Allegiance

Chapter Eight Quicksilver in Atlantis

Ronon flattened himself against the wall of his transport chamber as the door opened, to be faced with the barrels of lowered P90s. “Don’t shoot!”

One of the young Marines he was facing waved the others back from the door, and they took up position tensely on either side of the hallway. PFC Washington, the man’s name patch said, one of the new ones. No officers or noncoms in sight, so he’d taken charge the way he should, but he wasn’t much more than a kid. “Why are the transport chambers still working?”

“Don’t know,” Ronon said. “Everything else is locked down.”

“Not on this level,” Washington said. “The security doors on this corridor aren’t closing. There’s still access to two stairwells.”

That made it possible to actually reach the gateroom, but also meant that if the Wraith came through them they’d be into the lower levels of the tower, including the infirmary. “Anybody know how to get the doors to close?”

Washington looked at the rest of the security team, and got nothing but shaking heads. “I’m thinking no.”

“Then we’d better stop the Wraith,” Ronon said. “They’re up the stairs.”

“Right,” Washington said, a little too loud, like he was trying to steel himself into motion.

“Then move.” Ronon made for the stairway, hoping they were behind him, wishing he had something to work with besides green soldiers who’d never faced the Wraith before. He felt for his radio. “Teyla, you want to get up here?” He flattened himself against the stairwell wall at the sound of pounding feet coming down the stairs. “We’re about to have Wraith on the mess hall level.”

“I cannot,” Teyla said in his ear in frustration. “The security doors in the residential areas have sealed. Colonel Carter says that all the exterior doors near the pier are sealed as well.”

“Can’t she beam people into the city?”

“She and Colonel Caldwell are trying,” Teyla said. “But some device within the city is now transmitting the Wraith jamming frequencies, and so far she has been unable to do so.”

“All right,” Ronon said. That wasn’t their problem to solve. “Try the transport chamber.”

“I will,” Teyla said.

“We’ll be here,” Ronon said. He thumbed his pistol to stun and fired up the stairs before he could see who was rounding the landing above him. If it was a Marine team, he’d apologize later.

He heard the pistol shots from beside him ricochet off the wall, started to call for the Marines to hold their fire, and then saw the sweep of a leather trenchcoat, high boots with no laces. He thumbed the setting over to kill instead and caught the Wraith in the legs, fired again as the Wraith tumbled down the stairs, rolling to try to get its balance, the leg wound already healing.

He could see the drones coming down behind the male, and ducked under the spitting stunner fire. “Get down!” he yelled, yanking the Marine next to him to one knee and grabbing the muzzle of the young man’s P90 to point it up the stairs instead of at them. “Don’t let them get close!”

“I hear you,” the man said, firing in quick bursts. The Wraith drones staggered, one of them falling heavily and fouling the shots of the ones around him. Ronon kept his own pistol trained on the male Wraith, shooting him again and then yet again until he went still at their feet.

“Is he —?” the Marine next to Ronon began, looking just on this side of panic.

“If he moves, shoot him,” Ronon said, and raised his pistol to cover the stairs. Eventually they’d get another Wraith captain up there who’d tell the drones to do something smarter than walk down the stairs into P90 fire. He hoped it wouldn’t be soon.

One of them screamed and launched himself off the stairs, whether trying to dodge or in a purposeful leap, Ronon couldn’t tell. Ronon scrambled back, slapped the shoulder of the young Marine next to him, grabbed his jacket and yanked when he wasn’t moving fast enough. The Wraith landed mostly on top of the Marine, rolling him over and clawing at his shirt. Ronon fired, aimed a vicious kick at the side of the Wraith’s head, and fired again when it came up fighting.

“We have to fall back!” Washington yelled from the other side of the stairs. “They’re still coming — ”

Ronon fired again, and the Wraith finally jerked and went limp. Ronon hauled him up and shoved him toward the stairs, one more obstacle for the ones on the stairs above to have to scramble over.

“Down. Go!” he yelled. “Take the next landing down!”

If the Wraith didn’t try to shoot their way down another flight of stairs, took the corridor on this level to the next landing, they’d be able to work their way around the defenders — but he just had to hope they didn’t know the city that well. “Any security teams who can hear me, we need someone to cover the south tower stairs on the infirmary level.”

