Nightfall

Chapter Seven

“Come in, doctor.” Sam Carter looked up from the data screen she held in her hand and beckoned Jennifer Keller into her office. Keller also had one of the ubiquitous portable screens that were in use everywhere throughout Atlantis, but she held it close to her chest as if she was unwilling to share its contents with the rest of the world.

“Colonel,” Keller said, with a nod. Sam indicated a chair across from her desk and the doctor took it. Carter preferred to stand when she was thinking — something about being on her feet made it easier to get the cogs whirring, and she’d practically worn a path around her old lab back at Cheyenne Mountain — but she had to force herself to take a seat now, if only to put the doctor at her ease. Ever since Keller had returned from M9K-153 under Colonel Sheppard’s orders, she’d been uncharacteristically withdrawn, remaining in the medical lab despite the fact that she was supposed to be on a mandatory post-mission stand-down.

Carter saw the look in Keller’s eyes at once, and she understood. The mission isn’t over for her, not yet. She hasn’t let go of it. The look was a familiar one; she’d seen it in the mirror enough times in the past.

“Want some coffee?” She poured one for herself and offered the other woman a steel mug.

Keller gave a wan smile. “I could use a little.”

They both shared a sip. “You wanted to speak to me,” said Carter.

Keller nodded and held up the data screen. “I want to show you my preliminary findings from Heruun.”

Sam nodded. She’d already debriefed Sergeant Rush on his return and got the high points of the situation on the planet from Major Lorne, who had remained on-site. The continued MIA status of Ronon Dex and Teyla Emmagan was deeply troubling, and it threw into question every aspect of the mission. Carter pushed aside a moment of self-doubt, as a voice in the back of her head threatened to blame the situation on her tight hold on mission security.

She had seen the images Keller had captured with her camera, the troubling stills of the makeshift hospital in the Herunni rebel camp, the sick and the dying. Doctor Cullen and her team had been ready and waiting with the gear for a full biological screening when Keller and the others had returned, but they had found no evidence of anything communicable. Carter took the screen from Keller’s outstretched hand and tabbed through the pages. “What am I looking at here, doctor?” A single word jumped out at her and she took a sharp intake of breath.

“Nanites,” said Jennifer, doubtless guessing from Sam’s reaction what she had seen. “Molecular machines, or whatever you want to call them. That’s the source of this so-called sickness on Heruun.”

“The Replicators did this?”

Keller shook her head. “It doesn’t match the signature of Asuran technology. I’ve dealt with that before, I’d know it if I saw it. Not Ancient origin, either. Whoever or whatever the Aegis is, this means they‘re pretty advanced.”

Carter chewed her lip. “We’ve encountered several species out here and in our home galaxy that use this sort of mechanism,” she noted. “Putting aside who made them for a moment, the more important question is what are they doing it for?”

“I can’t be certain, but I don’t think this is deliberate. The illness, I mean.” Keller hesitated, as if she were uncertain about giving voice to something that was just a gut feeling. Sam said nothing and let her find her way; as a commander she had learned early on to let her people trust their instincts. “The blood I drew from the multiple abductees on Heruun shows concentrations of inert nanite devices collecting in their bodies. I think these things might function as markers of some kind, at least on one level.”

“Like a radio tag on a wild animal.” Carter considered this for a moment. “When this Aegis wants to abduct someone for a second or third time, it scans for the markers to locate them.”

“More like taking them for the ninth or tenth time,” Keller corrected, “and the quantity is much higher for those who have been taken the most often.” She indicated a readout on the screen, “I think the sickness is caused by these nanites crossing the blood-brain barrier. It’s causing an ongoing degenerative condition, most likely a breakdown of certain neurotransmitter chemicals in the brain.”

“Okay, so it’s not an infectious disease, it’s the result of deliberate exposure to this technology. Could it be some sort of attack on the Heruuni?”

Keller shook her head again, brushing hair from her eyes. “Unlikely. I’d say this is an unplanned side-effect of something else. What that something else is, I can’t tell you.” She sighed. “We might be able to decode the nanite programming, figure out their core function but that’s not my area of expertise. I have no idea how long it would take.”

