Halcyon

Chapter Twelve

Beckett blinked. "Well. It's not every day of your life that you get to see a hill take off and fly away."

"How long must've that ship been down here to get grown over like that?" demanded Mason. "Two hundred years? Five hundred? More?" He fixed Lady Erony with a hard, angry stare, daring her to answer him.

"The vessel has been here on our lands since before the Wars of Unification. I was never permitted to visit it." Her words caught in her throat. The noblewoman was like everyone else on the gyro-flyer, dwarfed by the horror of the reborn Hive Ship.

Ronon gave the Wraith vessel one last look and then ran his hands over his tunic, checking his gear. The drifting alien hulk hung like a storm front, moving against the wind, the throbbing hum of the gravity drives gradually increasing in pitch. The craft was elderly and still shaking off the throes of sleep, he reasoned, but it would not take long for the Hive Ship's systems to return to full capacity. Once that happened, it would outpace this flying machine in seconds, rise to orbit and be free to do whatever Scar commanded. Contact other Hive Fleets, launch bombardments or flights of Darts. The prospect chilled him, even if on some level Dex's sense of justice told him the Haleyons were fully deserving of such a fate.

There wasn't time to touch down and get to the Puddle Jumper; and even if he did, he only had the doctor to fly the craft for him. No. It was up to him to stop this.

Ronon pulled his way up the cabin to the cockpit hatch and summoned the flyer pilot's attention. "You. Get us closer."

The aviator's jaw dropped open. "Closer? Are you mad?"

The Satedan made a show of checking the power cell on his particle magnum. "Take us over the dorsal hull, close to the spinal ridge. Hurry, before the autonomic cannons wake up and start shooting."

The pilot nodded woodenly and pushed the steering yoke forward. The flyer pitched and the leviathan starship loomed to fill the glass canopy.

Ronon met Mason at the main hatch. "What do you think you're up to, son?" snapped the soldier. "I'm the ranking-"

"Get out of my way." Dex yanked on a control lever and the steel hatch yawned open, letting wind and the unearthly drone of the Hive Ship's engines fill the cabin. He pulled two keen battle daggers from a concealed holster.

"You're gonna kill yourself," Mason told him.

"There's plenty of Wraith who will do that for me." Outside of the hatch, he saw the bony hull of the Wraith ship come into view as the flyer drifted into near-collision distance. He threw a quick look at Beckett. "Keep your distance from the ship. I'm going inside."

"And just how are you going to do that?"

Ronon felt the kick of adrenaline rush into him and he couldn't stop the flicker of a grin as he stepped up. "Watch."

The knives raised, Dex threw himself out of the gyro-flyer and into the bitter air, the tree tops fluttering a thousand feet below.

"We are airborne." At first Teyla had thought the tremors passing through the Hive Ship were something else, perhaps an attack of some kind. She half-hoped that were the case, wishing that the Halcyons had seen sense and brought their air-battleships to smash the dormant vessel into wreckage; but the shift in gravity told her otherwise, as the decking seemed to become softer beneath her feet, the g-force lessening as the mammoth vessel discarded its cover. The corridors of the Wraith craft were taking on a different hue, the dead and ashen white of fleshy processing conduits along the walls changing to a cold blue-green. They pulsed like veins as life returned to the alien ship.

Scar's retinue of Wraiths had become muted ever since they boarded the hive. Teyla saw some of them sniffing at the walls or licking at scent-traces that only they could detect. The anxiety the aliens had demonstrated before the dolmen and inside the Jumper was completely gone. These beings were in their own element now, moment by moment regaining the poise that their leader demonstrated. She had no doubt that in days, perhaps even hours, the Wraith once tormented and made feral by the Ancient device would become their former selves; and when that happened she pitied the people of Halcyon. The Wraith were frightening enough when they preyed upon you just to fulfill their needs for sustenance; Teyla shuddered beneath her choke collar as she contemplated of the depths of cruelty they would show to a people who had made them slaves. She swallowed, trying to soothe her bruised throat. Breathing was difficult, even with the heavy Hound collar's cogs in a relaxed mode. "Ali," she gasped. "Gods protect me…"

Scar heard her whisper and cocked his head. "Your deities will not hear you in this place, Tey-lah. Of that, you must have no doubt." He sniffed the air. "Only my wishes will be answered today."

Teyla had never considered that Wraiths might have gods of their own. What kind of creator would they worship? she wondered; but it was more likely that Scar was simply mocking her. She was reduced to this, a pet for her most hated foe's amusement. Teyla caught the spark of revulsion that thought kindled inside her and held on to it, letting it warm her.

A warning yowl from one of the other Wraith brought them all to a halt. The alien dropped to a crouch and lapped at the chilly air, glancing back over its shoulder with a wary grimace. Scar became very still, and his cohorts followed suit. "Listen," he murmured, "can you hear them? Can you feel them, Teylah?"