“Ronon, that you?” Sheppard said over the radio.

“We’ve got about a hundred Wraith trying to come down these stairs,” Ronon said, putting his back to the wall of the landing and firing steadily, the Marines doing better this time at getting into position on either side of the staircase. “And we just gave up the mess hall level.” He hoped the kitchen staff had gotten off that floor, or at least put the heavy door of one of the walk-in freezers between them and any Wraith who got through.

“Copy that,” Sheppard said, his voice drowned out by P90 fire on his end of the radio. He didn’t sound like he was really in a position to talk. “Just hang on.”

“What do we do?” Washington yelled over the gunfire.

“Keep shooting!” Ronon yelled back. If it wasn’t a great plan, at least it was simple enough that he thought they’d have no problem following along.

John flung himself into the shelter of the doorway, flattening his back against the wall as he slammed a fresh magazine into his P90. Wraith in the gate room, Wraith on the stairs that led to the mess hall level — no, on the mess hall level — worst of all Rodney with a Wraith’s face, a Wraith’s hand and mind commanding drones as though he’d been born to it —

He shoved that thought aside, risked another glance around the corner. Most of the Wraith were still there, drones covering the approaches while the males moved into operations. If they’d been spectacularly lucky, Radek would have gotten the consoles locked down, but given that Rodney was in control of the security systems, that didn’t seem very likely. So the Wraith would be busy consolidating their control of the shield and the gate, making sure they could keep getting reinforcements… He closed his eyes for an instant, visualizing the situation. Wraith on the stairs — Wraith in the gate room and ops and then the stairs, heading down into the vulnerable parts of the city. On the mess hall floor already, and moving down — except that it made more sense to keep bringing in troops, make sure there was no way they could get control back again, and that had to mean that the stairway attack was meant to draw attention. But away from what? Rodney was up in operations — wasn’t he?

John braced himself, took another quick look around the edge of the doorway. He got one good look at the consoles, a trio of males working at the boards, before a drone spotted him and fired. He ducked back, the stun bolt splashing harmlessly on the far wall, a tight knot of fear in the pit of his stomach. All of them had had long hair, and there was no way he could convince himself that any of them was Rodney. He touched his earpiece.

“Lorne!”

“Sir?”

“Do you have a visual of ops?”

“Yes, sir.”

“See if you can spot McKay up there.” John pressed himself harder against the wall as another stunner bolt slammed past. He nodded to the nearest Marine, who returned fire briefly before ducking back into shelter. Words sounded in his ear, but they were drowned by the noise of the P90s. “Say again?”

“He’s not up there,” Lorne said. “Just Wraith. Regular Wraith.”

“Right.” It all fit, suddenly, the pieces coming together in his mind: the way the lockdown had been interrupted, the transport chambers that still worked, the way the diversionary attack had gone, the fact that Rodney was involved… He touched the radio again. “Radek! Radek, can you hear me?”

There was a little silence, and he could feel his heart kicking against his ribs. Too long, it had taken him too long to work this out, Rodney could be there by now —

“I hear you, John,” Radek said. “We are in the ZPM room — ”

“Rodney is headed your way,” John interrupted. “Lock yourselves in and stay alert. I’m coming to you.”

There was a pause, but Radek’s voice was steady. “OK. We will be ready.”

John took a breath. “Lorne. Rodney’s heading for the ZPM room. I’m taking a team and going after him. Cover the approaches and make damn sure he doesn’t get back in.”

“Copy that,” Lorne answered, his voice matter-of-fact for all that they both knew what he’d just been asked to do. “Good luck, sir.”

“To you, too,” John answered. He looked at the people gathered in the corridor, Marines and airmen, pointed quickly to half a dozen. “You, come with me. Degan, take over here.”

“Yessir,” the sergeant said, and John turned away. He only hoped they’d be in time.

Quicksilver glanced at the laptop he had taken from the operations room, checking the specifications of the tower against the maps in his mind. It was almost painfully bizarre to be here in the Ancients’ city, under the soaring windows that had haunted his dreams, and once or twice he had to shake himself away from some memory, some image, that rose unbidden and irrelevant. It was worth it, he told himself, worth a little disorientation to see the rout in the gate room, to see the humans fall, to punish them for what they had done to him — to him, to Dust, and to so many more.