Sam ran a critical eye over the scans of the nano-machines; the tiny, molecule-sized devices were a double-edged sword that could be programmed just as easily to cure diseases or deconstruct matter. “I’ll take a look at this. I’ve had plenty of up-close experience with Replicators…” She gave a wry smile. “More than I’d like.”

The doctor frowned. “Colonel, I have to make this clear to you. The local healer I met on 153, Kullid. He has nothing approaching the level of medical knowledge that we do, and he’s the only one working to find a cure for his people. He’s a smart guy but he’s going to fail without my help. Our help,” she corrected.

“You’re sure you could find a solution?”

“With your help and Doctor McKay’s, I think there’s an outside chance. I could take a medical team back to Heruun, and Rodney’s already there, so —”

Carter held up a hand to interrupt her. “If what Major Lorne tells me is anything to go on, M9K-153 is in the middle of an armed factional conflict. I already have two key team members on the missing list. You’re asking me to let you go back in harm’s way, and not just you but other civilian staff, plus another detail of men to act as your security.” She shook her head. “I can’t do that. Not right now. I’m not willing to let anyone else gate back until we have better intel on what’s going on there.”

Keller’s face darkened. “And in the meantime, people are dying. People we can save.”

She met the other woman’s gaze straight on. “I know that. But I’m not willing to add to the numbers. Your request is denied, Doctor. For the moment.”

Keller put the steel mug down firmly on the desk. “We can’t turn our backs.”

“We’re not going to. Take whatever people can be spared in your department. This city has some of the most advanced medical technology ever created. Use it.”

They said that in space, no one could hear you scream; but in the confines of the helmet, Rodney McKay could hear pretty damned well. He could hear his own tight gasps as he gulped in breaths of air, the thudding rush of his blood in his ears. He followed Sheppard out on to the lunar surface, skidding a little on the rimes of oxygen ice that had formed on the Puddle Jumper’s drop-ramp. As his boots hit the powdery grey moon dust, he had a fleeting, almost giddy thought about Armstrong’s famous touchdown speech. One small step for McKay, he told himself, one run-like-hell for Rodneykind.

Sheppard pivoted ahead of him and pointed up into the black sky. Turning, the scientist saw glitters of light low toward the horizon. More ships, he realized. More of them, coming this way, looking for where the Jumper had augured in.

McKay cast around, scanning the stark lunar landscape for anything that could serve as cover. A long, shallow trench led away from him, a line cut through the dust where the Ancient ship had landed flat and spent its forward momentum scraping to a slow and ignominious halt. His eyes came to rest on a wide slab-like stone canted at a low angle away from the hard glare of Heruun’s sun. Beneath it, there was nothing by black shadows.

“Sheppard!” He grabbed John’s arm and pulled at him. “We can take shelter there!”

The colonel looked in the direction he was pointing and then mouthed the question Cave? through the gold-coated face of his helmet. Rodney nodded; okay, so it wasn’t actually a cave per se, but without an operable radio communications link between the two of them, he wasn’t going to stop to explain otherwise.

Running wasn’t easy in the low gravity of the airless moon; twice McKay stumbled and had to hop-skip-jump to stop from falling flat on his face. His breath pounded in his chest and each cold gasp he took in tasted of stale plastic. Rodney tried not to think about how little air the emergency suit’s small backpack contained. He ducked low and found space under the canted rock, in the deeps of the shade.

Sheppard followed him in, one gloved hand reaching out to steady himself against the stone. McKay caught his wrist and stopped him in time; lying in the direct, unfiltered sunlight, the temperature of the rock was enough that it could have burned through the glove’s padding in an instant.

Crouching in the hollow, McKay could feel the warmth of the star-baked stone over their heads. He tapped his suit helmet against Sheppard’s. “The heat from the rock might be enough to blind any sensors,” he said in a rush, “we can hide until they buzz off!”

“Might?” Sheppard echoed.

