma fire reaching out from the encroaching Hive Ship. The vessel touched the ephemeral interface between space and hyperspace, and vanished into it with a silent collision of unreal forces.
Now alone in orbit over the brown and green planet, the Hive Ship paused; then it turned to face its serrated prow at the surface, and from its flanks fell sharp arrows of bone, primed for the hunt.
He was dreaming of Sateda, of safety and quiet. He was dreaming of a place where he could rest, where it was all right for him to be fatigued and weakened, a place where he could just let go, heal up, and forget the war.
They took that from him. The sound, in the sky, crashing down around him, lancing into his thoughts. Ronon heard the razor-edged keening, the nerve-shredding buzz of the enemy; but it was just a dream.
Just a dream —
“Ronon!” He blinked back to wakefulness with a gasp of effort. Sleep and the heavy pull of the sickness dragged on him, threatening to draw him down again to soft oblivion. He shook his head, and it felt like it was full of sand.
Keller pressed something to his throat and he felt a pinprick of pain. In a moment it was gone and some vague semblance of clarity returned to him
“What did…” At first he found it hard to form the words.
“A stimulant,” she explained. Her voice was high and tight with fear. “Ronon, we have to get out of here.”
It was then he realized he could still hear the sound of the Wraith Darts crowding the sky.
Ronon threw himself from the bed, using a support stanchion to haul his body to its feet. He grabbed at his pistol and pushed his way outside, into the morning light. The gun felt good and familiar in his grip. It gave him a point of reference, something to focus his anger through. It was a lens for his revenge.