He found the hall he wanted, the one that led to the next transport chamber that he had carefully excluded from the lockdown. It was all working perfectly, all the pieces meshing just as he had known they would, and he pointed left at the next intersection.

*This way.*

*You’re sure?* That was Ardent, the younger of the two blades he had been given to manage the drones, and Quicksilver rolled his eyes.

*Yes, of course I’m sure.*

Ardent glared at him, not quite daring to show teeth, but the other blade, Wakeful, waved his drones ahead without a word.

*Be careful,* Ember said softly, at his back, but Quicksilver ignored him, all his attention on the plan.

The transport chamber was unguarded, as he’d planned — as he’d arranged, certain doors sealing too quickly to allow the defenders to reach this hall, this chamber. He stepped forward, ready to enter their destination, but Ember caught his sleeve.

*Send Ardent first.*

The queen’s brother did snarl at that, but Wakeful nodded. *Go.*

The door slid shut, and when it opened again, Ardent and his drones were gone. Wakeful cocked his head to one side, then waved another group of drones into the chamber, and paused to listen again.

*They have secured the hall. There were human soldiers, and more in this power room, and they are fighting hard. Are you sure this is worth it, Quicksilver?*

Quicksilver was already in the chamber, turned to glare at him, and something in the movement, in the fall of light from the windows and the sleek bronze walls and the pattern of the carvings, caught at his heart. This was — something was terribly wrong here, and for an instant the faces of his friends became like monsters, so that he flung up his arm to shield himself from the sight.

*Quicksilver?*

Ember’s voice brought him back to himself, and he shook his head, hard, scowling.

*Are you all right?*

*If he is — unwell,* Wakeful began, in the same moment, and Quicksilver shook himself. The queen was depending on him. They would never reach the Milky Way without more power, and this was the greatest source of power available to them.

*I’m fine,* he said, and willed it to be true. *Let’s go.*

Radek made himself take two slow deep breaths before he looked at the young lieutenant in command of the ZPM room team. He was all too aware of how badly young lieutenants had fared on Atlantis, hoped this wouldn’t be another one. “You heard?”

“Yes.”

Radek squinted at his name badge — Sabine — and recognized the sergeant behind him with relief. Hector had been on Atlantis from the beginning, knew how to fight the Wraith.

“Permission to take a team and secure the transport chamber?” Hector asked, and the lieutenant nodded.

“Go.”

They left in a flurry of purposeful movement, and Radek looked around the chamber, automatically checking the displays. “I am to pull the ZPM,” he said. “We think that is what they want — ”

Sabine nodded, waving his men into position. “Do it quick, doc. There’s only one way out.”

“Yes, yes, I am well aware of that.” Radek moved to the first console, touched keys to begin transferring the crucial systems over to the naquadah generators. That was supposed to happen automatically if the ZPM went off-line, but he didn’t trust those subroutines, not with Rodney’s programs loose in the system. The shield was out of his control, shut down as though there was no power for it; he spared it a single glance and typed a second set of commands, watching as the city’s subsystems switched reluctantly to the new power source. The process usually seemed almost ridiculously fast, but today —

He brushed that thought aside, and shoved his glasses into a better position as he turned to the board the controlled the ZPMs. Only one of the three slots was filled, the one at the closest point of the triangular console. He entered the password that unlocked the system, and froze as P90s fired in the hallway.

“We’ve got company,” Sabine said, over his shoulder, and held out a P90. “Can you use this, doc?”

“Yes,” Radek said. He’d fired one four or five times in practice, Ronon had made sure of that since he’d been assigned to the gate team. He took it — it felt heavier — but focused on the controls a moment more, just long enough to erase his password and back out of the access screens. Sabine ducked out to join the others, keeping low.

Then there were shouts from the hall, machine gun fire and the heavy snap of the Wraith stunners, and he tucked the P90 awkwardly into firing position. He would have been better with the pistol, maybe, though he’d never really expected to have to use either one —

“Fall back!” That was Hector, he thought, and instinctively Radek stepped backward, into the shelter of one of the elaborate sculptures that protruded from the wall behind the control consoles. They’d argued, he and Rodney, about whether they were decorative or functional in some as-yet-unidentified but probably dangerous way, and he hoped he wasn’t about to have that question answered the hard way.

