Nightfall

Chapter Seventeen

In the space between stars, in a place where only the light of far distant suns fell, where there were no worlds, nothing but the merest scattering of cosmic dust, there was a brief storm of energy.

From the nothingness came a tear in the fabric of reality, as engines of alien technology sliced open a hole in the black and let glowing streamers of blue-white luminosity issue forth. A jagged collision of metal and bone exploded from the newly-formed portal and tumbled back into normal space, illuminated for a brief instant by the strange fires of hyperspace; then the portal vanished and the battle-scared hulks of the Asgard warship Aegis and its Wraith adversary were alone, adrift in the interstellar void, hundreds of light years from the Heruun star system.

The shock of the transition was felt through both craft; each of the ships were mortally wounded and dying by degrees, the few remaining beings that formed their crews mad with rage, or pain, or simple animal panic.

In the command nexus of the Hive Ship, the Wraith scientist who had for so long dreamed of taking the Aegis for his clan staggered to his feet. He ignored the burning agony from the bone shard lodged in his shoulder, a fragment that had blown from a nerve conduit behind him in a concussion that had killed a dozen of his cadre’s best drone-warriors. Most of the lens-screens before him were dead eyes leaking watery processor fluid, no longer operable. The control surfaces were twitching and writhing as the Hive Ship’s crude brain suffered agony from every spot of damage throughout the vessel, the pure sympathetic hurt leaching into the blood-warm air.

The Wraith made it to the panel and hissed through his teeth. His vessel was eating itself alive, reservoirs of acidic bile flooding the lower decks, plasmatic reactors stalled or worse, cycling toward a burning overload; and in the places where the Hive Ship had been violated by the deliberate impact of the Asgard vessel, gelatinous matter gurgled and bubbled as the craft’s autonomic antibodies ran wild and uncontrolled. Like an animal that had caught itself in a snare, the Hive Ship was gnawing on its own extremities in a vain attempt to free itself.

Only one set of systems appeared to be working correctly; the external sensors. The Wraith clung to the console, blinking through the caked blood gumming its eyelids and read the stuttering chain of text spilling over the lens-screen. Out there aboard the alien ship, a sphere of radiation was stirring, growing by the second in power and potency. With dawning horror, the Wraith scientist realized what it was he was seeing. Like the others of his caste, the late queen had made him aware of the data she had taken from the humans, and with it the full possibilities of the technology that belonged to these ‘Asgard’.

The Wraith watched the energy trace grow and cursed its fate, knowing that his clan’s greed was about to kill them all.

Lying amid the wreckage of the computer core, the spinning rings of color around the circumference of the isa device reached a pitch of such speed that they became a solid band of glowing red; and at that moment the countdown ended.

Fenrir’s lethal creation reached inside itself and drilled down, through the layers of normal space into unknown, extradimensional realms of energy. Drawing on levels of cosmic power strong enough to cut through the barriers of quantum reality, it twisted gravitation into a lens and blew it outward, forming a sphere of fast-time. In nanoseconds, the orb of altered space ballooned into a perfect globe a dozen kilometers across.

Outside the shimmering edge of the isa effect, time passed normally, second to second, moment to moment; but within the clock ran a million, a billion, a trillion times faster. Monumental ages, lengths of time so vast they could encompass the birthing and dying of entire civilizations, flashed past inside the sphere. Caught at the very epicenter, the Aegis and the Hive Ship experienced it at full force.

Every living thing aboard the wrecked vessels became wisps of ash and dust, organic matter, even bone and teeth and claws turning to powder. Unhatched in the Hive Ship’s birthing crèche, the cadre’s nascent newly-quickened Queen died before she was fully formed, perishing along with her warriors and her scientists. Aboard the Aegis, the Risar stopped their mad rampage and died in silence, swept away by the hand of their creator.

Then the ships themselves were ended, as eons passed in milliseconds. Metals and plastics designed to withstand the punishing forces of the stellar void wore thin and became like paper, splitting, breaking, ultimately disintegrating beneath their own weight.

A full ten seconds elapsed before the isa effect dissipated. Without the mass required to create a singularity, it spent itself and faded to nothing. The sphere melted away into the background radiation of the sky and left nothing but a drift of free atoms to mark its passing.

Sheppard pressed down the hemisphere in the middle of the podium with the heel of his hand and behind him the Stargate roared open, sending a plume of energy rushing out and back across the shallow valley.

The unkempt cluster of Wraith standing on the steps to the portal hove closer together, some of them throwing up hands to shield themselves from the sudden wash of silvery light. Many of them averted their faces, the brightness hurting their eyes.

