The Chosen

Chapter Twenty

The Wraith’s head rolled off its shoulders. Rodney blinked, staring in fascination. Then the torso collapsed on him and something gushed out over his face and eyes. Unable to cry out in revulsion, simply because the sheer weight of the thing had driven all the air from his lungs, he discovered a reserve of strength that he hadn’t believed possible and shoved the creature off himself.

“Oh…God!” The stench of whatever passed for blood was, as incredible as it seemed, actually worse than anything he had so far encountered.

Before he could even begin to get his bearings, his shoulder was more or less wrenched from its socket by someone hauling him further up the stairs. Multiple someones, more accurately. Not content with extending the length of his arm by several inches, a bunch of other hands began pushing at his legs, urging him to climb higher and yelling something that sounded like, “This way!”

Suddenly he found himself standing on a balcony or porch, surrounded by the children, Yann, and the engineer who had returned with them. Everyone was jabbering at once, asking him inane questions about what they could do next.

How the hell was he supposed to know? While they stood there, another gang of Wraith poured up and out of the transport. Most were swarming uphill; however, a group broke off and headed around the fountain in the center of the square and toward the bridge. The Dalerans had somehow managed to defend the entrance to the bridge, but at this rate, it was only a matter of time before they were overrun.

The blood from the felled Wraith dripped into Rodney’s eyes. Yelling in frustration and disgust, he rubbed the heels of his hands across his face, trying to wipe the stuff away. “Precisely how am I supposed to magically ascertain what to do when I can’t even see? Hasn’t anyone got any water in this place?”

A bubble of stunned silence seemed to encapsulate the group. Then the little girl tugged at his shirt. He looked down at her and snapped, “What?”

“The wells are all dry. Now there is only blackwater.”

And that, combined with the children’s expressions, their trust and faith in him, suddenly pulled Rodney from his funk. They needed him; everyone needed him. Maybe Ford and Teyla were dead, but the Major might only have a headache. And what about Atlantis? Zelenka simply wasn’t capable of looking after things as well as Rodney. Okay, so maybe Zelenka was capable, but it would give the Czech scientist entirely too much satisfaction to know that Rodney had been unable to solve what amounted to a relatively straightforward problem. He peered at the transport. “Am I imagining things, or is that set slightly downhill from the square?”

“The transport was built as such so that barrels and carts could readily be moved from the bridge and inside.”

“Of course it was.” His mind already taking two steps at a time, Rodney turned to the engineer. “Where’s the mechanism that controls the water supply to that fountain?”

“There, in the pump-house by the bridge.” The man pointed to a huge metal door set in the wall on the far side of the square, directly opposite the transport. “All major water pumps are located by the channels.”

Where else would you have a water pump? Perfect. Just perfect. All they had to do was negotiate a path through a horde of incoming Wraith hell-bent on capturing the bridge. No problem. Swallowing back his fear, he began to ask if there was another way to the pump-house, but Yann had already divined his intention. “You mean to burn the transport!”

“Yes, of course, but destroying one transport would only force the Wraith to divert their invasion to elsewhere in the Citadel. The idea is to get the oil into the transport before igniting it. Which means waiting until the doors open…”His words trailed off as the implications of that planned action hit home. The Wraith had control of the transports only because they had Peryn. Rescuing the kid was out of the question; there was no way anyone, including the indomitable and surprisingly quickwitted Major, could pull that off. In order to save the Citadel, they—he—would have to incinerate the boy along with the arriving Wraith.

Rodney’s throat tightened and his hands knotted into involuntary fists. The children were staring at him, as if they could read his thoughts. He wanted to say something, to explain that this was just how it had to be, but the engineer had turned to run down the steps.

“There is a passage beneath us,” the man said over his shoulder, his eyes taking in Yann.

More tunnels. Wonderful. But at least this one was short and almost tall enough for Rodney to stand without damaging yet more vertebrae.