“Here they come,” Rodney tried to shrink back into the cover as much as he could, careful not to snag the lightweight suit on any sharp rocks. Sheppard lay flat, watching the downed Jumper.

Three more of the triangular ships came to a halt in a triad formation above the crashed vessel. They had to be scanning for signs of life, he guessed, trying to determine if the Jumper’s troublesome crew had made it down in one piece or died on impact.

What are they going to do? McKay asked himself. Perhaps they would obliterate the wreck if they came up empty, or maybe one of the craft would land and whatever passed for their crew would come out to get a closer look.

But that was not what happened; instead, rods of green light issued out from the craft, connecting each to the next in a frame of glowing color. A field of exotic energy grew between them, expanding to envelop the Puddle Jumper, and in the next moment it shifted, rising into the vacuum. Glittering fragments of broken glass and pieces of litter and debris thrown out by the decompression went with it, hovering in an uncanny cloud. Moving as one rigid formation, the triangular ships carried the wreck away in silence, skimming over the pinnacles of the lunar terrain.

Both men watched their best hopes for survival vanish toward the horizon, the ungainly flight of craft homing in on a pair of tall, blade-like mesas.

McKay saw Sheppard swear silently. After a long moment, the colonel leaned closer so they could talk. “How much oh-two you got?”

Rodney looked at the oxygen meter on his wrist. “Just over three-quarters. Is that good?”

“If you don’t take panic breaths, yeah.”

“Oh, right,” he retorted. “What kind of breaths should I take, then? Seeing as we are now in a situation to which panic would be a very legitimate response?”

“Give me a break, McKay. We’re not dead yet.” The two men scrambled from their concealment and stood, the full glare of the sunlight hard against them.

Rodney leaned in again as Sheppard peered in the direction that the alien ships had come from, and returned to. “What are you, uh, thinking?”

“Those ships are short range, I’m guessing. That means there’s a base of operations up here.” He pointed. “More specifically, over that way.”

“So, what, we just start walking and hope they‘ve left a window open when we get there? If we get there?”

Sheppard eyed him. “You got a better idea?”

As much as it pained him, McKay had to admit that he did not.

The scientist hunched over the scoutship’s sensor console, the glow of the screen casting ghostly light over his face. “It is difficult to report with any certainty,” he began.

The commander let out a low hiss of irritation from between his needle-sharp teeth. His tolerance for this lower caste fool was drawing down to almost nothing. “Tell me what you see.”

“With the sensors in passive mode, there is a large margin of error.” And still he did not answer. “In addition, the energy reflection from the planet’s ring system —”

That was enough. The Wraith commander grabbed the scientist by the scruff of his neck and yanked him away from the console. “I did not ask for explanations or excuses. I asked you what happened out there.” He gestured at the hull and the space beyond it. “Now speak!”

The scientist nodded jerkily. “Of course.” He tried to compose himself as he was released. “The craft that left the planet appears to be one of Ancient design, likely from the city of Atlantis.”

“You are telling me what I already know. The protectors! Did they destroy it?”

“It would seem not.” The scientist’s hands knit together as he framed his next words. “The ship survived an engagement with the alien craft, but it was damaged. It reached the limit of our detection as it fell into the gravity well of the larger moon.”

“What is the probability that the craft was obliterated? Give me your estimate.” The commander pressed a bony finger into the scientist’s chest.

“Given our clan’s previous experience with the Atlantean ships, I would say survivability is quite possible. The craft are resilient. Their pilots have skill.”

The Wraith turned and stalked away across the deck. “We have the answer to one question then, at the very least.”

The scientist nodded again. “Indeed. Now we know that this protector is not our old foe, not an Ancient.”

The commander glanced over his shoulder. “And with that, our circumstance becomes more dangerous. If the alien presence here was the Great Enemy, then we would at least know how to fight them… But now? Now we are fighting an unknown.” He paused, musing, wondering after the fate of his kindred, killed or captured by the threat that lurked in this system. “For the moment we must continue to observe.”

“The… The Queen will wish to know what we have learned.”

“And she will. But not yet.” He gave a nod in return. “Not yet.”

