The Inheritors

Chapter Twenty-four Last Hopes

Lorne brought Pride of the Genii in on the tail of Death's hive, forward guns blazing. There were no more drones, hadn't been for what seemed like forever, but Radim's gunners couldn't miss at this range. The shots struck home, blasting metal and fittings from the hive's engines. The hive swerved, and Lorne let it go, putting his ship between it and Todd's other hive. It was drifting, damaged, but even as he watched a new light flared in the central engine bell. Powering up again, the Pride whispered, minimal maneuver engines and full power to the guns. The strange hive, though, the one that had jumped out of hyperspace at the last possible minute — it hadn't been in good shape to start with — was starting to show real damage, atmosphere leaking from a hull breach forward. The Hammond had her hands full, the last of her 302s on board but now surrounded by a swarm of Darts. Some of them were Todd's, Lorne thought, but there was nothing he could do about them, any more than there had been anything he could do for Rodney.

No, he thought, and felt the Pride gather herself before he'd even been able to articulate his commands. There was nothing anyone could have done for Rodney, not at that distance, and if there'd been any other way, McKay of all people would have found it. So that was the only option, and the only thing he could do now was make it count. Todd's hive was turning, driving Death's hive toward the Pride. Lorne calculated the angles in a glance, and dove on Death's hive.

Radek worked his way deeper into the crawlspace, pushing his flashlight ahead of him. Even he could barely fit between the heavy bundles that were the explosives, but he could see the fuse just ahead of him, a lumpy oval with half a dozen knotty cords reaching out along the crawlspace. It showed inert, unpowered, but he paused long enough to direct a scanner at it. There was still no sign of power, and he hauled himself another meter further, until he could reach the box.

It was a remote trigger, he thought, intended to take a signal from the pressure sensors on the hull or from a following hive. But the pressure sensors were disabled, he had destroyed the proximity fuses, and the jamming device should override any signal, so all he should have to do was disconnect the cables. Unfortunately, they seemed to grow organically from the box, not plug into a socket; he squirmed around to see how it connected to the nearest explosive, but the connection vanished behind the webbing that held the bomb in place, utterly inaccessible.

Fine, then, he thought, and wriggled himself back so that he could reach the box again. He had brought clippers — they were in fact modified garden shears, acquired from Botany when he was working on Teyla's cruiser — and now he worked them out of his pocket and positioned himself to cut the first cable. The blades bit through, releasing a spurt of unidentifiable liquid, and the cut end thrashed free of his grasp, twisting back as though it was trying to rejoin its other half. Radek caught it, flattened it against the floorplates with all his strength, and at last the flailing died away. He released it carefully, but it seemed to be inert.

And he would have to do that five more times just to defuse this section, and a dozen more just like it, and they were running out of time. He shook his head, and reached for the next cable, clamping down hard to hold it still. It fought back, but now that he knew what to expect, he could hold it. It seemed to die more quickly, or perhaps it was just that he understood the process now, and he moved on to the next.

He was damp and faintly sticky when he had finished, but at least these bombs were defused. A dozen more to go, if he'd scanned them correctly. There had to be a better way, but he didn't know one, hadn't seen it in his hasty scan. Maybe if he looked again, if he had time…. He touched his radio.

"Sergeant. Have we cleared the city?"

"Yes, sir," Ramirez answered.

Okay, that was good. Radek hauled himself up and over the now-disconnected fuse, dragging himself toward the next junction. That would give a little more time, maybe enough to figure out something better than brute force.

"Doc. We've got a Wraith. Ms. Emmagan says he's here to help."

A Wraith. One of Todd's people, presumably, and, yes, someone who really understood how these systems worked would be extremely useful. And if Teyla said he could be trusted, well, Radek would rely on that. "I am on my way."