She didn't want to. She did not want to acknowledge the swarming presence in the corners of her mind, the insect crawl of alien thought scratching at the insides of her skull; but they were there, the fierce colors of other Wraith psyches pushing in on her, tight and constricting. They were so very close now, in the walls, the floor, crowding out the sound of her heartbeat.

Man-shapes moved at the far end of the corridor, things that loped and hissed shifting away from bone alcoves in the walls. Some wore scraps of armor, some even carried weapons aglow with lethal power.

Scar made cracking, spitting sounds that were returned by the newcomers. Her heart pounding against the inside of her ribs, Teyla shrank back against a skeletal pillar as the newly awakened Wraiths came to walk among their brethren. Scar moved close to a female with blood-red hair that came to her knees. In the sallow glow of the corridor's bioluminescence, she could pick out black curves and loops of tribal tattoos on the female's bare shoulders. Scar had the same patterns about his neck and cheeks.

The female caught sight of Teyla and her nostrils flared. She jerked and spat, angry and hungry at the sight of a live human. The Athosian woman tensed, ready to fight off the Wraith, but Scar made a grumbling sound and the female demurred, backing off. One of the female's group presented its weapon to Scar, cementing his place as the alpha in the newly enlarged pack. Teyla recognized the shape of a Wraith stunner rifle, the long gun fat and rounded like a huge silver maggot, the emerald glow of energy cells along its flanks and the wicked barb at the end. Scar accepted it and tugged on the cable leash connected to her collar. Teyla moved with them as the pack pressed deeper into the ship.

It was difficult to do anything other than put one foot in front of the other, hard for her to keep herself held strongly in the grip of her own will. From all sides, the boiling invisible hate of the Wraiths pressed down on her. Teyla knew that with one single moment of weakness from her, the pressure would overwhelm her mind with raw, inchoate fear.

There was a moment when Ronon thought he was going to miss it; but then the wind caught him and the Satedan saw the glistening flank of the Hive Ship there in front of him. He struck hard and found no purchase on the slippery fuselage. The curved hull plates were broad and interlocked, lapping over one another in the same fashion as the carapace of an armored beetle. Instantly he was sliding away, down toward the lip of the fuselage and the sheer drop into the Halcyon woodlands. Ronon lashed out with the battle daggers with all his might and felt the blade tips bite into the hull. Bone squealed at the impact points and threatened to tear the knives from his hands, but he hung on grimly, snarling with effort. The wind pulled at him, whipping his hair about his face. His slide slowed and he felt air beneath his feet; Dex was almost off the edge of the drifting Hive Ship.

With a savage grunt of effort, Ronon used the daggers as pitons, advancing up and away from the brink in a march of cutting wounds across the organic hull. He knew from past experience that Wraith craft were sheathed not with rigid and inflexible matter, but with fleshy material that could bend and deform under impacts from micrometeorites or ballistic weapons. He found a shallow duct and scrambled into it, breathing hard. The wind was rushing over the hull now, as the Hive Ship began to pick up speed. Ronon cast around and saw the gyro-flyer, below and to the starboard side, the rotor blades chopping through the air as it raced to keep up.

Sheathing the daggers, Dex swallowed down his tense adrenalin aftershock and fired his pistol point-blank into the skeletal duct. Bone and cartilage shattered around the intake, and almost as quickly a thick gel began to ooze over the new wound, hardening to scab it closed. Ronon drew his short sword, took a deep breath, and plunged himself into the cut, forcing his way through the exterior hull.

Sheppard found himself wishing for a ball of string or a piece of chalk. "A bag of bread crumbs, even," he said to the air, "or better yet, a deck plan." He had a pack of chemical glow-sticks, but nowhere near enough that he would have been able to mark the path. At what seemed like the hundredth T-junction he'd passed in the past ten minutes, the colonel halted and flashed the P90's torch down the branching corridors. He found himself thinking of the adventure games he used to play as a kid on his cousin's computer. "You are in a maze of tunnels, all alike," he grimaced. "Huh. I always liked first-person shooters better, anyhow."

In answer, a pulse of sound echoed down the corridor to his right, followed by a faint crash of impact noise. It sounded suspiciously like gunfire. "I was just kidding," added Sheppard, training his weapon. The sounds repeated, this time in rapid succession. The colonel strained to hear. He couldn't be sure, but one of the noises sounded a lot like a Wraith blaster, and the other some kind of energy weapon.

It came again, and with it an angry snarl. An angry human snarl.

"Ronon?" Sheppard flicked the P90's fire select switch to fully automatic and set off at a swift pace, homing in on the sounds of the firefight.