Sheppard did what he’d been taught to do in desert navigation training, and chose a landmark to act as his waypoint — the two tall mesas where the alien ships had headed. He walked so that McKay was always in his peripheral vision, and he in Rodney’s, in case one of them put a foot in the lunar equivalent of a rabbit hole and took a tumble. With no radio, there was no way to cry out for help. He blinked away sweat from his eyes and grimaced. If they got back to Atlantis after this little sojourn, he decided he would make a point of sending the technicians back at Vandenberg his precise opinions about the shortcomings of the low duration spacesuits.

But the closer they got to the twin towers of rock, the more Sheppard felt a crawling sensation in the pit of his gut, a feel for the not-quite-rightness of what he saw before him. Shaped like the ends of blunt blades, the two peaks were wrong. They were too uniform, too evenly cut to be natural formations. If he didn’t know better, the colonel would have imagined they’d been carved by the action of wind, a pair of colossal vertical fins extending up from the pale sea of regolith.

They crested a low hill, trudging rather than walking, and Sheppard flicked a glance at McKay, who gave him a listless nod of the head. Both men stopped and took stock of where they were. A wall of grey rose up in front of them, something that at first glance would have looked like moon rock; but like the towers, it seemed out of place, too regular to be true. Sheppard had the sudden impression of something beneath the sand, his eyes picking out hard, curved lines. A wall was ranged out in front of them, camouflaged to match the terrain.

The only thing that broke the illusion of uniformity was the body lying face down in the powdery dust.

Sheppard knelt next to the corpse and a shadow fell over him, cast by McKay. The body wore the distinctive earth-toned robes of the Heruuni locals, but they sparkled where starlight caught a thin patina of ice across the sun-bleached cloth. There was no visible protection of any kind, no suit, no breather gear, nothing. The colonel turned the figure over and the bloated, flash-frozen face of the man stared back up at him, his eyes a dark mass of color where his blood vessels had ruptured. There were tiny, pea-sized crystals littering the moon dust all around him, and with a tic of disgust Sheppard realized that they had to be frozen droplets of blood, expelled from the dead man’s lungs when he stumbled out into the hard vacuum.

McKay’s shadow moved and Sheppard looked up as the other man crossed to the stone wall, laying his palms flat on it, feeling left and right. Doubtless the same thought had occurred to Rodney as it had to John; this poor fool had to have come through a doorway nearby, and that meant a way in… Into whatever this place was.

Sheppard glanced at his wrist and his eyes narrowed. His air meter was barely showing green anymore, almost all of the indicator band a livid red-for-empty. McKay had to be in the same boat, if not worse; and if they couldn’t find a way in… Then we’ll end up like the moonwalker here.

Rodney was down on one knee, frantically pawing at a piece of wall. Sheppard bounced over to him and saw he was digging white dust from an alcove. Inside he glimpsed an oval depression covered in symbols. A hatch control. He stepped aside to give the scientist all the light he needed, and found himself panting. In flight school, Sheppard had experienced the horrible sensation of oxygen deprivation during pilot training, and he felt the first twinges of it now. If this didn’t work…

He forced the thought away. “Be positive, John,” he said aloud inside the clammy helmet.

A train of lights appeared in the alcove and Rodney silently pumped his fist. When the hatch dropped away, it was the best sight he’d seen in days, and he propelled McKay through the low entrance, following him in.

It was only as the airlock door rose back again that it occurred to him he had no idea if the Aegis breathed the same kind of air as human beings.

She wasn’t certain about the moment when she fell asleep; it just came upon her before she could be aware of it. One moment, Teyla was in the cell, resting her back against the steel wall, watching Ronon, and the next…

She was here. There was no sense of transition for her. She stood in a new chamber, the design little different from all the others she had come across inside the Risar complex, a hard-edged pool of light cast around her. In the shadows, a number of the aliens moved around, some carrying devices the function of which she couldn’t guess at. A single creature hovered close by, curling one of the strange glass eggs in its clawed hand.