He worked his way back out of the crawlspace, dropped down to the corridor in front of the waiting Marines. And the Wraith. He was one of the long-haired ones, with two thin wisps of beard trailing from the points of his chin and a tattoo like stylized wings between them. It was hard to read his expression, but Radek thought he might be frowning.

"You are the human clever — engineer?"

"Yes, that is me," Radek answered. "You're here to help?"

The Wraith nodded. "The bombs still need to be defused?"

"Yes." Radek stretched for the tablet he had left at the entrance to the crawlspace, turned it so that the other could see the schematic he had built from the Wraith data. The Wraith leaned closer, his hair whispering across the leather of his coat, and in spite of himself Ling raised his P90. Radek gave him an admonishing look, and pushed his glasses up on his nose. "This is what I've been able to trace. The explosives are here, all along the spine of the ship, and they are wired to a series of fuses within this central access space. I have cut the connection to the proximity fuses and the pressure sensors on the hull, but the bombs are still armed."

"Presumably they are intended to be detonated remotely," the Wraith said. "But?"

"We have jammed any transmissions," Radek answered. "Or at least any likely frequencies. But —"

"There are still too many fuses," the Wraith said. "There was no central control?"

"I have not found one," Radek answered. "You'd know better than I would where it might be hidden."

The Wraith hissed softly, and reached to turn the tablet for a better view. Radek made himself stand motionless as the feeding hand with its heavy vein slid along the metal next to his own fingers.

"I — this is not a tactic I would recommend," the Wraith said, after a moment.

"Effective, however," Radek said dryly, and thought the Wraith smiled.

"Yes." He looked back at the tablet. "To pull the fuses one by one will take too long."

"I am open to alternatives," Radek said. "If you were doing this, where would you put a master fuse?"

"I wouldn't," the Wraith said. "A kill switch, I think, some way to render the ship inert if it were not used as intended —"

Radek reached for the tablet, a new idea taking shape. "When I ran a power trace, there was an odd end. I thought it was part of the ship's systems, but —"

"Yes." The Wraith fumbled with the tablet's controls, claws clicking on glass and metal. Radek took it from him, touched the screen to expand the image. "Yes, there, in the engine room —"

"That's where that system goes," Radek said, nodding. "But how does it connect —?"

"There." A green-black claw tapped the tablet's screen. "There will be other connections within the engine room, but there — that's where the fuses will come together."

Radek studied the schematic. The point the Wraith indicated was not quite all the way to the engineering spaces at the stern but at the end of the ship's spine, where several of the access conduits came together. There was a power node there, but he'd assumed it was just part of the ship's normal systems. "Yes, I see. All right, we'll take it out there." He touched his radio. "Teyla. We are heading aft to disarm the kill switch."

"Copy that." It was the Marine lieutenant who answered, not Teyla, and Radek lifted his eyebrows. That could not be a good sign.

"Come. We must hurry."

The access hatch was the same as all the others he had found, a narrow oval that yielded reluctantly to the pulse of his probe. He turned to beckon to Ling — the hatches were too heavy for one man to move — but the Wraith put his shoulder to it, rolling it aside.

"Thank you," Radek said, and shone his light into the opening. Yes, there was the usual set of handholds, not quite a ladder, and then the maw of the access tube. For a moment, he wondered if it would be better to send the Wraith ahead of him, but that would mean giving him first access to the device. He took a breath, and pulled himself up into the tunnel.

It was larger than the ones he had been in before, large enough for a man to go on all fours and two abreast, though the Wraith stayed at his heels, claws loud on the hardened surfaces. More probably it was his boots, Radek told himself, not claws, and anyway he was here under orders to help. And beyond that, he himself had taken Dr. Keller's retrovirus, so probably he wasn't going to die even if the Wraith decided to eat him — He stopped abruptly, the tunnel widening ahead of him into a hemispherical chamber. A device like a stunted tree stood in its center, dozens of vine-like cables winding their way into its branches.

"I would guess this is it," he said, and pulled himself aside so that the Wraith could see.