The passageway opened out into an inverted bone bowl, a strange colonnade where other corridors fed away like threads from the center of a web. There were glistening lens-screens on some of the walls and Scar moved to them, manipulating controls with quick, deft motions. Liquid sounds came from some of the doorways as irises made from leaves of razor-edged chitin worked shut, closing off avenues of approach behind them. Teyla watched Scar working the controls. That he knew this ship intimately was obvious, and she had no doubt he had been fully aware of how the vessel would be affected by the destruction of the dolmen. He was waiting, she realized, biding his time out in that enclosure, looking for the tools he needed to reanimate his ship, his crew. And Daus gave them to him without knowing it. He gave him us. The cruel irony of it was heavy in her chest. The arrival of the Atlanteans had merely allowed the Wraith commander to advance his plans, instead of waiting for the return of his kindred. Teyla tried to imagine the depths of hate it would take to live for so long, to hold out against the animal madness broadcast by the dolmen. There could be no other feeling inside that being but the need for revenge.

Scar noticed Teyla watching him and paused. "Speak," he told her.

"Where are you taking me?"

He ran a finger over a spot on the screen. "To my rightful place. To my throne," Scar smiled, the word entertaining him. "These prey rule their world through force of arms, and so by that measure I will soon be the new Lord Magnate of Halcyon." He clicked with soft laughter, but beneath the studied amusement was a dark streak of lethal antipathy, surfacing in his eyes. "I'll take the title just before I raze this planet to ashes."

Teyla saw a glimmer of imagery flash past on the screen, a display of the Hive Ship's internal spaces. Green glows surrounded a section several compartments away, nestled in the dense core of the vessel's meat. She felt an abrupt stab of understanding. They were moving toward the heart of the Hive Ship, toward what could only be the vessel's command center.

A pattern of blinking dots overlaid itself across the image and Scar gave an annoyed growl. He waved his hand over the console and it went dark. He spat out more commands in the Wraith language, and suddenly the pack were melting away, falling into shadowed corners or pressing themselves into alcoves where the corridor's gloomy illumination did not fall. In moments, it was almost as if Teyla and Scar were the only two in the room. She sensed their anticipation, stinging at her mind as the charged air before a thunderstorm might prickle her bare skin.

Now there were new sounds filtering up through the corridors that remained open to the chamber. Voices and footsteps, the sound of heavy boots against the deck plates. She looked at Scar and with theatrical indolence, the Wraith placed a hand to his lips in a gesture of silence.

The moment snapped and Teyla realized that the alien was laying an ambush for whomever it was that approached them. She bolted forward, opening her mouth to cry out, and the choke collar reacted instantly. The rings around her neck contracted to half their diameter, turning her shout into a wordless yap of noise, no more human than the bark of a graywolf. Furious, Teyla spun about, digging her fingers into the flesh of her throat, her nails scratching at her tawny skin as she pulled at the strangling necklet. Every noise she tried to make was incoherent, and the agony of the device was terrible.

Her vision fogged. Scar was gone, hidden away like his kindred, leaving Teyla wheezing like an elderly woman. She sagged against the curved wall as the first of the men came into the circular room. They had gas lanterns that popped and fizzed in the half-light.

"There!" A voice cried out and yellow glows hovered toward her. "Don't fire, she's not one of them…"

Another person spoke, a stiff voice used to wielding authority and being obeyed. "What in wound's sake is going on here? Get her over here."

Teyla held up her hands to warn them off, shaking her head and mouthing `No,' over and over. She backed away but they followed her in, unaware.

"It's all right, girl, we won't hurt you," said the first voice, and now she could make out the silhouettes of Halcyon riflemen, their high hats, brocade coats and their long-lance rifles.

"Stay away," she forced the words to her lips but the sound that emerged was a rattling hiss; and then it was too late to stop it.

Shapes moved in the deep shade of the chamber, fast and deadly. Men cried out and screamed. Teyla dropped to the floor as gunshots rang out, ripping swarms of needle-rounds cutting past her and white sheens of stunner fire answering them back. Blood glistened as a lantern was tossed into the air, the pool of yellow light whipping around and catching frozen images of the Wraith attack before it shattered against the deck. A heavy form crumpled into a heap close to her and she came face to face with a dead man, the papery skin of his cheeks hollow against the bones of his skull. The Wraith had fallen on the trooper in an instant, a dozen of them ripping the years from his life before his body could hit the ground.

He had something held in the death-grip of his fingers; a curved fighting knife with a serrated edge. Blocking out the terrible melee around her, Teyla pushed forward and grabbed the weapon, taking it and folding it to her chest. Hope flared inside her. If she could get away while they were still feeding, perhaps the blade might be enough to work open the collar's locks.

She came up into a crouch, tensing her muscles for flight, as the last of the riflemen perished with a scream, his lantern dying with him. Too late. Bodies lay about the chamber, spindly with sudden rigor.