Had they waited for her to succumb to fatigue before they brought her here, let her sleepwalk to them? It was a troubling thought. From what she had heard from the Heruuni, it seemed the Risar — and the Aegis, if they were not one and the same — could take control of a human’s flesh as easily as Teyla could leaf through the pages of a book.

The alien studied her openly, not with a predatory manner but with an odd mix of confusion and intrigue. They seemed fascinated by her.

She faced it head-on. “Why have you brought me here?” A sudden, chilling thought occurred to her. “Where is Ronon Dex?”

Another Risar, this one moving slowly and awkwardly, came into the halo of light. “Your companion is uninjured.”

She grimaced. “Not so. Whatever you did to him, his body is rejecting it! Just like the others on Heruun!”

The aliens paused, as if they were considering this information. The first spoke again, moving around her. “Who are you?” it asked. “What are you?”

“I am Teyla Emmagan of Athos,” she snapped, “and I have powerful friends. They are searching for me!”

“Athos,” repeated the sickly Risar. “I do not know that designation. Filed for storage and later cross-reference.”

A holographic pane hazed into being in the shadows, casting patterns of light across the floor. Teyla saw the blurred image of a Puddle Jumper there, as if captured in the middle of a high-speed turn. “Are you familiar with the design of this craft?” The Risar cocked its head. “Do you understand its operating principles?”

“I have never seen that before in my life,” she retorted. The image dissipated; if the Risar was aware of her lie, it made no comment about it.

“You have hybrid bio-matter within you, sub-group racial ident ‘Wraith’,” continued the other alien. “I have never seen this before. You are of interest. How was this done? Will it affect your progeny?” It pointed at Teyla’s belly with the elliptical device.

She shook her head, part of her wanting to push away the question the Risar asked, the very question that kept Teyla awake at night back on Atlantis. “Who are you?” she barked, taking the offensive. “What gives you the right to come to this world and abduct innocent people from their homes? What are you doing to them?” Her voice rose to a shout.

“I am not here to cause harm,” said the second Risar. It turned its dark eyes to face her. “But it is important. Because of the work. It is necessary.”

The inner hatch sighed open and Sheppard was out first, a Wraith stunner in one hand, panning it left and right down the shadowed corridor. Neither he nor Rodney had been able to grab anything more than the most basic kit before they had exited the Puddle Jumper — and that meant no P90s, no radios, just a pistol each and little else. McKay still had a handheld Ancient scanner, but that was it. He felt practically naked without his laptop.

The hatch closed behind them, the emergency suits in a discarded pile in the airlock. Sheppard hadn’t waited for Rodney to run a toxicity test on the air; the colonel had just ripped off his helmet and taken a lungful. Once it was clear he wasn’t going to turn blue and die, McKay had done the same. He had to admit, being able to breath freely again was a huge relief — even if the air in here did smell of ozone and burnt metal.

“No alarms,” said Sheppard quietly. “Guess they don’t know we’re here.”

McKay peered at the walls, poking at a carbon-scored swath of burn damage. “By the looks of this, there could be good reason for that. Looks like there was a fire, or something, maybe it knocked out some of the internal sensors.”

“Let’s be thankful for small mercies, then.” Sheppard edged forward. “So. What now?”

“You’re asking me?” Rodney blinked. “This was your plan. If I had my way, we’d still be on Heruun.”

“I mean, which way?” He pointed up and down the corridor.

Rodney hesitated for a moment, consulting the scanner. “Readings on this are a bit wacky,” he confessed. “Might be something in the construction affecting the device…” He peered at the display. “Okay. I’m reading life signs in that direction,” He nodded to the right, where the corridor began a gentle rise. “One human and two that are, uh, not. I think.” He amended hastily.

“That’s very reassuring,” Sheppard said dryly. “Stick close and keep your eyes open. We’re deep in Indian Country here. There’s no telling what’s waiting for us around the next corner,”

“Just for once, it might be nice to find an alien stronghold that was well signposted,” McKay noted as they walked. “I’m just saying. All these corridors look pretty much the same…”

“Yeah…” The colonel’s voice trailed off and he halted. “You know something? I’ve seen this before.”