The Wraith hissed in answer, teeth sharp and white in the dim light. "Death's men were taking no chances."

"What do you mean?"

"See there?" The Wraith pointed to a knob that protruded from the device near the junction of the upper limbs. "That is intended to receive a detonation signal. Apparently your jamming device works."

"Apparently." Radek cleared his throat. "So. Do we cut these cables, or is there a central switch, as you said?"

The Wraith tipped his head to one side. "Both would be safest, I think. But where to start…."

Radek let the beam of his flashlight play over the device, picking out what looked like a primary control node. "Is that it?"

"Yes." The Wraith crawled closer, reaching beneath his coat for a tool of his own. "I do not see any particular protection."

And how the hell am I supposed to tell if there's some sort of booby trap? Radek swallowed the words as unhelpful, and leaned close himself. "There are — wires — coming off in four, no, five places. Are they part of the mechanism, or a trap?"

The Wraith showed teeth again. "An excellent question." He probed carefully, then sat back on his heels. "I believe they all belong to the mechanism. And that means we should cut the head wire first."

"Head wire?" Even as he said it, Radek realized what the Wraith meant. The wires were laid out in a star pattern, or like a human figure spread-eagled. "This one?"

"Yes."

"All right." Radek was closer, and he reached for his cutters. "You're sure?"

"As sure as I can be."

And if he was wrong, there would be no second chances. Radek touched his radio again. "Teyla. Are we clear of the city? We are ready to cut wires, but if we are wrong…."

"We are far enough away from the city," Teyla answered, her voice serene. "Go ahead."

Radek braced himself and worked the clipper's blade under the head wire. He took a deep breath and squeezed hard. The blades sheared through the organic cable with a dull click, and that was all. Radek heaved a sigh of relief, and looked at the Wraith. "All right. Which one next?"

"I don't think it matters," the Wraith said. He looked deeply relieved himself. "I will start cutting the connectors, just to be sure."

"Yes," Radek said, already snipping wires.

“We are losing life support,” Bronze said.

Waterlight pursed her lips. The ship was shrieking in her mind, bleeding air from twenty wounds, precious fluids leaking into vacuum. Queen Death's hive ship rotated nearby, almost on top of them, point blank range for their weapons. Promised Return was dying.

“We have no choice,” Thorn said in her mind.

“I will not surrender!” Waterlight replied. “What mercy do you think we will find if I do?”

”Not surrender,” Thorn said, the shade of his mind grim. “Grapple and board. It is our only hope.”

Waterlight blinked. Yes, they were within range. And there was a docking port. The umbilicals still responded to her mind. “Grapple and board,” she said. She looked at Bronze, his wild elation tempered with fear held in check. “And give me your knife. We must make this queen to queen.”

The cruiser was responding at last, slower than Eternal had been, but finally willing. Teyla circled back around Atlantis's bulk, surveying viewscreen and tactical displays. Atlantis was surrounded by a swarm of Darts, Death's men and Guide's locked in combat above the shield; beyond the city, Death's hive heeled over, exposing its underside as a second, smaller hive battened onto it. The smaller ship looked familiar — Promised Return, Teyla thought, the young queen Waterlight's hive. It was in no shape to attack, and surely Waterlight didn't have enough men to board — and if she was making the attempt, she must feel she had no choice. Teyla toggled her radio.

"Major Lorne."

"Teyla?" Lorne's voice was tight, but the Pride of the Genii did not seem particularly hard-pressed at the moment.

"I am going to board Death's hive in support of Promised Return," Teyla said, the plan taking shape almost as she spoke. "Can you get a team on board as well?"

"Hold on," General O'Neill said. "Teyla, you don't have enough men to try that."

"Queen Death must be defeated face to face," Teyla said. "This is the best chance, now that Promised Return has begun the attack."

"I have a boarding party ready," a new voice said — Ladon Radim, cool as ever. "Major Lorne says he can deliver us."