A body tumbled in the door, one of the Marines, and the sound of the P90s ceased abruptly. A stunner fired again, and Radek flattened himself into the shadows, wondering what the hell he was supposed to do now. He could hear footsteps, but didn’t dare look: two people, he thought, and then one set of footsteps retreated. Only one of them, he told himself, and eased carefully forward.

A figure in black was bent over the controls, familiar and not familiar, Rodney and not Rodney, the familiar high forehead and bony nose, the same set shoulders and the same quick hands, but all that made literally alien, snow-white hair and green-toned skin, deep sensor pits carved into his cheeks, the clever hands that moved so deftly on the controls now tipped with heavy black claws. He bared sharp teeth at some recalcitrant piece of code.

And that was not so very different from Rodney at the best of times, Radek thought, and lifted the P90. “Rodney,” he said. “Step away from the console.”

The white head whipped up, too fast, too sure, and the lips parted in a snarl.

“Keep quiet,” Radek said. “Quiet, or I will shoot.” Whether he would or not, he didn’t know, prayed he wouldn’t find out.

Rodney snarled again. “Are you completely stupid?” His voice was the same and different, the inflection, the pitch the same as it had always been, the timbre Wraith.

“Step back,” Radek said. “There are enough bullets in this clip that you will not regenerate.” If in fact he could. If he was truly Wraith. There was so much they didn’t know.

“And then the rest of my men will hear the shots, and come and kill you,” Rodney said. “That’s a brilliant plan!”

Nonetheless, he stepped away from the controls, moving away from the door. Radek took a step forward himself, not wanting to risk missing him even at this range. He was no longer completely in cover, had his back half to the door, but it didn’t seem to matter.

“Jesus, Rodney,” he said, and stumbled to a stop. What was there to say to this Wraith that looked like Rodney, that gave him Rodney’s furious glare from slitted pupils? “If you come with me — we can help you. Dr. Keller — Jennifer — she will take care of you — ”

“Please,” Rodney said. “This is a waste of time. I’ve been taken care of here before. Put the gun down, and I’m prepared to see that you’re not harmed.”

“And you are criticizing my tactics?” Radek snapped. Maybe he could make Rodney come with him, though that was being optimistic about the hordes of Wraith outside — but maybe he could use Rodney as a hostage? He saw Rodney’s eyes shift, turned a second too late, to take the stunner’s bolt full in the chest.

Quicksilver flinched as the stunner’s blast knocked the human backward, the weapon clattering from his hands.

*That was close,* Ember said, and slipped the stunner back into its holster.

*Yes, too close,* Quicksilver snapped. *You should have checked better in here.*

*And how was I to do that when you rushed in first?* Ember asked. *We hold the hall for now, and the transport chamber, but some of this group got away, and Greyblood reports that the Lanteans are regrouping.*

Ember’s eyes fixed on the body sprawled at the base of the sculpture. There were holes in the arm of his coat and across one hip, and he reached greedily for the human, dragging him into a more accessible position. A jolt of something remarkably like panic shot through Quicksilver.

*No — *

Ember glanced over his shoulder, frowning slightly. *I must feed*

*There’s no time,* Quicksilver said. *I need your help.*

Ember gave the human a last hungry look, but came obediently to his feet. *What must I do?*

*Watch this,* Quicksilver said, and waved at a screen. *Watch if it spikes — if it goes over this line. Why they didn’t give me a master of sciences physical — *

*Because none would agree to it,* Ember said. *And what do I do if it does?*

*Just tell me,* Quicksilver said. He frowned at the board, remembering the pattern: here, and here, and a code, and then here again, and another password —

With a soft click, the ZPM rose from its socket, glowing orange, wound with veins as dark as his own, shot here and there with shades of red and rusty green. He smiled, and stepped around the console, lifted it carefully from its socket. The light faded and died, and he felt a twinge of inappropriate sorrow. *All right. Where’s the case?*

*Here.*

Ember held it out, open to reveal the heavy padding, roughly shaped to fit the tapering cylinder. Quicksilver laid it in place and closed the case over it, cinching the clasps tight. That should protect the ZPM against almost anything, including direct machine gun fire —

*Quicksilver!* That was Wakeful, his tone urgent. *Time to go.*

*Coming,* Quicksilver answered, and together they started for the door.