“What, the lone heroes creeping into the bowels of the scary alien base? I saw that movie too.” He shuddered. “Didn’t the scientist guy get eaten by something?”

“The walls, McKay,” Sheppard replied. “The design. C’mon, take a look around. It looks familiar.”

Rodney hesitated and took a moment to study the structure of the corridor; and Sheppard’s observation clicked in his head. “Whoa. Yes. If you look past the burn damage, all the missing panels…”

“Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me this place isn’t what I think it is.”

McKay’s stomach knotted. “There’s only one way to be sure.”

“You must understand,” said the sickly Risar, “everything I have done has been for a greater good. I regret any impairment that results from my intervention, and I have attempted to minimize it.”

Teyla’s lip curled. “I do not accept that. What you have done here is wrong. Nothing can excuse it!”

“I have protected the Heruuni in return for their assistance —” said the other alien.

She glared at the creature. “But did you ever ask their permission? You treat intelligent beings like animals!”

“There was no other option open to me,” said the first Risar. “When my starship crash-landed here, I had no choice. The humans were the only tools I could use to repair the damage.”

“Starship?”

The other alien touched it’s chest. “These Risar have such short life spans, and they perform poorly in adverse conditions.” It pointed at the other one. “That unit will soon perish. The cellular degradation cannot be stemmed, despite my attempts at hybridization.”

“I cannot continue to create new Risar.” The sickly one’s head bobbed. “Stocks of genetic material are low. You must understand. Without the humans, I am stranded.”

Teyla’s mind raced. Every Risar she had encountered spoke as if it were alone; each one said ‘I’ instead of ‘We’. Their voices were all a uniform pitch — and now, with all this talk of ‘genetic material’ and ‘creation of units’, she found herself wondering what kind of beings they really were. “You… You are all of a single mind,” she breathed, the understanding stark in her thoughts. “You share the same consciousness.”

“The Risar are tools,” came the answer. “A basic, primitive vessel for my intention. A mechanism, Teyla Emmagan, nothing more.”

She understood that what she was looking at was no more than a proxy, a mask for the real intelligence behind everything that was happening on Heruun. “Then what is the Aegis?” she demanded.

“It is only a name, it is not who I am.” The other Risar was about to speak again, but an abrupt, strident bell sounded through the chamber. Teyla recognized an alarm signal when she heard one.

“What is happening?” she asked.

The sickly Risar glanced at her with its rheumy eyes. “There are intruders aboard my vessel.”

The corridor walls passed him by in a blur. Ronon pulled against his captors, but he had no energy to resist them. His legs felt like they were made of water, and it was all he could do to keep himself on his feet. Reaching deep within, he drew on reservoirs of strength, forcing every final iota of will to the surface. “Get…off… me!”

On any other day, the strike would have been flawless; instead it was clumsy. But he was Ronon Dex, and that meant it still worked. The Satedan’s balled fist collided with the side of the skull of the Risar holding his right arm, and staggered the alien. It released him, letting him use his momentum to swing around and pull the second creature grasping him off-balance.

His head was swimming and he over-extended. Instead of laying out the other Risar, he dragged it down to the deck, and the two of them collapsed in an untidy heap. Ronon kicked out hard and struck meat and bone; the other alien grunted and stumbled, clawing at him.

Everything was an effort now, the damnable weakness in his limbs turning each move he made into a laborious task. He felt as if he weighed ten times as much as normal. He was lead-heavy, sluggish and slow. It made him furious.

Where were they taking him? It hardly mattered. All that was important was to find Teyla, rescue her. It had been his mistake before, his rash choice that had got them recaptured. But not again. This time he would do it right. This time.

If only he could just stand up.

The downed Risar had stopped moving but the other one was returning, and he had the paralysis device in his grip. A shard of fear cut through Dex; in his weakened state, exposure to the shock of the ray from the weapon might be too much for him to take — it could mean the end of him.

He made it to one knee, reaching up to defend himself.

Then there was a screech of sound, a blaze of white fire, and suddenly the Risar was on the ground, twitching.