Nearby, Ronon made a snorting noise and folded his arms, the pistol in his hand dangling toward the ground in a deceptively casual grip. He stood squarely, clear-eyed and straight-backed, enjoying the feel of Heruun’s hard sunlight on his face. Any lasting trace of the Asgard-inflicted nanite ‘sickness’ had been banished from him, neutralized by the life-giving effects of an energy transfer from their Wraith captives. It was hard to believe that when all other attempts at a cure had failed, in the end it had been an enemy that had been able to save Dex and all the others. The irony wasn’t lost on the colonel. Sheppard caught his friend’s gaze and the Satedan raised an eyebrow.

“What?” he asked.

“You feel any… Different?”

In spite of himself, Ronon’s free hand wandered to his chest, to a spot over his heart, to scratch at some imaginary itch. The big man didn’t seem aware that he was doing it. “No,” he said tersely, “Did you?”

Sheppard shook his head quickly. “’Course not. I was just, y’know, checking.” In truth, for several days after gaining his freedom from being imprisoned by the militant Genii along with a Wraith he’d nicknamed ‘Todd’, Sheppard had felt a little strange. The Wraith had made an uneasy ally — one that had crossed the path of the Atlanteans a number of times since — and John had been both surprised and shocked when the alien had healed him after all the times he had preyed on Sheppard during their captivity. It wasn’t anything physical, nothing like the strange addiction that Wraith worshippers craved from the touch of their alien masters; it was a sense of invasion, almost a mark on the soul, if you wanted to get metaphysical about it. Even though he had been certified well, it took him a long time to wash off the stain, so to speak.

Sheppard didn’t doubt that Ronon felt the same way; but getting the Satedan to admit it would not be likely. He kept his own counsel over that sort of thing. The colonel’s gaze drifted over to Lieutenant Allan; along with Ronon and all the rest of the Heruuni infected with the sickness, she had also taken the unusual ‘cure’, but in her case it had been to reverse the effects of a feeding. She gave Sheppard a respectful nod; there was a look on her face that he had seen in the mirror once or twice, a kind of confused-but-pleased surprise at the fact you were still alive.

He crossed towards the group of Wraith, who stood under the watchful eye of Major Lorne, and a few of the rebels under the orders of Soonir’s former second-in-command, Gaarin. A pair of growling lion-cats on thick leashes held them in check, stalking back and forth with paws flexing and claws bare.

The pale-skinned aliens were the sorriest-looking bunch of their kind Sheppard had ever seen. The usual arrogance and swagger he associated with the Wraith was nowhere in sight. Instead, they stood in a scowling, morose knot, some of them clenching and unclenching their clawed fingers, others moving with difficulty, hobbling. Their weapons and gear had been taken from them, down to the smallest blade; that had been a job that Ronon had taken on with obvious relish.

Every one of the Wraith looked sickly and emaciated, even more so than their typical air of perpetual hunger allowed. They looked, for want of a better word, as if they had been starved, and with good reason. The spur-of-the-moment bargain Doctor Keller had struck with them in Sheppard’s absence had been both radical and clever. In return for letting the handful of survivors from the Hive Ship leave with their lives, they had been forced to use their alien physiology to give back what they had stolen — the raw energy of life — and in the process counteract the infection that crippled the abductees taken by Fenrir. Of course, giving it up to so many people had taken its toll. Now it was the turn of the Wraith to understand what it was like to have the flesh go limp on your bones, to have the breath practically stolen out of your lungs. As object lessons went, it was a pretty good one.

Sheppard had to admit that he never would have come up with such an idea, and the fact that a woman like Jennifer Keller had forced him to re-evaluate his first impressions of the young doctor. Ever since she and McKay had gone against his orders with Elizabeth and that whole replicator thing, John had kept Keller at arm’s length, but now he saw that she wasn’t someone who made the hard calls blithely. In the face of certain death, she had saved lives, albeit in a very unconventional manner — something the IOA would be sure to bitch about when his report went back to Earth.

One of the Wraith showed yellowed fangs as he approached. “You will kill us?” he demanded. “Now you have what you want from us?”

Ronon toyed with his pistol. “Hey, that’s an idea.”

The alien shot him a venomous glare. “I saved your life!”

“And that’s why you’re still walking and talking,” Sheppard broke in. “When we make a deal, we keep our word.”

Lorne nodded in the direction of the open Stargate. “That’s your exit. If I were you, I’d take it.”

Sheppard mirrored the major’s nod. “What he said.”

“What about our weapons, our communications devices?” said the Wraith. “We need them.”

“No you don’t,” the colonel replied. “Use your psychic hotline to dial up a rescue.”

“How do we know the place you are sending us to is not a death-world?”

Ronon grunted. “Huh. I should have thought of that.”