"All right," O'Neill said. "We'll keep the other ships off you. Guide! Did you hear that?"

Teyla closed her mind to the acknowledgement, to the rest of the conversation, focused her will to bring the cruiser around again. She could see where the other access port lay, how she would have to turn to come alongside, and the cruiser took the course from her mind, rolling over in response. Teyla touched her radio again. "Dr. Robinson. I want you to take Dr. Zelenka and Ember back to Atlantis."

"No, no," Radek interrupted. "I will stay. The engines —"

"Your cleverman and I are needed here," Ember said, in almost the same moment.

Teyla glanced at the engineering console. They were both right, the engine controls were unstable, and she nodded. "Very well."

"I'd rather stay here myself," Eva Robinson said. She sounded surprisingly calm, under the circumstances. "I'm not really comfortable flying into that mess."

"Very well," Teyla said again. "Lieutenant Sheffield, take your men to the airlock, here. I'll join you as soon as we're alongside."

The cruiser knew its business. It followed her commands almost before she could form them, dodging a drifting ship and a tangle of Darts to come smoothly alongside Death's hive. The grapples fired, pulling the ships together, and Teyla felt the hulls touch, the ports matching smoothly.

"We've got green lights on the airlock," Sheffield reported. "We're through and the corridor is clear."

"Wait for me there," Teyla ordered. She seized her P90 and ran to join them.

Cadman flattened herself against the uneven wall of the hiveship, looked across the corridor to Johnson on point. He lifted his hand to signal all clear, and she swept forward, weapon ready, stopped at the next cross corridor to consult her tablet. The Genii filled in behind her, and Ladon Radim leaned over her shoulder.

"Well?"

"We're here," she said, pointing. They were about at the midpoint of the hive, just astern of the point where it divided around the central opening. "Teyla's further up the right side, I think — she came aboard here. Heading for the control room. I guess the other Wraith are headed that way, too."

Radim nodded. "Join up with her, or take out the engines?"

You're asking me? Cadman swallowed the words, and touched her radio. "Teyla, this is Cadman. Can you hear me?"

There was a moment's silence, and then the familiar voice sounded in her ear. "I hear you, Captain."

"I'm on the hive with Chief Radim and forty men. Do you need support?"

"If you can spare any, yes. But it's crucial that you disable the hyperdrive."

"Copy that," Cadman said. She glanced over her shoulder. "Johnson, Peebles. Chief Radim, can you spare some of your men?"

"Yes." Radim began pointing, sorting out a group, and Cadman took a deep breath.

"Johnson, take these men to join Ms. Emmagan. You're under her command. The rest of you — with me." She touched the radio. "Teyla, I have ten men coming to you."

"Thank you, Captain," Teyla answered.

Cadman looked back at her tablet. It looked as though there was one quick and obvious way to the hive's engineering spaces, and even if the Wraith were waiting for them, she couldn't see a better way. Radim nodded as though he'd read her thought, and pointed to the same corridor.

"This way," he said, and gave her a wry smile. "Sometimes you just have to attack head-on."

"That's what Marines are for, sir," Cadman said. "Johnson! Move out!"

Radek glanced around the cruiser's engine room, squinting in the dim light. About half the consoles were dead, and the others shimmered with caution lights, warning of hull damage and crushed maneuvering vents and dropping power levels throughout the ship. The Wraith — Ember, Teyla had called him — was busy at a secondary console, and a moment later a larger overhead screen lit, showing a series of images from what Radek guessed were the main sensors. Atlantis was still moving toward them, but there were fewer Darts surrounding it, and it looked as though the rest of Death's ships were finally on the defensive.

"What else can we do?" he asked, and Ember glanced at him.

"You see the power drain."

"Yes."

"That is Death's hive, fighting us. We must block it, if we can, or attack in kind."