Dex blinked owlishly as two figures in blue-black fatigues came closer, his blurry vision clearing a little.

“Hey, Ronon… Are you all right? You look awful.”

“McKay.” A grin split his face and he allowed Rodney to pull him to his feet, with a grunt of exertion. “I am actually pleased to see you.”

“The feeling is, ah, mutual,” came the reply.

Sheppard hove into view. “Thought you could use an assist.”

“I had it covered,” Dex lied. “About time you got here. How’d you find us?”

“More by luck than judgment,” noted McKay.

“Isn’t that always the way?” Sheppard gestured with the stunner in his hand. “Long story short, we’re on the moon and we don’t have a ride home.”

“First things first,” Dex said, fighting down a wave of nausea. “We find Teyla.” He extended his hand toward Rodney. “Give me your gun.”

“What? Why?”

“Because even in this state, I’m a better shot than you’ll ever be. Give.”

McKay shrugged and conceded the weapon. “I guess you have a point there.”

“Got any grenades?” he demanded.

Sheppard held up a single flash bang. “Just this.”

“It’ll do.” Ronon pointed back the way he had come. “Down there. I saw the Risars taking her.”

“Risars?” Sheppard and McKay exchanged looks.

“Come on,” he growled, and stumbled forward.

“Easy there, cowboy,” said the colonel, reaching out to help steady him. “You look a wreck, pal. Maybe you ought to sit this out.”

Ronon didn’t bother to grace that with a reply; instead, he fixed Sheppard with a hooded, baleful glare that could have cut steel.

“Or not,” amended the colonel.

It happened very fast; as if they both heard a voice inside their heads at once, the two aliens froze for a heartbeat, then turned toward the chamber’s entranceway. Teyla heard the shriek of stunner bolts, then there was a concussive blare of noise and a flash of intense light. In the next second the door was filled with white smoke and through it came Ronon, John and Rodney.

Sheppard called her name and crossed to her, keeping the creatures covered with his weapon. “You okay?”

“All the better for seeing you,” she admitted.

“You cannot do this,” said the sickly Risar, shifting in place. “You will disrupt my work.”

“You must submit,” said the other. “Drop your weapons.”

“And if we don’t?” Sheppard stepped closer to them, unafraid. “You might be able to scare the locals down on Heruun with the lightshows and all the flying saucer stuff, but let me tell you, on my planet that Close Encounters of the Third Kind garbage doesn’t cut it any more.”

“We know what you are,” said McKay. “The Aegis is a front.” He nodded at the walls. “This is an interstellar starship. And more than that, it’s an Asgard starship.”

Teyla frowned. Asgard; they were a powerful race of beings that the people of Earth had encountered more than a decade ago, during their battles with the parasitic Goa’uld. They had a fearsome reputation, and yet…

She had met one of them, the acerbic engineer Hermiod, who served for short time aboard the Earth ship Daedalus; and while the Risar had a passing resemblance to the slight, grey-skinned humanoids, they were only similar as much as a Wraith was similar to an Athosian. She shot a look at the creature. “But you do not look like them.”

“This is a Risar,” said the alien, in a matter-of-fact tone. “It is not me.”

“I told you this,” said the other, “the Risar are my tools.”

“I’m guessing they’re modified Asgard clone-stock,” said McKay. “Hybrids, with more muscle mass than their normal bodies.” He sniffed. “Y’know, to do all the heavy lifting, that kinda thing.”

“How do you know my kind?” demanded the weaker Risar. It seemed agitated by the sudden turn of events.

“We know a lot of stuff,” replied Sheppard. “But before we go any further, I’m not going to do any more talking to the monkeys. I want to speak to the organ grinder.”

“Show us your true face,” said Teyla.

There was a long silence; and then the holographic screen reappeared. On it was a delicate, slender being with an oval head and eyes that had no whites, only inky black pupils. A small slit of a mouth opened, and when the being spoke, the Risar echoed every word in the same hollow tone. “You are not mistaken. I am Asgard, and this craft is my vessel. My name is Fenrir.”