“Thank you, Carson,” Sam said. “I think it’s worthwhile to ask the Genii. I don’t know that they’ll cooperate. Or what they’ll want in return.” She looked at Ronon
“Sateda,” he said.
“Maybe.” Sam steepled her hands in front of her mouth. “That’s a pretty stiff price.”
Teyla closed her eyes. A ship. There must be a ship. Some way of reaching the coordinates in time, before the Wraith… Her eyes sprung open. “There is another ship,” she said. “Another ship here in Atlantis.”
Sam blinked. “What other ship?”
“The Wraith cruiser,” Teyla said. She looked down the table at Mel Hocken. “You took out the life support and made a hull breach. But its hyperdrive was intact, was it not?”
“Yes, so?” Hocken looked confused. “It’s a Wraith ship. Nobody can fly it. It’s adrift in a decaying orbit.”
Sam had been here two years ago, and she sat bolt upright in her chair, a smile breaking over her face. “Nobody except Teyla.”
“I can fly it,” Teyla said with a voice that sounded more confident than she was. “I have flown a hive ship before. I can use the interfaces. If the hull breach can be repaired and the systems restored, I can fly it.”
“We will have to see how bad it is,” Radek said. “But unless it is very bad indeed, it will be much easier to seal off compartments and isolate the breach than it is to rebuild the Hammond’s Asgard drive. That is not easy.” He looked at Sam.
“No,” she said, “it’s not.”
“I will have to go aboard and see,” Radek said. “But unless it is very bad it should be possible in a day or two, working around the clock.”
“So we go get Sheppard in the Wraith cruiser,” Ronon said. “Sweet.”
“It’s a cruiser,” Sam said. “No dart bays. No place to put 302s. And you can’t shoot it out with a hive ship. This isn’t that kind of mission.” She looked at Teyla. “If it is a mission. Let’s get Dr. Zelenka up there to see what kind of shape the cruiser is in, and then we’ll talk about it.” She looked down the table, making eye contact with Carson, Ronon and Jennifer in turn. “We can’t strip Atlantis of our defenses. This might be a trap. Todd has played us before.”
“Yeah,” Ronon said grimly.
“What if this is a ruse to lure you and our air cover away, to get our teams out in the field while they attack again?” She shook her head. “We can’t risk it. With Major Lorne unable to walk at present, and our shield inoperable, you’re not going anywhere.”
“Teyla can’t do this alone,” Ronon said. “Sheppard…”
“Ronon.” Sam said quietly, and to Teyla’s surprise he stopped, his hands closing in frustration. “Let’s see where we are after Dr. Zelenka has a look at the ship. If it’s not repairable, it’s all an academic question.”
“Then I had best get going,” Radek said, getting to his feet. “Carson, will you take me up in a jumper? And I will want a team together. We will need suits. Teyla, will you come?”
“Most assuredly,” Teyla said.
Of course they could not strip Atlantis’ defenses. It might be a trap. She did not think it was, did not feel it in her bones, but the one they called Todd had never been entirely honest, even when she had played his Queen to assist him in his plan. When she had been Steelflower.
And in that moment an idea blossomed.
Ronon and Jennifer walked out together, he bending his head to speak with her, Radek bustling around them in conversation with Hocken about comparative ship technology. Teyla rose to follow them, then stopped.
Sam closed her laptop, looking uncomfortable. “Teyla, you know if there’s a way to make this work…” she began.
“There is a way,” she said, and though cold dread settled in her stomach she spoke on. “A way that is certain, and risks no lives except my own.”
Sam frowned. “What’s that?”
“Dr. Keller can transform me once again into Steelflower,” she said. Teyla lifted her chin. “She is…I was…Todd’s Queen, a person of note. I cannot even begin to tell you what it means among the Wraith to be queen. I cannot explain how it feels, how a queen holds sway. What the mental bonds feel like. But if this Waterlight who has John is young and untried, I can push her. I can compel her men. I can make them release John to me.”
“And if they see through you?”
“No one did before,” Teyla said. “And I was many days among them. Why should they in the course of a single meeting or two, when I come with my own cruiser? I can demand their compliance if nothing else.”
“If they don’t buy it?”
Teyla took a step closer. “It is only my own life at risk.”
Sam’s eyes were very blue, and met hers frankly. “That’s not nothing.”
“If it were General O’Neill, would not you do it?” she asked.
Sam’s gaze slid away, and she smiled ruefully, as though shaking her head at herself. “I have,” she said. She picked up the laptop and looked at Teyla. “Ok. If Dr. Keller is comfortable with the procedure and the ship is flyable.” She smiled again. “It’s not like I can order you not to, right?”
“That is true,” Teyla said. “I am a contractor, and I can quit.”
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Sam said. “But you’d better go talk to Keller now so you’ll have time to suit up if Zelenka needs you upstairs to initialize systems on the cruiser. Unless you were planning for Torren to do that.”
“Torren is on New Athos, and can stay there until I return,” Teyla said. “It is best. And I will speak to Dr. Keller now.”
Chapter Four
Quicksilver
The visit to Gaffen had been delayed and delayed again after the loss of the queen’s cruiser, but finally Ember had managed to convince someone that it was a priority if they were to make use of the stolen ZPM. What had proven impossible was to convince anyone that Quicksilver should accompany them. Quicksilver snarled silently at the memory. Even Ember had refused — you are too important to risk, he had said, which was probably true, but not really an adequate excuse. Nighthaze had tipped his head to one side, perplexed — your men can’t handle this on their own? — and he had not dared take the matter further.
Which meant he was stuck here, on the hive, while Ember and the others were on Gaffen, and there was no way he could ask them to investigate the last few addresses in the DHD’s buffer to see if Atlantis had dialed there. He had almost convinced himself that he was mistaken, anyway, that he was truly Quicksilver, brother of Dust, senior cleverman in the hive of Queen Death, but the decision to send his men to Gaffen wakened all his previous doubts. And now he would never know.
He snarled again, pacing the length of the chamber he shared with Ember, as much at his own melodrama as at the situation itself. He would find another way to test his hypothesis, of course — if it was impossible, he was the man to do it — but that would mean starting over again. And there was no way to predict when the queen would order another attack on Atlantis’s blocked Stargate. If he were McKay in truth, that ought to please him, but at the moment, it was only more frustration.
At least Ember’s absence gave him a chance to search the other cleverman’s files. He had been through them before, but always in haste, always with one eye on the door, for fear that Ember would return and catch him at it. This time he would have time to work without fear of being interrupted.
He went to his own console, entered a query. The screen pulsed for an instant, then displayed his answer: Ember’s shuttle had left the hive. And that meant it was time to get to work. He turned to Ember’s console, entered the codes he had stolen, and watched as the system unlocked itself. He would need to be careful, do nothing that could not be erased, but he would at least have a chance to look at Ember’s files on him. He was typing the query even as he thought, scowled as the system returned a null result. All right, maybe Ember didn’t keep a file on him — that was a point in favor of his being Quicksilver — or maybe it was just better hidden.