The Wraith chittered with post-kill excitement, but Scar was not among them. He crossed to Teyla and found the end of the steel leash where it trailed upon the floor. "What do you have, Tey-lah?" he demanded, holding out his hand. "Show me." Scar manipulated the leash's control and the collar relaxed again.

The Athosian woman spat out acidic bile and shot him a murderous stare. "You used me! You left me there to distract them! You made me your bait!"

"Give it to me," he said, ignoring her fury.

Teyla knew instantly that if she did not give him something, Scar would take it by force, perhaps even break a limb or draw off a few years of her life as punishment. In the same moment, she hated herself for falling into the trap of thinking like a slave, letting fear of the Wraith's reprimand rule her before he had even committed it. She held tight to herself, hands in the folds of her torn and dirty jacket, shivering with anger and near panic.

"Tey-lah," Scar warned, reaching for her.

She thrust out her hand and showed him the object there. The Wraith allowed himself a smile and took it, turning it over in his grip. Teyla looked away, and slowly drew herself back up.

"A transmitter unit." Scar weighed the Atlantis-issue radio in his hand, studying it. With a long-nailed thumb he toyed with the dials. "You were attempting to call your friends for help, yes?" He absently pocketed the compact walkie-talkie. "How quickly you forget, my little Hound. Remember what I told you; only my wishes will be answered today."

Teyla did her best to look contrite and afraid of him. It wasn't difficult to do, the leering face with its maw of jagged fangs there before her and a dozen others all the same around it, all ready to rip her to shreds; but she had the knife now, hidden and ready. Her fingers curved around it, the metal hilt solid in her grip. There would be a moment, very soon, when she would use it exactly as the dead soldier had intended to.

Sheppard emerged from a low tunnel on to a catwalk several meters up, running parallel to a long corridor overlooking a dozen clawed cradles, each one grasping a dormant Dart fighter and heavy with webs from a million generations of spiders. Observation gallery, he decided. When the Hive Ship was fully active, anyone standing down there would be able to direct the launches of multiple Dart flights, something akin to the catapult officer on a naval aircraft carrier. Right now though, the corridor was alight with pulses of deadly energy as a group of armored Wraith enforcers traded fire with a single figure at the far end of the gallery. From his high vantage point, the colonel saw their target moving and firing, and recognized the tall warrior instantly. He went through a bunch of emotions in quick succession; pleased to see that Ronon Dex was still alive; confused about how it was the Satedan had got on board the Hive Ship; and then worried by the overwhelming enemy opposition that Dex was trying to hold off.

Sheppard sighted down the barrel of his P90 and looked for a good angle to give Ronon some covering fire. He had to make it count. The moment he squeezed the trigger, he'd lose the element of surprise. The colonel had to get as many of those Wraiths in the kill zone as possible. "If I had a SAW, I'd be able to take them all in one burst," he said under his breath; but they had left the heavy M249 support weapons back on Atlantis. Sheppard waited, the seconds ticking by, anticipating the moment for the perfect shot. From up here, the whole confrontation was visible, and he had his choice of targets.

There was a noise behind him. The same noise as before, the same click of Wraith feet on Wraith decks, the faintest rasp of a hungry predator's breath as it closed in for the kill. One of the aliens had clearly had the same idea as Sheppard, slipping away from the firefight to clamber up here and take out Ronon from the catwalk. This time, however, John didn't have a shouted call over the radio to warn him. The Wraith slammed into him with all the force of a linebacker, the impact making the bone gantry clatter and rock from side to side. The alien's body check knocked Sheppard's gun from his grip and it swung away from him like a pendulum, still connected to his gear vest by a lanyard, although at this moment it might as well have been on Mars. They traded hard and rapid blows, Wraith and human punching at places where nerve bundles and soft tissues could be damaged. The colonel fell into the combat training he'd learnt from Teyla, remembering the Athosian two-strike combo that always hurt like hell whenever the woman used it on him.

The Wraith lashed out at him with its claws, screeching at him from a frenzied face framed by a storm of stringy white hair. The razor-tipped nails raked over his vest, ripping open pockets and spilling their contents, tearing a rent in his blue jacket. That's two of them I've ruined on this mission. He feinted and threw another punch, but the Wraith anticipated and hit him hard in the head. John stumbled and fell among the mess of ration packs, field dressings and other gear on the catwalk. By now the two fighters were attracting fire from the other Wraith down in the gallery, streaks of white lightning spitting past them.

By sheer reflex, he grabbed at a black plastic cylinder near his hand and smashed it into the face of the alien as it came down to feed on him. The ferocity of the blow staggered the Wraith back a step and Sheppard hit him again, suddenly aware of what he was holding in his grip. The colonel jammed the object into the folds of the Wraith's body armor and snatched back his hand, clutching a metal pull-ring. He brought his palms up to his face and spun away just as the flash-bang grenade went off.