On the way, they stopped at a primitive pipe system, and the engineer turned a series of cocks and handles. “This will prevent the blackwater that is pumped into the fountain from draining through the outlets. Instead, it will quickly overflow onto the square.”

“And down toward the transport? You’re sure about that?” Rodney demanded.

Bobbing his head as he trotted along, the engineer replied, “It has nowhere else to flow, except perhaps the storage houses behind.”

“Which contain what exactly? The last thing we need is a Pyrrhic victory.”

“Blackpowder,” Yann replied.

“Oh, well, that’s just great!” Rodney stumbled to a halt. “You didn’t think to mention that sooner?” Saved from the Wraith only to have their entire civilization destroyed by the resulting firestorm. Then again—“How much blackpowder?”

“Only a few barrels. And all of the nearby structures are stone,” Yann said, urging Rodney to keep moving. “It is one law that no one disobeys, for all understand the damage just one measure of blackpowder can do.”

The tunnel abruptly opened out into a room that, while large, was crammed with hand-operated machinery. Rodney could tell at a glance what the oversized gears, chains and pulleys controlled. “The portcullis and weir,” the engineer provided unnecessarily, leading them up a set of steps to ground level.

Which naturally made the building a prime target. Once the portcullis was open, the Wraith had free entry into the Citadel. Was it his imagination, or were those Wraith claws he could hear pounding at the gates?

The thick, iron doors burst open wide, but before he could feel more than an additional spike in his permanently elevated sense of incipient panic, several trainee warriors staggered inside, along with a dozen injured combatants. The noise of the battle outside wasn’t exactly offering Rodney inspiration. Ignoring the new arrivals, he demanded, “The pumps?”

“You can observe from up there.” The engineer pointed to an an area at the top of another set of steps. Presumably they led to one of the Stations that serviced the mechanism attached to the portcullis. Leaving Yann and the children to deal with wounded, Rodney ran up the rough stairs and stared out through a wide gap in the stonework.

Although he was separated from the blazing channel by a thick wall, the heat was nevertheless rolling across the square in waves. The air between him and the battle on the streets below seemed to jump and dance in the sienna light. Apparently the engineer hadn’t needed to do much to get the pumps operational. From the fountain in the center of the courtyard gushed a massive volume of oil. Seconds later, a nearby bugler blew a series of notes.

Rodney fingered his weapon. By the light of the outside fire, he could clearly see the transport doors. He’d heard about what Sheppard had done to — or perhaps for — Colonel Sumner. Maybe when he got back to Atlantis he should actually learn to shoot the gun at something more than a paper target. Not that he particularly wanted to use a gun at all, but there were some circumstances in which he conceded that it could prove necessary. Of course, whether he’d actually be capable of putting a bullet through a child’s head—

“Buglers are spreading the word,” Yann announced, joining him. “Everyone who can do so will evacuate the area around the transport and storehouses, while the warriors will stay and fight until the last.”

Wincing, Rodney nodded. Whatever antiquated system the Dalerans employed to keep the pumps operational was now working overtime. Oil spilled from the small pond at the base of the fountain and onto the ground. While the first few rivulets were diverted by bodies, the direction of flow was definitely toward the transport — which had just opened to reveal yet more incoming Wraith. He could hear the quaver in Yann’s voice as the man said, “I do not know for how long the warriors will be able to hold them.”

Rodney glanced back at Yann, and noticed that he was carrying a warrior’s bola. In the square, attackers and defenders alike were slipping and skidding through the oil. Using his field glasses, Rodney noted that many of the Wraith had a somewhat singed look. Eyes flashing in the light of the Channel fire, they now diverted their efforts from merely random havoc, destruction, and a clear desire to break into the pump-house to getting well clear of the cascading oil. They had obviously intuited what was coming.

The doors of the transport closed before any oil could flow inside, which Rodney counted as a good thing. The next group of inbound Wraith wouldn’t have a clue what was waiting for them. Moments later, the entire area around the low-lying transport began filling with oil.