John waved his team to a halt as they reached the transport chamber, not much liking the idea of what had to come next. They’d never make it down through the maze of corridors blocked by security doors, even if Rodney had left a single path through the maze as an alternate means of escape for himself. That meant this was their way down. The only problem was, the Wraith knew that, too.

It would be nice to be able to send a grenade down ahead of them. All they needed was someone who could hotwire the transport chamber to activate from outside without someone having to touch the map on its back wall. John was pretty sure he’d watched Rodney do that once, but all he could call up was a vivid memory of covering the corridor, saying “Hurry up, McKay,” while Rodney said “Believe me, no one is as committed to our survival here as me.”

It wasn’t going to get better the longer he thought about it. “Let’s do this,” he said, waiting until the airmen and Marines had flattened themselves against the sides of the transport chamber walls before he tagged the screen at the back of the chamber, whipping his P90 around toward the doors in the same movement.

Nothing happened. “Oh, come on,” he said.

“Maybe they shut it down,” one of the Marines volunteered.

“It’s showing as active, and so is the one near the ZPM chamber, but nothing’s happening.” Internal sensors were offline, but the transport chamber map was still obligingly showing him which transport chambers were functional. The maps were just glorified elevator maps, not part of the internal security system, and it looked like Rodney had overlooked shutting them down. Good, John thought; it wasn’t like they’d gotten a lot of other breaks.

The map was showing a transport chamber on the floor above the ZPM room. He nearly punched it, and hesitated, his fingers hovering over the map. He just didn’t buy it. Rodney would have wanted an easy escape route. He wouldn’t have shut down the nearest transport chamber, but he also wouldn’t have wanted security teams transporting in from all over the city.

“Look at that,” he said. “These two transport chambers way down below the ZPM level. “There’s nothing down there Rodney would want.”

“So?”

“So, I’m betting that to get to where we want to go, we have to take a detour. Watch yourselves.” He tapped one of the two transport chambers. Nothing happened, so he tapped the other, and was rewarded by the bright flash of the transporter activating. He swung the muzzle of his P90 up as the doors opened, but the long corridor was empty.

“Now what, sir?” one of the Marines said from behind him.

“Now, I’m betting that the other transport chamber on this level will take us to the one outside the ZPM room.”

“Unless this whole thing is just designed to waste our time,” a young airman said from his other side as they advanced.

“Unless it is,” John said, in a tone that he hoped would discourage further useless speculation on all the ways they could be screwed at the moment. “Trust me, I’m pretty sure I know how Rodney’s mind works.” He reached for his radio. “Radek, what’s your situation?” There was no answer. “Dr. Zelenka, come in.” There was nothing but silence. His hand clenched on the grip of his P90.

They were rounding a corner toward the second transport chamber when John heard the whine of the transport chamber activating. Too slow, he snarled at himself, at the same time that he was diving back behind the corner, trying to get the team behind what little cover there was.

The Wraith wouldn’t be expecting them here, or at least he hoped not, because the element of surprise was about their only advantage. If they came around the corner firing — he could see it all too clearly, rounding the corner already firing, Rodney’s head turning, his body jerking back as the P90 fire tore into him.

“Flashbang,” he mouthed, and someone pressed a stun grenade into his hand. He pulled the pin and tossed it, turning his head away into the crook of his arm, feeling the thunderclap through the soles of his feet and stabbing through his ears. He swung around the corner to see the Wraith staggering back, one of them stumbling to his knees and hopefully getting in the way of the others.

John fired at one of the drones and dodged bolts of blindly aimed stunner fire, marking his targets. Three males, a handful of drones, and there was Rodney, arm thrown over his eyes, holding the ZPM case. “Try to take the rest of them out!” John yelled.

Rodney swung his stunner around, apparently toward the sound of John’s voice, and John dodged again. The drones still seemed dazed, but the other male Wraith were recovering fast, too fast. One of them was firing purposely, though his eyes were streaming, and one of the Marines went down under stunner fire, the smartass airman dragging him back around the corner.

“Rodney!” John shouted. “Damn it, I will shoot you!”

Rodney snarled, baring teeth, his own eyes watering as well, though John thought he was starting to focus on his face. “Don’t you start!”