An ululating scream tore from the lips of the Wraith as the burning phosphorus elements and explosive charge burnt into its chest. Flash-bangs were supposed to be an indirect, nonlethal weapon; but stuffed down a guy's shirt it would still do a horrific amount of burn damage. Dazzled by the glare from the grenade, the Wraith staggered over the lip of the catwalk and fell into the midst of its comrades.

Sheppard shook off the ringing in his ears to see Ronon race out from behind his cover, taking advantage of the mayhem. John grabbed his dangling P90 and after a moment of applied lethality, the two men had the gallery to themselves. Ronon blew out a breath and saluted Sheppard with his short sword. "Messy," he called out, with a hint of gallows humor, nodding at the Wraiths.

John hauled himself over the edge of the catwalk and halfclimbed, half-slid down one of the bone support stanchions. "I prefer to think of it as improvised." Sheppard tried to force his usual smile to the surface but it was hard to find. This day had turned into one long and painful ordeal, and he still couldn't be sure if there was an end in sight. He glanced at Dex and for the first time Sheppard saw that the Satedan was streaked with dark blood. "Whoa, Ronon! You're hit, you're bleeding, man!"

The ex-soldier shrugged. "It's not mine."

"Then whose blood is it?"

He nodded at the walls. "The ship's. I cut my way in. It got a little…"

"Messy?" offered Sheppard.

"Yeah. You find Teyla or McKay?"

John shook his head. "Not yet. But they gotta be on board. There's nowhere else on this planet they could be." He quickly reloaded the P90. "I'm thinking we need to find the control center for this tub and bring it to heel, if Lord Daus's boys haven't already snafu'ed the whole damn thing."

Dex nodded. "Scar will do the same. I was on my way there when I got pinned down."

"You know where to go?"

He pointed. "Wraith held me on board one of these ships for weeks after Sateda fell. I got away from them a couple of times. I have an idea about the layout."

Sheppard gestured with his gun. "Great, you can play tour guide — "

A rasping crackle of static from his radio cut him off in mid-speech. "Colonel Sheppard? Ronon? I hope you can hear this…"

"Beckett?" John toggled the mike. "Carson, we read you, what's your situation, over?"

"My situation?" Beckett repeated into his headset. "Never mind me, what about you? We thought you were dead in there!"

"Doctor," Sheppard said firmly, "are you all right? Is the medical team safe?"

Carson glanced up at Erony's worried expression in the seat across from his inside the flyer cabin. She was gripping another walkie-talkie, listening in, her knuckles white around the radio. "Aye, I think so. Corporal Clarke's back in the city. I'm here with Mason and Lady Erony."

"Where the hell is `here', Carson? You were told to stay in the capital!"

"Ah, well. We came out looking for you in the lass's flyer. We found Ronon… Although he's since got another lift… We're going to head back and pick up the Jumper where you left it."

Beckett heard the exasperation in the colonel's tone. "Listen to me, if you're anywhere near this Hive Ship, you have to back off right now! We don't know who's in charge of this thing, and you could get your asses shot out of the sky"

The doctor craned his neck to peer through the flyer's porthole. "That's just it, John, we can't keep up with it!" The Wraith craft was now the size of a dollar coin, the beetle-like shape no different from a garden insect clinging to the outside of the window. With every passing moment it grew smaller as it gained altitude. "The Hive Ship is picking up speed and climbing. It's heading for orbit."

In the nexus chamber, Daus's rifleman stared at the radio in his hand in stunned silence as Sheppard and Beckett's conversation went back and forth. McKay made a sour face. "Thank you, Carson," he said to the air, knowing full well that the doctor wouldn't be able to hear him, "thank you for confirming the completely obvious level of trouble we are now in." Before him, the control center's eye-like view ports showed nothing but blue sky, the color deepening toward dark magenta with every passing second. Consoles all across the chamber that had been dark and dormant were now alive with color, alien displays casting strange light over the fearful faces of the Halcyon scientists.

"The Lieutenant Colonel and the Runner," said Vekken, "they are on board this vessel."

"It matters not!" snapped the Magnate, jabbing a finger at the air. "The Wraith will kill them. Our survival is the issue here. Without me, Halcyon will be lost, rudderless!" He glared at Rodney, the light of mad fury in his watery eyes. "I order you to stop this ship! Do it now!"

McKay threw up his hands. "Make up your mind! The hibernation systems or the flight brain, I can't work on both at the same time!"

"Who is controlling this craft?" roared Daus. "Is this your doing? Have you made this happen, outworlder?" He advanced menacingly.

Rodney blanched, the memory of Kelfer's murder still very fresh in his mind. "As far as I can ascertain, these ships are autonomic," he managed, "they're like trained animals. Give them a command, they execute it. Only a Wraith can make a Hive Ship obey."