Yann pulled a metallic stick from his pocket. With a thin-lipped grin at Rodney, he said, “Wraithcraft.” The object, not unlike that which Rodney had seen Teyla and several Athosians use, sent a spidery red beam at the bola’s balls. The wadding immediately ignited. Yann waited until both balls were burning well before swinging the weapon slowly around his head.

The thumps on the iron doors below increased, and the children clambered up the steps. This time, their cries were genuine. Rodney had no idea why they were running to him. He couldn’t offer them any protection, and even if this did work, there was no guarantee that the Wraith now swarming across the square wouldn’t overrun them.

“Get back!” Yann yelled at the children. “Hide your faces behind the walls. When the blackpowder blows, it may well destroy this part of the bridge.”

Teyla did not hesitate. Even so, Lieutenant Ford proved somewhat faster in firing his weapon at the solitary Wraith emerging from the transport and into the inn.

Seemingly oblivious to its wounds, the Wraith released his grip on Peryn and charged them. Although Teyla could not make out her teammate’s words, she understood the Lieutenant’s intent. Quickly circling the Wraith, she darted into the transport, ducking low to avoid the hail of bullets now punching through their attacker’s head.

Face bleeding from a deep slice along his cheek, Peryn pulled himself to his feet and lunged at the panel inside the transport. Teyla cried out to wait, but Lieutenant Ford was on her heels, shouting for Peryn to close the doors. A quick glance out, and she saw the wounded Wraith harshly knocked aside by those now storming into the inn. Before she could direct him to do otherwise, Peryn stabbed at the light on the panel, and the doors opened to the sight of a tremendous battle — and a gush of blackwater.

“That won’t happen,” Rodney declared confidently. “A blast through the air is a woefully inefficient coupling mechanism against heavy stonework—Now!” he yelled at Yann. Across the square, several lights indicated that the transport was opening. Calling downstairs, he added, “Stop pumping and close off the valves!”

The heavy bola flew from Yann’s grasp, a pinwheel of flame arcing across the heads of the combatants. Rodney noticed that the transport doors folded back — to reveal only three people, two of whom were knocked off their feet by the flood of oil. The flaming bola landed with a gut-punching whoomp in the oil-filled fountain. The last thing that he saw before fire engulfed the transport was the surprised look on Teyla’s face.

“No!” The cry ripped uselessly from his throat and spilled out into the searing wave of heat. Something grabbed him by the jacket and roughly jerked him to the floor, a fraction of a second before a massive explosion sent a shudder through the stone bridge and spattered them with chunks of debris.

Jerking himself free of the children’s hands, Rodney grasped the edge of the window and peered out. It took several minutes before the smoke cleared enough to see the substantial crater where the transport and adjoining storehouse had once been.

The pain in Rodney’s throat, and indeed all of his many injuries, evaporated in the face of this new reality. He’d blown things up before. He was incredibly good at blowing things up. That there might have been people in those things — buildings, aircraft and whatever else the Air Force had seen fit to destroy — could be dismissed because they had been The Enemy. That’s the way it was in war. Things got broken, and blown up, and casualties resulted.

But not your…friends. You didn’t blow up your friends. Well done, McKay.

His breath hitched and his eyes stung and there seemed to be a great deal of moisture on his cheeks. The sound of someone sobbing seemed unreasonably loud in the silence. Rodney was only grateful that it wasn’t coming from him, but from one of the children. What little consolation he could draw from the situation was that being blown up had provided a more humane death than being trapped inside a room of burning oil.

Yann grasped his shoulder. “The Wraith may have captured more Genes and entered the Citadel through other transports.”

Swallowing, Rodney nodded. “We need to get back to the Command Center and assess the situation.” Which, loosely translated, meant that he hoped the Major was finally awake. Between the clouds of smoke, he noticed, the sky was definitely getting lighter.