It sounded like Rodney, too much like Rodney as John aimed. He’d try a leg shot, but he remembered all too well that he hadn’t been able to drop Ford that way, and Rodney looked fully Wraith. If he had to shoot him in the chest…

“Hey, I know you,” Rodney said, squinting at him, and John hesitated. Maybe, just maybe, Rodney was snapping out of it.

“That’s right,” John said. “It’s me.”

“You killed my brother,” Rodney said. “You are going to be so sorry you did that.” He fired, and as John dodged the stunner blast, he saw that the drones were moving again, lunging around the corner toward him. Toward him in particular, apparently. Great. He backed up, firing, trying not to trip over anybody.

One of the drones grabbed the airman who was covering the downed Marine and shook him like a ragdoll, shoving him back against the wall with his hand clawing the man’s chest even as John was firing. Another Marine was down, the Wraith drones piling onto them, trying to force them back against the wall.

The young airman screamed, and John knew he wasn’t going to take the drone down in time. The other Marine still standing grabbed at the drone, pulling it back, and John shot it in the head.

“Sir!” the other airman yelled. The first of the Wraith had reached the transport chamber at the other end of the hall.

“Shoot them!” John yelled back.

“But Dr. McKay — ”

“That’s an order!” The man fired, but he didn’t have a clear shot. He hit one of the other male Wraith, who screamed and shoved Rodney into the transport chamber, throwing himself in after him. One of the males was down, unmoving. The other two made it into the transport chamber as John watched, the doors closing with two drones still on their feet in the hallway.

They went down under a hail of gunfire, and John turned, dropping to one knee beside the fallen airman. He looked like he was years dead, like something you’d find if you dug up a desert grave. Grieg, his name patch said, and John would probably still be thinking of him as that smartass when he had to write the letter home.

“Ah, Jesus,” the other airman said, going to his knees beside Grieg. He’d probably never seen this before. John had seen it plenty of times, enough that his eyes didn’t linger on the man’s face.

“Fall back, into the transport chamber.” The stunned Marine was staggering to his feet, the other Marine helping him up. John reached for his radio as he moved. “Lorne, come in,” he said. “We’ve got a problem.”

“You mean another one?” Lorne said. He sounded harried, which from Lorne suggested they still had a hell of a fight on their hands up there.

“Rodney just got past us with the ZPM,” he said. “I’m guessing he’s on his way back up to the Stargate.”

“We’ve just taken back the control room,” Lorne said. “We’re trying to get someone up here who can get back into the computer — ”

“Zelenka’s not responding to his radio,” John said. “Just don’t let Rodney get to the gate. I’m on my way back up.”

“Copy that,” Lorne said, tightly, and John hit the button and let everything dissolve in the transporter’s light.

“Everybody down there in the gateroom, we have incoming Wraith in the transport chamber,” Lorne said over the intercom down to the gateroom. “They’ve got the ZPM and Dr. McKay. You are authorized to use whatever force is necessary to — ”

There was a rattle of gunfire and then Colonel Sheppard’s voice yelling “Jesus, hold your fire!”

That meant Rodney hadn’t transported to the chamber on the gateroom level. All right, if he’d heard that they’d taken back the gateroom, that made sense, but going anywhere else wouldn’t get him out of the city —

“The jumper bay,” Lorne said. “We need a security team up to the jumper bay!” He was already moving for the stairs, activating his radio as he ran. “If anybody can get find a way to get back into the computer and keep them from dialing out, now would be a really good time.”

He was the first one up to the jumper bay, although he could hear the sound of pounding feet behind him. He saw them across the bay coming out of the transport chamber, and ducked behind one of the jumpers that was partly disassembled for repair. He didn’t have a good shot, and he didn’t want to draw their fire for no purpose. If he could get close enough to shoot at the ZPM case that he could see Rodney carrying, that ought to at least provide a distraction.

“Lorne, this is Sheppard,” Sheppard said over the radio. “I’ve got teams on their way up to you now — ”

“That would be nice,” Lorne said.

“I’m right behind them. See if you can get one of the jumpers in the air, try and cut them off.”

He started moving toward one of the jumpers, but that didn’t mean he liked the idea. “Sir, if we start fighting it out right above the gateroom — ”

“I know,” Sheppard said. “But we can’t let them take the ZPM.”

There were Marines coming up behind him, now, and two of the male Wraith turned at the sound, firing stunner bolts toward them. A couple of drones started running toward the Marine team, taking heavy fire but being effectively distracting. Lorne kept his eyes on Rodney.