"Scar!" Daus spat out the word like a curse. "He did this."

And like the secret name of a demon conjuring the very beast it described, the next voice they heard was the rasping purr of the Wraith commander.

The Wraith played with the radio, caressing it and examining the device at eye level, in the way that an artisan might appraise a gemstone for flaws. Scar had quickly deduced the functioning of the communicator. "Human," he husked, a vein of anger audible under the words. "You prove more resilient than I expected."

Teyla smiled coldly at the sneer in Sheppard's reply, inwardly elated that her friends were still alive. "You know, for a superior kinda Wraith, you're not as smart as you like folks to think."

"I killed you," growled the alien.

"Beg to differ with you, eyeball. That's what happens when you mess with weapons you don't understand," the colonel retorted. "Why don't you tell us where you are? We'd be happy to swing by and show you how they're supposed to work."

With an expression of loathing on his face, Scar reached into his tunic and removed the Beretta pistol he had taken from Teyla, holding it as if the gun filled him with disgust, as if it had somehow betrayed him. With an angry flick of his wrist he tossed it away, over the edge of the walkway where they stood. It clattered away into the darkness below. "I will not make that mistake again,"

"Too late for that. We've got explosive charges planted all over this ship. One command from me and ka-boom. Game over. You're finished."

A cruel smile appeared on Scar's face. "A lie. If you had the power to destroy this vessel, you would have done so before now. You are not like the natives, you have no desire to keep it intact, like some wretched breedery." He threw a wicked glance at Teyla and kept speaking. "Let me tell you how this will end, prey. Once we achieve orbital parity, my ship's guns will carve Halcyon's settlements into rubble. I will sow panic and fear in the prey that swarm on this world. Calls have already been sent, Hive Fleets are already on their way. My kindred are coming to Halcyon, of that you may be certain. When they arrive here, I will lead them in a culling so brutal, so total, that it will become legendary in the annals of the Wraith. We will harvest everything that lives on this world, spare nothing but one single survivor…" He chuckled, and the sound was chilling. "Yes. I will spare the woman Tey-lah, so that when your species see her broken by the horrors she has witnessed, they will know that the dominion of the Wraith is total."

When Sheppard replied, his words were curt and clipped. "Atlantis team, switch to alternate channel delta. Scarface can talk to himself for a while."

The Wraith commander gave a guttural laugh and turned back to face the Athosian; he was quite unprepared for her to spring at him and bury a curved dagger in his chest.

"Delta!" Rodney shouted. "I know that one!" Without thinking, he snatched at the radio in the rifleman's hands and twisted the frequency dial to the right setting. "Sheppard!" he called. "It's me, I'm alive! I'm here, on the control deck! I think we can-

The sudden impact came from nowhere and without any apparent intervening movement McKay found himself sprawled on the floor, clutching at his shoulder. The radio spun away, out of his reach.

"Do not dare to speak without my permission!" Daus raged, towering over him with his fists balled. His face was flushed with color. "I warned you!"

He could hear Sheppard calling out to him, but the thudding of his pulse in his ears made McKay giddy. "They can help us! I can't do this alone!"

"Are you as much a liar as you are a coward?" thundered the Magnate.

"I'm not a coward!" Rodney retorted. "I just have a heightened level of self-preservation!"

"You told my daughter you were the font of knowledge regarding the Wraith," he continued, "but you are not! You pathetic weakling! I would have killed you out of hand had I known how useless you are, instead of bringing you here!"

McKay felt sick inside. "You brought me here… Because of Erony?"

The rifleman's knife went into Scar's torso, through the ragged leather jerkin he wore, into corpse-colored flesh to the jeweled hilt. Oily blood flowed as the Wraith howled and beat at Teyla. Scar had released the control leash for her collar, and was clawing at her face with both hands, frantic as he tried to force her away.

The Athosian woman had her grip on the blade and she worked, trying to turn it. Wraith were incredibly resilient, their cellular structure and monstrous physiology capable of repairing wounds that would be instantly fatal to a human. A cut like this one would be only a memory in a day or so, unless she could render so much damage that Scar's body would not be able to save him. Blaster fire, decapitation, a salvo of hollow point bullets-all these things would have finished Scar off in an instant, but Teyla Emmagan had only the tools at hand to work with.

She tried to let herself slip into a cool, steady battle-mind state, a point of focus without anger or fury; but her years of training failed her. She had too much rage for this creature, a towering hate built from his cruelty to her and the brutality he had shown to those riflemen, to John and Ronon, to poor Bishop. Teyla realized that she did not just want Scar to die. She wanted to make him suffer first.

That chink in her psyche was enough, and Scar fought back with rage of his own, striking her mentally even as he clawed at her flesh.

