“We should take the transport back to the jumper and get out of here while we can,” Ford asserted. He was holding Lisera by the arm. When her eyes widened, he added, “All of us.”
“But you promised to help save everyone. You promised!” the girl cried hysterically.
The anger in Rodney’s belly turned into a tight, sour ball. His childhood had been defined by belittlement and an utter lack of compassion. To escape that, he’d had to become the best, at everything. Yet somewhere in his pursuit of this goal, he had in turn become equally dispassionate; indeed, some would argue, lacking in humanity. It wasn’t until meeting Samantha Carter that he’d understood that truly great science was inspired, and that his own suppressed but deeply powerful emotions had been channeled into arrogance. “No!” he declared, whirling around to face his teammates. “I won’t accept that we can’t stop this and make them see reason.”
“And exactly how do you suggest we accomplish that?” Sheppard demanded. “We’re four unarmed people in a city the size of downtown LA. You want to try and make peace amongst God knows how many fanatics on…I’m not even sure how many sides? This place was a powder keg before we arrived. We may have lit the fuse, but sooner or later it was gonna blow, just like it has dozens, probably hundreds of times in the past.”
“So… What? We just let them destroy themselves and high-tail it out of here?”
“I believe it may be too late for that.” Teyla’s face stiffened as she spoke. “The Wraith have come.”
Chapter Twelve
Well, that answered one question. The EM fields couldn’t block Teyla’s sensitivity to the Wraith. Of course, if the Chosen had mostly been hunted down and killed — which was entirely possible now that they couldn’t sequester themselves in the Enclave — there was no telling how many of the Shields were still in use.
In the near distance, John could hear the sounds of pitched hand-to-hand combat drawing closer. The heavy clomp of boots pounding the cobblestones rounded the corner of a narrow lane, and six people spilled out into the square. There was a momentary pause before the wild-eyed front-runner pointed to the team and screamed, “Kill them! They are of the Chosen!”
“What?” Rodney squealed. “No! We’re not Chosen. See?” He pulled his now filthy jacket aside to show that he wasn’t wearing a Shield.
The rabble, insane with bloodlust, weren’t about to enter into a discussion. Fortunately, some of them were armed with the team’s P-90s and sidearms. Since they brandished the weapons like clubs, John could only conclude that Gat and Balzar’s goon squad had been overrun, and, having taken the guns as spoils of of the infighting, their new owners apparently had no idea how to use them.
One of the men, an overweight and bulbous-nosed guy who looked like he’d spent most of his life propped up against some bar, made the by-now common mistake of thinking that Teyla was easy game. As he bent low to tackle her, she dispatched him with a sickening kick to his head, and wrenched the P-90 from his grasp before he’d even hit the ground. John took out a further two in quick succession, while Ford disarmed a fourth, breaking the guy’s arm in the process.
During the scuffle, the last two had managed to herd Rodney and Lisera to the far side of the square. Hampered by her leg cast, Lisera fell. Rodney dove on top of her, screaming something unintelligible, trying to protect her and drag her out of the way at the same time. Breaking into a run, John raised his now reacquired P-90—and cursed. The magazine was empty. Ford must have been having the same problem, because he was pulling off his pack, scrambling for a new magazine. Neither of them was going to reload in time, and it was doubtful that John would reach Rodney before the men, but he had to try.
A ghostly image caught the edge of his vision, along with that creeped-out sensation that the Wraith used to confuse their prey. “No, Major!” With the reflexes of a cat, Teyla knocked him to the ground — just out of the path of a Wraith beam, which scooped up McKay’s axe-wielding attackers.
“God! That was close.” Half carrying Lisera, Rodney staggered upright and stared up at the sky. “The Darts can only mean that nobody’s deploying the defensive fields.”
Accepting Teyla’s outstretched hand, John swung to his feet, caught the spare magazine that Ford tossed him, and reloaded his weapon. “Which means the Chosen are probably all dead.”
“What about Yann’s rebels, and Balzar, and whoever-the-hell else received the gene therapy?” asked Rodney, his eyes wide in desperation.
A good question, with a not-so-good answer. “Anyone carrying around one of those activated Shields is painting a bulls-eye on his chest.”
Rodney’s face scrunched in disbelief. “You mean nobody’s protecting this place?”
“Not quite no one.” Teyla pointed to the east, where a Dart plummeted into the ground. They couldn’t see where it hit, but the explosion was more than satisfactory.
“We need to find—” John’s words were cut off when more people ran screaming through the square, trying, and failing, to outpace another Wraith beam. In the distance, he heard several more explosions as Darts encountered EM fields. The once blue sky was filled with plumes of smoke. “More Shields,” he finished, shouting above the noise.
Dozens, possibly hundreds of people were now streaming into the square. From the opposite direction, a smaller band of warriors emerged and met them head-on in a furious assault. After a moment, John realized that the warriors were not actually attacking, but instead were determinedly heading in the team’s direction, defending themselves as they came. Defensive tactics or not, the disciplined warriors, better armed and better protected, were methodically cutting the disorganized rabble to pieces when another Wraith Dart sped overhead. The emerging blue beam carved a path through both groups alike, sucking up bodies like an airborne harvester.
“This is insane!” Rodney yelled as the team backed into what looked like a blacksmith’s shop. “Absolutely, unquestionably nuts!”
“Welcome to the wonderful world of urban warfare,” John called back. “Lisera, do you know where there are any Shields?”
White-faced with terror, Lisera nodded jerkily, and pointed to the mangled and limbless torsos now scattered about the square. Battle-axes made for decisive work in close combat. “When the Enclave was destroyed and the cache of Shields ransacked, many claimed the Shields for themselves, and wear them as proof that they are not of the Chosen.”
That kind of ass-backward reasoning was another thing he probably should have expected. “Okay. Rodney, stay here with Lisera. Ford, Teyla?”
“On it, sir.” Ford was already outside, turning over the first body.
“Major?” Teyla found a Shield on her first attempt, and tossed it to him just as another Dart came bearing down on them. With all the grace of a grand piano — which was surprising, given its aerodynamic shape — the Dart abruptly lost altitude and clipped the edge of a tall building. It tumbled end over end through a narrow street, mowing down a dozen rebels — or maybe they were Gat’s bully boys, it was hard to be sure from this angle — and came to a halt in a spectacular heap against the stone fountain in the middle of the square.
The crash seemed to have quenched the rabble’s desire for fighting. Like cockroaches, they vanished back into the dark, narrow-gutted alleyways. The warriors reformed into ranks, while the tallest of them, sporting a large blue chevron on his breastplate, pointed to John and called, “The Chosen from Atlantis!”
Muttering in relief and surprise, the warriors ran across the square to join them. The guy with the chevron removed his horned helmet, tucked it under one arm, and, stepping over a smoking chunk of the crashed Dart, slapped a bloodied fist across his chest. Presumably it was some sort of salute, because he dropped to one knee before John, and added, “By your will, Chosen one. We heard you were here and, praying to Dalera that you had been spared, came to release you.”