That made a weird sort of sense, considering that the Wraith ships were in some sense alive, and Radek nodded. "Show me what to do."

There were Wraith ahead of them, Teyla knew, nearly a dozen drones and a pair of blades, but she couldn't pin down the location. Somewhere beyond the next bulkhead, she thought, and waved for Sheffield to slow down. Before she could warn him, however, the bulkhead to her left burst open, and the first pair of drones emerged. Sheffield swung, firing, caught them in the chest; Ramirez, an Atlantis veteran, aimed for the legs, and brought the second pair down kicking, for the next man to finish off. Teyla fired past them, hoping to catch the controlling blades, but they were staying back behind the drones. One of the Marines went down, screaming as a drone fed; the woman behind him leaped to try to rescue him, but another drone batted her aside. She went flying across the corridor and collapsed against the opposite wall. One of the Genii interposed himself, firing his repeating rifle, and then someone hit a blade, and the drones staggered, momentarily uncontrolled. Teyla swung her P90, raking the first rank, and the Marines took out the rest, leaving only bodies. There were still Wraith ahead, Teyla thought, but none alive here.

But she had lost men. Two of the Genii lay withered, and a Marine, and the Marine woman was staggering to her feet, blood covering one side of her face. Another Marine pressed a field dressing to the cut, and she settled her helmet over it, wincing. Lieutenant Sheffield was looking at her, and she forced herself to meet his eyes.

"Which way, ma'am?"

"The control room," Teyla answered. "I sense some Wraith ahead —" She stopped abruptly. "There are more Wraith behind us, too. We must find a way to cut them off. Through here."

They piled through the next hatchway, and she closed the door behind them. The ship would not respond to her, and there was no time to enforce her will; she turned her head away and fired into the controls. They exploded in a burst of spark and flame and she turned away to see Sheffield grinning.

"Ma'am, it looks like the next cross corridor's a strong point. A couple of us could hold off those guys behind us, keep them off your back."

And die doing it, Teyla thought. But there was no other way. "Yes," she said, and hurried on.

Ember bent over the controls, biting back a cold fury. This ship was old, too old for battle; it should be safe in orbit somewhere, where blades could learn to pilot and budding clevermen could learn their trade easing its death. To bring it here, stitched full of explosives — to demand that it fight — that was abomination indeed. He spread both hands flat on the console, heedless of his handmouth, seeking the cruiser's will. For a moment, there was nothing, and he caught his breath, afraid that it was too far gone, but then he felt it, the slow pulse that was not intelligent but not unliving, either. Feed, he whispered, you are starving. Feed. He felt it respond, fumbling toward the hive's greater life, and looked over his shoulder at the human cleverman.

"The umbilicals. Extend them."

"Yes, yes." The human hit the correct sequence, then reached for the levers, guiding the heavy cable across the few meters that separated the ships. "Okay, it says they are touching — they have set."

"Yes," Ember said aloud, and nudged the cruiser again. Feed, there is life for the taking…. He felt it fumble and then latch on, drawing power with more assurance. "That will cause them trouble."

"What exactly are we doing?" the human asked.

"I have enabled our ship to feed off Death's hive — to do what they were trying to do to us," Ember answered. "That will drain their power plant, and make it much harder for them to escape."

"I think you have annoyed someone," the human said, and pointed to the main display.

Ember snarled at the sight. Another cruiser was heading toward them, visibly damaged, but with forward weapons charged and ready. "They will try to knock us loose."

The human touched his ear. "Eva! We are coming under attack —"

The cruiser fired, the volley ragged, and Ember ducked in spite of himself. "Quickly —"

The decking rattled, the entire ship shuddering. Alarms blared — atmosphere leak, power loss, life support failure — and Ember grabbed the human by the shoulder. "We must get to your jumper —"

Another shot hit, and more alarms blared, gravity wavering for an instant before it was restored.

"If we can," the human said, grimly, but scrambled ahead of him up the narrow corridor.