A short way up the corridor, Major Lorne leaned in against the side of an intersection, peering into the dimness. “There’s a whole bunch of them up there, Colonel,” he reported. “Half a dozen Wraith, I’d guess.”
“Oh, great,” said McKay. “Out of the frying pan.”
“Rodney —”
“Colonel Sheppard?” Carter’s words crackled from the walkie-talkie. “Do you read me, over?”
“Sam?!” said McKay. “Where is she?”
“Quiet!” Sheppard retorted, and raised the radio to his lips. “I’m here, Colonel. Are you okay?”
“I’m a few levels above you, on the command tier with Teyla and Fenrir. He’s badly hurt, John. The Queen tried to kill him.”
His lips thinned. “Understood. We got a situation ourselves. Wraith, a whole bunch of ’em blocking our path. There’s no way we can get past.”
“I have intermittent internal sensors, I see them.”
“Feel free to beam them out into deep space, if you’d like,” said Lorne.
“No can do, Major,” Carter replied. “The internal sensors can’t lock on to their bio-signs…” She paused. “Stand by, I’m sending you some ordnance. Wait one.”
“How’s that gonna work? We lost all our stuff on the Hive,” said McKay. The question had barely left his mouth when a flash of transporter glow blinked in the middle of the floor, revealing a couple of G-36 assault rifles and a P90, along with a pile of ammunition.
“Never mind.” The Major’s face creased in a grin and he grabbed one of the rifles, slamming a twin-drum cyclic magazine into the G-36. “Merry Christmas!”
Sheppard took the other rifle and tossed the submachine gun to McKay. “Thanks for the care package,” he said to the radio. “We’ll deal with these creeps and then rendezvous with you.”
“Negative,” said Carter. “I’m plotting the movements of the Wraith from up here. It looks like they’re moving toward the computer core.”
“They could shut down the ship,” noted McKay, “or worse.”
“Rodney’s right,” came the reply. “The primary matter converter array is down there. If they take control of that, they can make copies of anything in the Asgard database.”
“Oh crap,” said Sheppard. “Like weapons?” He hefted the assault rifle in his hand.
“Like weapons,” Carter repeated. “For starters.”
Color drained from McKay’s face. “The collapsar device. The blueprints will be in Fenrir’s database!”
“Can’t it be shut down from the bridge?” asked Lorne.
McKay shook his head. “It’s a stand-alone system, like the Asgard core on the Odyssey. Even if you isolated it from the rest of the Aegis, it can still operate independently.”
Sheppard spoke into the radio once again. “Colonel? I copy your sitrep, over. We’ll move in and take the converter out of commission.”
“Roger that. I’ll do what I can to help you from up here. Good luck.”
The survivors reeled backward as part of the floor of the animal enclosures gave way, planks ripping and falling into space, cascading down over the boughs from the main trunk of the city-tree. The Wraith went with them, screaming and howling. Through the gaps Ronon saw men hanging from ropes of vine, swinging back and forth beneath the enclosure. Some of them had rodguns that chattered rapid-fire rounds into the aliens, knocking them off their handholds and tearing them open.
The Wraith commander was still clinging to a broken support beam, his claws digging into the wood as he pulled himself back up, inch by shuddering inch.
“Stay back from the edge,” said Lieutenant Allan. “It could give at any second.”
“Maybe,” Ronon ignored her advice and stepped forward, feeling the twisted flooring bow beneath his weight.
The commander met his gaze and spat at him. Clinging to its handhold with one arm, it snatched at the pistol holster on its belt, grabbing at a stunner weapon. Balance lost, the Wraith began to lose its grip.
Ronon shook his head “Bad choice,” he said, holding out a hand to assist the alien.
There was a moment of surprise on the Wraith’s face when he could not understand why a mortal enemy would offer to save his life; then Ronon grinned wolfishly.
“Nah,” he said, the open hand curling into a fist, “just kidding.” He put all his effort into a savage punch to the Wraith’s face. The impact dislodged the commander’s grip, and with a hate-filled snarl, he fell, down and down toward the rusty landscape below. The alien vanished into the lower canopy of trees and was gone.
The figures on the rope-vines swarmed up toward the wrecked enclosure and clambered inside. Ronon blinked as one of them pulled a thin cloth scarf from around his face.
“Ronon Dex,” said Soonir, with a cocksure smirk. “We saw the Wraith coming. I thought you and your people could use the help of me and mine.”
“How did you do that?” said Keller.
“The lower enclosures are the oldest structures in the settlement,” he noted. “The stone hammers are used when we must demolish them.” The rebel leader grinned. “This seemed the most expedient way to deal with the Wraith.”
“You could have killed us all!” shouted Takkol, forcing his way forward. The decking beneath his feet gave an ominous moan and he faltered, his fury waning for a moment.
“I could have left you all to perish,” Soonir retorted. “It is your idiocy that has led our world to this invasion!”
“Hey!” shouted Keller, her strident tone surprising everyone, Ronon included. “Now is not the time for this! We need to get out of here before this place comes down around us!”
Soonir gave a nod. “The healer’s point is well made.” He signaled to his men to draw up the ropes. “Follow the tethers. My men will lead you to a platform below this one.” He offered a vine to Ronon, and eyed him. “That is, if you can manage it…” Soonir was staring closely at Dex’s face, at his pale, drawn features.
Ronon ignored the pounding headache in his skull. “I can manage,” he replied, and snatched the rope from the other man’s hand.
Sam heard the sound and turned away from the bridge console. It was unlike any cry she had ever heard before, an alien moan from an alien throat.
“Fenrir…” Teyla tried to hold the Asgard up, but he was limp in her hands. Carter saw his chest rise and fall in ever slower stutters, his breath whispering from his tiny mouth in puffs of vapor. “We have to help him!”
Carter came closer. “I’m sorry, Teyla. There’s nothing we can do.”
“Humans,” came the whisper. “You are so like us and so unlike us.” The Asgard’s expression was pained as he worked to force out every word. “We share so many things. Wonder and daring. Greatness and folly. Sorrow…and regret.”
“The Wraith will not take this ship,” Carter said quietly. “I promise you that.”
“I believe you.” Fenrir’s head lolled and his dark eyes found Teyla. “You… You must survive, Teyla Emmagan. Guard the new life within you, nurture it.” His thin hand fell to her belly. “It is your future.”
“I will,” she told him. “I can do nothing else.”
And then there were no more breaths from the Asgard’s silent form, no more words. In a very human gesture toward so alien a being, Teyla reached up and closed Fenrir’s eyes, then gently lay him down inside the broken cryo capsule.
Sam felt the ghost of the same hollow feeling she had experienced when the planet Orilla had destroyed itself in front of her; it was a terrible emotion to consider, the raw loss of being a witness to the extinction of an entire species.
“Now they are truly gone,” said Teyla quietly. “The Asgard are no more.”
Sam spoke again after a moment. “If I have learned anything after over a decade in this job, it’s that the universe has ways of confounding your expectations.” She reached out and touched the other woman’s arm. “Come on. He protected us. Now we have to do the job of the Aegis, protect Heruun and our people down there.”