“You say that now!” someone screamed. “But my husband is dead because the Chosen did not come.”
It was the same story everywhere they’d been. Every village — and there were dozens of them — had suffered from the Darts. When John managed to calm people down enough to tell him exactly when the attacks had taken place, the pattern became chillingly clear. The Wraith had spent the last months testing the Daleran defenses. Sure, some of the Darts had gone down when Kesun transported into a village and an EM field suddenly activated. But John would bet good money that, by now, the Wraith had gotten the timing pretty much figured out. The second an EM field had activated over a village, it meant that Kesun had transported in.
During previous cullings, the Chosen had worked in groups, with at least one remaining behind in each village while the other evacuated everyone to the Citadel. With only Kesun evacuating villages this time around, the Wraith had figured out that they had at least ten, maybe fifteen minutes to cull a village after the first group was evacuated. In turn, Kesun, and now John, had learned that there was no point in going back to a village a second time, because, by then, almost everyone had been taken. And that had, naturally, reinforced the Wraith tactic of waiting until the first group had gone, then descending on the remaining villagers like a pack of sharks.
Worse, in the last few hours, the Wraith had discovered that the Citadel was now serving up a free buffet.
Well, not quite free. More Darts fell out of the sky every time Ford, Ushat, and Yann managed to locate more Genes and get them established with Shields in the Stations. Problem was, John had no idea of the range of each Shield’s EM field. And he had a sinking feeling that the Wraith did and were finding safe flight corridors between what amounted to unconnected islands of protection.
Kesun’s words came back to him in full measure. The burden of responsibility, the burden of choice. Who lived and who died. Maybe it wasn’t quite that direct, because one of the great many things John didn’t know was which village the Wraith would target next. But in the end, it came down to knowing that anyone he couldn’t cram inside one of the transports was just not going to be there when he came back.
The first time, a woman had actually thrown her baby across the heads of the crowds and into the transport, while others thrust their children forward even while he was trying to close the doors. And the longer he delayed, the longer it would take him to get to other villages to save more.
He’d seen the look in that mother’s eyes before; too many times, too many places. All he could do was shut off his emotions and save those he could. Someone, at least, had caught the baby. The mother had not been there when he’d come back. It was then that he’d figured out the Wraith’s strategy and began formulating a defensive plan.
The first part involved sending Genes in pairs to the villages. Similar to when he and Rodney had transported into Nemst, one Gene stayed in the village to maintain EM coverage, while several return trips were made to the Citadel. They wouldn’t have time to wait for stragglers, but instead of evacuating villages at random, he’d begun with those closest to the Citadel. As the night wore on, that would hopefully give more people time to arrive from distant settlements to the outlying transports.
He wondered how Rodney was faring. The plan sounded straightforward enough, but John knew better than most how plans could go south in a hurry.
Someone grasped Rodney’s shoulder with dislocating force, and yanked him back onto solid ground — which was a relative term. One step ahead of the shifting earth, he clambered across to the stable part of the hill, the engineers scattered around him.
That had been entirely too close for his liking. He nodded his thanks to the guy who’d saved him, a huge bear of a man who introduced himself as Artos. The others gave a few weak, nervous chuckles.
From their vantage point, Rodney couldn’t see the oil cascading into the river, though he could hear a voluminous rush of liquid. What he could see was the point at which the river bifurcated into channels. He waited, knowing that it would take several minutes before the oil came into view.
The twin planets rising in the night sky reflected a harsh alien light on the surface of the water. He looked out across the hill and found the northern side of the Citadel cast in the same eerie hue. It was attractive, in an oddly stark way. He’d never been much for subtle shades, in anything.
Rodney’s momentary illusion of peace was obliterated when a squadron of Darts silhouetted themselves against the faces of the planets. An instinctive flare of dread dissipated as his fingers brushed the Shield fastened to his belt. He and the engineers were under the EM field — they were safe. The same couldn’t be said of the Darts’ targets. The menacing craft dived low, a series of beams sweeping across the fields.
Dealing with the Darts was a new experience, it occurred to him. Various Marines had recounted the Wraith attack on the Athosian settlement. Teyla had also described the way the blinding light emanated from the Darts to harvest any human in their path. The details had been noted in Rodney’s mind, duly but with unavoidable detachment. Now, as he watched the beams play across the land, the immediacy of it all gripped him with a cold hand. People were being harvested out there, right under his gaze, and the only thing that stood between the rest of the Daleran population and a similar fate was his plan.
A shout of triumph from the engineers tore his focus away. Rodney looked down at the river and noticed that the light reflecting off its surface had changed. The agitated froth that had previously been a constant had vanished beneath the weight of the oil, and the water now reflected a dark rainbow in the night-light. As ordered, there was a gigantic oil slick heading for the Citadel.
There had to be something unhealthy about the euphoria he felt at having caused a colossal oil spill. At least out here he wouldn’t have Greenpeace knocking on his door.
The oil flowed quickly down to the point where the river diverged. The immense shadow cast by the Citadel blocked his view of the South Channel. Fine, but why wasn’t he seeing the North Channel darken with oil? There’d been plenty of time for it to flow to that point. “What’s going on?” he called toward the engineers. “Where’s the blackwater?”
The guy who’d saved him squinted into the distance, and his face slumped in defeat. “Look,” he said, pointing to the channel entrance. “The way is blocked.”
“No, that can’t be. It can’t!” Rodney peered down at the mouth of North Channel. It was obstructed by debris, which forced most of the water and virtually all of the oil to divert south.
Of course. Because the cosmos so obviously enjoyed taunting him.
Aiden wasn’t thrilled with the idea of leaving Lisera alone in one of the old Chosen’s homes. Well, okay, it wasn’t exactly like she was alone. A couple of warriors and some of the walking wounded who’d been in the mob would be there to look out for her.
The Station, a tall building the size of a medium hotel, had been ransacked during the rioting, but what remained of the interior offered evidence enough of what it must have been like. The burned and shattered vestiges of luxury made him think of the grand staircase of the Titanic, once designed to sit far above steerage but now resting at the bottom of the ocean just the same. He could see why the commoners resented the Chosen. They had sure lived well. But then Yann reminded him that the Chosen hadn’t actually lived here for several generations. Instead, one of the city’s chiefs had taken over. “Supposedly because the Chosen ordered them to do so,” Yann growled. “Fools that we all were, we took the barbarians at their word.”