Other hands grabbed at her, tore her away from him. Teyla went wild, turning and grabbing the neck of one Wraith under her arm, twisting it until it broke. She let the corpse fall and flew at the next pale-faced alien, her hands finding flesh to gouge. The thick spike of a stunner came at her and Teyla sank her fist into the owner's sternum, hearing ribs snap. She disarmed him with a crippling kick to the knee and spun the Wraith rifle about, using the spike to impale the alien to the deck.

Fingers flicked at Teyla's auburn hair and she felt a wave of pain as an unseen attacker dragged her backward with a savage jerk. She stumbled and her footing fled, the deck rising up to meet her. The woman cried out with the impact, the metal tore of the choke collar vibrating where it hit the ground.

Teyla spat out blood and tried to right herself. A heavy boot pressed into her chest and held her down there. Through a haze of agony she saw Scar hunched over her, the dagger still in his chest, his tunic dark with alien fluids.

"Bad little Hound," he said thickly, pain rattling his words. "I… I am disappointed in you. I thought we had…. An under standing."

Scar gurgled with distress as he used one hand to ease the curved knife out of his chest. He let it drop to the floor with a clatter. Teyla bared her teeth in a fierce grin. She had injured the Wraith severely, if not enough to kill him.

"You are no more use to me. Your purpose is served." Scar threw a nod to one of the other Wraiths, and the alien disconnected the steel leash from the choke collar. Without a controller to govern it, the collar's mechanism slowly began to tighten, the cogs and cables inside it ticking like clockwork.

Once again, Teyla felt the pain biting into her, the bruised flesh of her throat giving under the implacable metal device. She forced air into her lungs, filling them before the collar grew too tight.

The Wraith left her there to die. Scar glanced over his shoulder as he walked away. "It will not be quick," he smiled, his teeth discolored with blood.

Rodney gaped, for once almost lost for words. Erony… He had thought that they had, well, something. The beginnings of a friendship, maybe, a moment or two of shared interest in things bigger than Halcyon's petty wars and games of empire. He felt foolish. You're just some guy from another planet, McKay, said a voice in his head, did you think you were going to bowl over some alien princess with your rapier wit and brilliant intellect? Of course she was going to be loyal to her homeworld first. Of course she would!

"Erony told you about me?"

Daus's eyes flared with annoyance. "She was quite impressed with you, Doctor. `He can help us', she said. `He is a good man'." The Magnate spat. "Such pitiful sentiment! To think, my own daughter would have the temerity to suggest that Halcyon's supreme ruler place himself in the debt of another?"

Perversely, McKay felt a surge of gladness. "Then… You're saying she didn't tell you to kidnap me?"

If anything, it seemed that every word Rodney spoke made Daus even angrier than before. "Of course not! It is my greatest disappointment. Erony is weak, you fool, weak like her mother. So beautiful and perfect, so sharp and intelligent, but where is her killer instinct?" He raged on, eyes unfocussed, caught in the whirlwind of his own tirade. "A ruler must be heartless to truly lead a nation. Pity is not for the strong. I could never trust her to take the throne. Erony cannot wield the sword with dispassion, she feels the death of each lesser as if it actually mattered… And you!" Daus's fist hovered an inch from McKay's face, and he flinched back. "You have brought it all to the surface, with your ridiculous talk and your interference. She should have left you to die on the ice moon. You made my daughter weak!"

"You're her father and you don't even know her," Rodney managed, but the Magnate didn't hear him, too deep in fury.

"My world… My world and my precious child are ruined!" he said in a wounded snarl.

"And who is to blame?" The voice cut through the air, laden with static. McKay and every other person in the room turned to hear the retort that emerged from the discarded radio. "You are, father!" cried Erony's voice. "You and you alone!"

Daus picked up the device as if it were a poisonous animal, and Rodney saw clearly the indicator light showing that the channel had been open all along. For the first time, McKay saw real fear in the eyes of the Lord Magnate.

The tension inside the flyer's cabin was as thick as smoke. Beckett reached a gentle hand out to touch the young woman's arm, but she shook it off, gripping the radio handset and fixing all her energy upon it. Anger and sadness made her eyes shine brightly.

"Daughter…?" came a voice, whispers of interference beneath it.

"`The Magnate is Halcyon; Halcyon is the Magnate.' Do you remember those words, father? The first line of the Ceremony of the Throne, the words my grandfather spoke to you when he abdicated? We are not the masters of our world, we are its servants! You have turned our noble clans into a pack of squabbling beasts, fighting each other and living off the backs of the commoners. Your cruelty has become our people's… Halcyon is a mirror for the worst facets of your nature."

"I did what I had to do to keep us strong."' insisted Daus. "There was no choice!"

"There's always a choice," murmured Beckett. "It's just not always the easiest one."

