“Sir?” Ford called, moving to stop him. “Wouldn’t it be better if I—”
Reaching to the panel on the inside of the transport, Sheppard replied, “What is it with this place? Can’t anyone accept orders without a philosophical debate?”
“After your good influence, can you possibly be surprised?” Rodney quipped, but the doors had already closed.
Chapter Seventeen
“Stay here,” John ordered.
“We wish to fight!” declared Peryn. He led a contingent of around two dozen kids, mostly blacksmith’s apprentices but some as young as nine or ten who’d arrived in the transport just ahead of John. Between them, they’d cobbled together an eclectic collection of old axes, broken swords and chest armor made from battered metal plates.
“I need you here to help protect the village,” John replied, running to the entrance of the inn. When the kids followed him outside, he turned to face the oldest. “Okay, Peryn, here’s the deal. I don’t know for sure if we’ll be able to force all of the Wraith into Quickweed Lake. If it turns out that we can’t, we’re only going to be able to hold them off for so long before we have to fall back here. When that happens, we’ll need you to help operate the transport to the Citadel.”
Fingering the Shield around his neck, Peryn’s eyes narrowed, but he nodded. “I understand.”
John wasn’t entirely convinced that he did, but there was no time for a discussion. He needed to catch up with Teyla, Ushat and Yann’s group in the forest.
Adjusting his stride to a long, easy gait, he decided that at least it made a nice change from jogging around the piers on Atlantis — until he heard the sounds of distant fighting. What the hell? The Wraith shouldn’t have arrived that fast, unless… He swallowed a rush of dread and increased his pace. Unless the western flank of the Wraith forces double-timed it. Once again — crap.
A rocky outcrop blocked his direct path. On the far side, he could hear what sounded like heavy hand-to-hand combat. Turning north, he ran for several hundred yards toward a large clearing. The path veered east again just as he reached it. Good thing, too. Partially obscured by smoke, Quickweed Lake really did look like an open meadow.
Reaching the scene of the battle, John paused. The forest was a mass of clanking steel and bodies engaged in a form of combat not seen on Earth for half a millennium — unless he counted Middle Earth and battles against Sauron. Even with a trained eye, it was hard to get a handle on exactly what was happening. Sunlight glinted off steel pikes and axes as the Dalerans hacked into the writhing nets suspended from the trees. All around, as far as John could see, nets were descending from the branches onto the advancing Wraith. But considerably more Wraith were getting through and attacking the Dalerans without mercy. They weren’t taking captives; they were feeding.
John raised his weapon when he sighted a masked Wraith leaning over someone. The guy’s breastplate had been torn off, and the Wraith lifted a hand to bury it in his victim’s chest. Carefully taking aim, John sent a short burst into the stringyhaired head.
Something abruptly pushed him aside, simultaneously wrenching the P-90 from his grasp. He was slammed back into a tree, but recovered in time to parry the incoming elbow, knocking the mask from a super-size Wraith with tangled gray dreadlocks. Its lips parted to display an orthodontist’s nightmare. Barely dodging a second punch to his head and a third to his hip, it came as no surprise to John that the thing was employing the same fighting technique as Teyla.
Acting on instinct, he lunged out to recover his weapon. Blow after blow came swift and heavy, and he was reminded of Teyla’s warning. He had to conserve his strength. There were a dozen more Wraith where this one came from, all anxious to literally take his life.
Without warning, he was yanked backward by his vest and thrown to the ground, where the stock of his P-90 dug into his ribs. A hand descending toward his chest was interrupted when a nearby explosion knocked his attacker off its feet. A rain of Wraith chunks and armor followed. Mortally wounded, the things were blowing themselves — and their Daleran attackers — to pieces. Which meant that winning the fight against them could prove to be just as fatal as losing.
John barely had time to look up before another Wraith was on him. He ducked the armor-covered hand swinging toward his head and brought the gun up to block the next set of flashing claws. If they got out of this, he owed Teyla an apology and a promise never to avoid a sparring session again, masculine pride be damned.
The business end of an axe head suddenly appeared from inside the chest of his opponent, damaging the self-destruct mechanism. More enraged than shocked, the Wraith twisted around to face its new adversary. John caught a brief flash of Yann’s determined face before a second blade swung from a new direction, taking the Wraith’s head clean off.
Behind the collapsing Wraith, John saw Ushat. He opened his mouth to say thanks, but somewhere to his left, another small explosion was followed by a third, and then a fourth. Shifting his grip on his P-90, John reached for the knife strapped to his belt. The force of the next explosion hit him in the back, and sent him flying — directly into the path of a snarling Wraith.
“I’m just saying that we’ll need to make the holes bigger.”
Rodney tossed a haughty look in Ford’s direction. “I’m well aware that altering the shape of C-4 will somewhat reduce its explosive potential, Lieutenant. I’ve forgotten more about blowing things up than you’ll ever know. And since I don’t normally forget anything of crucial importance—”
“Okay, okay!” Ford replied in exasperation.
It still struck Rodney as remarkable how linear most members of the military were in their thinking. Slap a block of C-4 on something, shove a J-2 cap in it, and bang. Yet, placed properly, even with the slightly reduced explosive potential that came as a result of flattening out the C-4, the damage effected could be significantly greater when using the explosive in exactly the right location — like the deep fractures of the shale cliff. “My entire reasoning for placing it here,” Rodney explained with what he thought was an undue degree of patience, “is to avoid igniting the oil.”
“I thought you had no idea how long the oil would flow?”
“Precisely. Which is why I want a radio controlled detonation. The lookouts on West Bridge can observe Black Hill. If the oil flow declines significantly, it will be impossible for the fire to sustain itself. The lookouts can signal us. We come back here, I hand you my Shield, we wait for our Wraith friends to notice, and…kaboom.”
A blur of motion caught Teyla’s eye, and she swung around with her fighting staves. This time, she was fortunate, for the attacking Wraith was badly burned and did not appear to be regenerating as it should. And yet that very fact seemed to feed its desperation.
Teyla had been pacing herself, accepting each blow that she could not deflect, and retaliating in moves that were as familiar to her as breathing. Still, the battle was not going well. There were simply too many Wraith entering the forest. Either she had underestimated their numbers, or the villages across Quickweed Lake were not providing sufficient enticement for the remainder of their adversary’s forces to head in that direction.
All of the nets had now been used, and while countless Wraith lay dead, many Dalerans had also fallen. The increasing number of nearby explosions left the defenders with no choice. They would have to fall back to the transport village, escape into the Citadel and ignite the remainder of North Channel — but not until she vanquished the creature before her.
Eyes blazing, a foul stench coming from the burned flesh across its mouth, her opponent abruptly changed tactics and lunged at her — only to be jerked off balance by Major Sheppard, who had been thrown against it by the force of a nearby explosion. He recovered in time to grasp a fistful of the Wraith’s remaining locks of hair and dispatch the creature with a knife.