“You’re just gonna have to trust us.” Sheppard replied. He gave Gaarin a nod and the Heruuni drew back the big cats, making a path for the prisoners. “Listen, it’s last call for you guys. You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.” To underscore the statement, Ronon brought up his particle magnum and gestured with it. John continued. “You healed my people and Gaarin’s people, and for that you get a free pass. That’s the extent of the conversation that you and me are going to have. Do I make myself clear?”

The Wraith exchanged looks with its kindred, and then without further comment, they shuffled up the steps and began to file through the shimmering wormhole.

Sheppard waited until the talkative one was about to step up and called out. “Oh yeah, there’s just one other thing.” The alien paused on the threshold, eyeing him coldly. “The Aegis may be gone, but this planet is now under the protection of Atlantis. So if you’re thinking of hooking up with some of your buddies and swinging by for a little payback, don’t. ’Cos we’ll know about it, and that’s not something you want.”

The Wraith paused, letting the others of its cadre pass through the gate and away, until it was the last one on Heruun. “Enjoy your victory while you can, human,” it said. “But remember this. Sooner or later, the Asurans will turn their attacks from my kind to yours, and when that day comes, you will wish that you had let us take the Asgard’s weapons to defeat them.” Without waiting to hear a reply, the alien stepped through and vanished into the ripples.

Sheppard gestured to Allan and the lieutenant severed the wormhole from the DHD podium.

He heard Lorne give a dry chuckle. “Sore losers.”

The colonel didn’t look away from the silent Stargate, the Wraith’s words echoing in his mind. “Yeah. Guess so.”

Carter watched the people working around the fringes of the settlement’s central oval, clearing the wreckage created in the attack by the Wraith, starting down the path toward setting their lives back on track. The young boy Laaro wandered past and threw her a serious nod, which she returned along with a grin. The youth tried very hard to pretend he was old beyond his years, but she had seen him revert to the child he really was when Sheppard had reunited him with his mother and father. The raw, open happiness Sam witnessed there had brought a lump to her throat.

We did some good here, she thought to herself. In the end. For a moment, Carter wondered what she would have done differently, if she could step back to before the mission to M9K-153 had been given the go. She looked away and shook her head. Second-guessing yourself won’t fix anything you do wrong. General Hammond had told her that the first time she had taken command of SG-1. Every leader makes mistakes. The real test is if you don’t make them again.

Sam sighed. Command of the Atlantis mission was nothing like she had expected, and in some ways, everything like she had expected. Every day was a challenge, and just this short jaunt into the field — and into the grip of certain danger — reminded her with potent force just how much had changed about her life.

No. I wouldn’t change the orders I gave if I could. I did what I thought was right, I trusted my people to get the job done. And they did.

“Colonel Carter.” She turned at the sound of her name and found Takkol approaching her. His guards remained at a respectful distance, and she noted that there were fewer of them. Sam wondered what message that sent about the changes the man had been through recently.

“Elder,” she nodded.

“I wanted to thank you personally for the gifts you gave us. The supplies and equipment.”

“We can spare it,” she replied. “It’s the least we can do to help.” Carter sighed. “I hope you understand, we never intended to bring the Wraith here or upset the balance of things on Heruun…”

“I think… This would have happened sooner or later, would it not? The Aegis…” He stumbled over the word. “This… Asgard being. Eventually he would have left us and the Wraith would have returned. Perhaps it was better it took place now instead of in the future.”

Sam felt a pang of sympathy for the man. All the superiority and arrogance he had shown before was gone, and in their place he seemed uncertain and wary. “Change is always difficult,” she said, with real feeling. “But we have to embrace it.”

“I suppose so. My reticence was a mistake, Colonel.”

She answered without thinking, hearing Hammond speak once again. “Every leader makes mistakes. The real test is if you don’t make them again.”

Takkol accepted this with a nod. “Wise words. In looking back, I find I have made many such errors.” He looked away. “I was wrong about the nature of the Aegis. When Aaren and Kullid turned on our ways and went to the side of the Wraith… When Soonir, a man I thought to be nothing but a renegade and dissident, gave his life to save mine… I misjudged so much.”

“Things aren’t always what they seem. Being a leader can isolate you from that truth, if you let it.”

Takkol met Sam’s gaze. “Now I look around and all I can do is wonder how many other things I am mistaken about.”

“There are worse places to start. But what’s important is that you move on, and strive to do the right thing.” She was a little surprised by the conviction behind her own words. Am I talking to him, or to myself?

“You speak truth, voyager,” he agreed. “I allowed my rank and status to close me off from my people. No longer.” Takkol bobbed his head. “For that I thank you.”