Tears ran in streaks down Erony's face, lines of black forming as the formal make-up she wore smudged. "You pit the nobles against themselves to secure your power. You opened that wound-cursed Hive and let our greatest enemy walk among us, masked and leashed as if that excused it!"

"Halcyon would be ashes if not for me!" retorted the Magnate. "Ashes and prey, dead and forgotten!"

Not a single person dared to speak as Daus roared and thundered into the radio. His lips trembled and his words came out in strident barks, but Rodney saw the conflict crossing his face. The man was still, in his heart, the doting father of his daughter, even if the way he showed it was twisted and harsh to McKay's eyes. "I did this for our people, for your mother, for you!" he insisted, shouting to the ghostly voice of his daughter. "I did it out of love, do you not understand?"

"Love?" The sheer bitterness of the word aged Erony's father in a heartbeat, the color draining from his florid cheeks. "Love was left behind when you created this society for us, father. It is a weakness you have expunged. Halcyon has nothing now but hate and anger"

The radio fell silent, the static hiss dying away to nothing as Erony ceased her transmission. McKay watched the man standing before him, the way he cradled the radio in his hands as if it might still give him some answer, some respite from the emotions churning inside him.

McKay watched the man and felt nothing but sadness and pity for him.

Her vision tunneled, the black shadows of the chamber encroaching on Teyla's sight, thickening, leaching the color from her world. The buzzing pain in her skull blotted out everything, all rational thought. She had sparks of memory burst before her, flaring and then gone as quick as the harvest festival fireworks on Athos. Dr. Weir had once told her how Earthers had a belief that a person's life would pass before their eyes in the moments prior to death; Teyla rebelled against the notion, trying to pull the last molecules of air into her lungs, but there was nothing but acid there now.

She saw the fields of rikka-wheat outside the village where she ran and played as a girl; a smile on the face of little Jinto as he offered her a cup of water; the rain on the day her father died; Sheppard speaking of his `Ferris Wheels'; Elizabeth's friendly smile; and more.

Teyla thought of her friends, of John and Ronon, of how she would never see them again, and that cut more deeply than anything. The tunnel closed in over her, blood-warm and enveloping -

— and brought fire and agony. New pain ripped into her neck and she choked, a fierce blow as hard as a blacksmith's hammer resonating through her bones. Teyla felt a pressure against her lips, and a rush of aches from her battered throat as air was forced down it. Her chest rose in stutters as hot breath flooded in to fill the void. She gasped and the shock that came with it made her eyes prickle with tears.

"Teyla?" She felt the words on her cheeks. "Teyla, come on! Talk to me!"

"John." It hurt to speak, but she managed it. Her eyes fluttered open and a face faded into view, a hand's span away. "John?"

"Easy," he replied, his face drawn with concern. "Take it slow. You'd stopped breathing." He gestured to the side and Teyla saw the metal collar broken open on the floor, a bullet hole in the mechanism. "Had to risk it."

Teyla touched her lips. "You gave me your breath?"

Sheppard colored a little. "Uh. Yeah. Sorry. It was for the, uh, CPR."

She picked out Ronon standing nearby, arms folded and a discontented look on his face. "Are you two going to exchange bonding vows, or are we going to move on?"

"Right." The colonel pulled her to her feet and Teyla took a moment to get her bearings. "It's blind luck we found you. Another minute more, and…"

"Thank you," she said with a nod, "both of you. Have you located Rodney?"

Sheppard nodded. "Command center. Scar's probably there already, though."

"Good," Teyla said. "I have a debt to repay him."

The ascent program was almost complete.

Bio-reactors running at optimum power, the crystal-organic components of the gravity drive swelling with energy, the Hive Ship flexed and stretched as a waking beast would shake off the last vestiges of sleep. The engineered neural matrices of the flight brain and the nerve ganglia were alight with flurries of commands, new growths of bone sprouting to cover centuries of decrepitude and inactivity. Wounds in the hull were knitting closed and healing, the gash carved by the Fourth Dynast so long ago now a pale white dash of scar tissue, the gouge cut by Ronon Dex already a dark, shiny scab.

The rush of atmosphere over the blunt hull became thinner by the second, Halcyon's grip on the Wraith vessel diminishing as the drives pressed the craft up toward orbital velocity and away from the hand of gravity. The Hive Ship's hull embraced the icy kiss of space and silence flooded over it, the rumble of air fading away to nothing. The planet that had once held it prisoner turned beneath the twitching maws of energy cannons, optic sensors opening to study the sprawl of prey-life below, calculating and planning.

The ship had returned to its natural environment, the heavy and threatening mass that seemed so wrong trapped in Halcyon's watery skies suddenly free. It became the predator it once was, a lethal arrowhead of edges and spines, ready for the hunt. For the kill. For the culling to begin anew.