He aimed for the ZPM case, and fired a tight burst. The case jerked in Rodney’s hands, sparks flying, but whatever they’d done to Rodney must have given him Wraith strength; he held onto the case, clutching it to his chest with one arm as he punched at the door controls of the jumper.

One of the male Wraith was behind Rodney now, in the way, and Lorne shot him. He hissed, staggering back, but the jumper door was opening, and Rodney and the male Wraith piled inside. One of the Wraith drones was down, the other one staggering to one knee.

None of them were looking at him. He made a dash out from cover toward the nearest jumper, diving in as the door opened. He reached for the controls and started powering up. All he needed was a couple of seconds for the shields and inertial dampeners to kick in and they just might be in business.

He didn’t get them. He caught the movement out of the corner of his eye at the same time that the jumper sounded a warning, both audible and seemingly shrieking directly into his brain: collision alert.

He saw the other jumper bearing down on him, felt the impact, and then the second impact as the jumper smashed back into the one behind it. There was no pain, just a metallic crashing noise that seemed to go on for a very long time as the world around him went black.

John was on his way up from the control room to the gateroom, taking the stairs two at a time, when someone called from behind him, “The incoming wormhole’s cutting off!”

He had a moment’s hope that meant they’d gotten the computers back before he heard the heavy grind of the gate dialing. It was followed by an echoing crash from above their heads.

He took the rest of the stairs at a dead run, skidding out into the jumper bay to see one of the jumpers hovering above the door down into the gateroom, which was already sliding open. Another jumper had clearly skidded halfway across the gateroom floor; it was on its side, and looked like it had taken some pretty heavy damage.

John made a dash for one of the other jumpers, but he knew there was no time. He powered it up anyway, urging it under its breath to power up faster — come on, baby, hurry — and was still working on getting weapons initialized as the guidance system kicked in, sweeping it out toward the jumper bay door and down into the gateroom.

The other jumper was already sliding through the event horizon, and as the weapons finally came online, it disappeared through, the wormhole shimmering for another few heartbeats before it vanished.

John let the jumper lower to the gateroom floor and climbed out. The gateroom suddenly seemed very quiet. “Major Lorne, what’s your status?”

It took a moment for anyone to respond. “Lorne’s down,” someone said over the radio. “We’re trying to get a medical team up here.”

“Copy that,” he said. He waved the Marines in the gateroom who were still on their feet into position to guard the gate. He could see too many people down, stunned or worse, and they must have more casualties in the rest of the city.

Up in the control room, Salawi was just sliding back behind her console. She looked up when he came up the stairs. “They said this level was clear, so I thought I should — ”

“You thought right,” John said. “Can we dial out?”

She glanced at her screen. “I think so,” she said. “The main gate controls were never locked out.”

“Dial the alpha site, now,” he said. “And when the wormhole goes down in thirty-eight minutes, dial it again unless you hear otherwise. I don’t want anyone dialing in while we don’t have control of the security system.” He reached for his radio. “Dr. Zelenka, this is Colonel Sheppard. Please respond.”

He wasn’t really hoping for a response from Zelenka, and was caught short in surprise when he got one.

“I am here,” Radek said shakily. “They have taken the ZPM, I am sorry — ”

“Don’t be,” John said. “Just see if you can get us full computer access back.”

“I am already working on it,” Radek said. “I have been able to patch into the computer systems here, and I think I may have something.”

“We need those security doors down,” John said. “I’ve got a lot of men down, and Dr. Keller says she’s stuck on the level her quarters are on, along with most of her staff.”

“I am working as fast as I can,” Radek said. “You do not have to inspire me to action by explaining how dire is the emergency. It will not really help me work.”

“Right,” John said. “Security teams, report in. We may still have some Wraith in the city, and internal sensors are still down. I’m going to see if I can get Teyla to give us some idea whether we still have company, but until then, watch yourselves.” He leaned against the wall, adrenaline-fueled energy beginning to ebb. “Teyla, what’s your status?”

“I am still on a residential level,” she said, the frustration in her voice nearly crackling over the radio. “We are safe, but cut off here. John, what is happening?”

“Rodney took the ZPM,” John said. “We’re in a lot of trouble.”