From the blue sky overhead came a humming whine and they both looked up to see the barrel-shape of a Puddle Jumper loop past and fall into a steady hover. The outriggers retracted and the craft settled gently to the open wooden decking.

In the shade of the lodge’s porch, Laaro handed the small twists of animal hide and polished stones to Teyla and Jennifer. “These are for you and your friends,” he told them. “I made one for each of the voyagers, so that when you return to your great city you will have something to remind you of Heruun.”

Teyla turned the gift over in her hand; it was a small bangle, a simple version of the ornate bracelets worn by the elders. She put it around her wrist and Keller did the same.

The doctor paused for a moment, then reached up and tore the Atlantis expedition patch off the velcro mount on the shoulder of her jacket. “Here. This is for you.”

Laaro weighed the patch in his hand. “I am honored, Jennifer.” He bowed formally. “And I thank you all for making my parents safe.”

All eyes turned as the Jumper swept in and landed, the aft drop-ramp falling open. Teyla saw Major Lorne appear in the hatchway and throw her a nod.

“Time to go,” she said.

Laaro bowed slightly. “Safe journey to you, voyagers.” He stepped off the porch, crossing through the bright, hot sunlight, marvelling at the spacecraft.

Keller reached for the gear bag at her feet and halted. When she spoke again, her voice was low and quiet. “Just so you know. After you came back from the Aegis, when I checked everyone over?” She threw a look toward Teyla’s belly. “You’re both okay, despite the pounding you took.”

“The children of Athos are a resilient people.” Teyla glanced at the doctor and sensed an unspoken question in the woman’s eyes. “As are the Herunni. If Laaro is anything to go by, I believe they will thrive, even without the protection of the Asgard.”

The doctor gathered up the bag and the two of them made their way toward the waiting Jumper. “The sickness won’t come back,” she replied. “I’m certain of that. As for everything else…” Keller smiled ruefully. “Well, we did just completely dismantle their entire belief system in a matter of days.”

“We showed them the truth.”

“Yes we did. I hope that’ll be enough.” The doctor paused. “I just wish. There was so much we could have learned from Fenrir. There are so many things we still don’t understand about the Asgard, even with the Odyssey core.”

Ronon was standing on the ramp waiting for them. He caught the last few words of the conversation. “Fenrir paid his debts in full,” said the Satedan.

Teyla’s eyes widened. “It surprised me to hear you say that. After all that he put us through. After what he did to you.”

“I’m not forgiving him, if that’s what you think,” came the reply. “But I understand why he did what he did. I know what its like to be isolated from your own kind, to be lost, to want more than anything to just go home…” He shrugged. “Can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same in his position.”

The Athosian woman felt a stirring of emotion and swallowed hard. “No being should be so alone.”

“Whatever Fenrir did,” said Keller, “whatever choices he may have made in the past, he gave the last moments of his life to save others. If that’s not atonement, I’m not sure what is.”

Colonel Carter was the last one to step up into the Jumper, and as she did so Ronon folded his arms. “So. Can we go home now?”

Glancing back from the cockpit, Sheppard nodded with genuine feeling. “Yeah, I reckon so.”

Carter hesitated. “One second, Colonel. There is one last loose end to deal with.”

“Oh, right,” said Sheppard. “That. It’s not a problem. I sent Lorne and McKay out to go pick it up.”

“Are you sure this is the place?” said Rodney, squinting at the display on the handheld sensor device. “I mean, there’s nothing here!”

Major Lorne frowned and surveyed the open span of savannah around them. “I’m telling you, this is it.” He pointed. “Look. The grasses here are all compacted. And there’s a burn ring where the drives scorched the ground. This is where the colonel put us down.”

McKay shook his head. “When Sheppard plucked us off the Aegis with that UFO’s transporters, we came straight down out of orbit! He could have dropped us anywhere.” He sniffed. “And it wasn’t his best landing, I have to say.”

Lorne gestured at the ground. “No, this is it, I’d bet my oak leaves. I’m telling you, there should be an Asgard shuttle parked right here.”

McKay walked forward, waving his arms. “Look, see, nothing! Even if it was cloaked like a Jumper, I’d still bump right into it.”

The major was silent for a moment. “You don’t think it…left on its own, do you? Can Asgard ships do that?”

“Of course not,” Rodney snapped. “We’re talking about a faster-than-light spacecraft! You couldn’t pilot something like that without a thinking, reasoning intelligence on board!” No sooner had the words left his mouth that he found himself suddenly wondering. “Um…”

Unbidden, McKay and Lorne both turned their heads to look up into the clear sky; and for a second, just for the smallest of moments, the scientist thought he saw a tiny flash of light like sunshine off silver, vanishing into the distance.