The Inheritors

Chapter Eight Ultimatums

"Thank you for seeing me on such short notice," Jennifer Keller said.

"I had the hour free," Eva said. Her own part in the preparations for the imminent Wraith attack had consisted of lending a hand to move things people asked her to help move and trying not to get in people's way.

Jennifer shrugged, her mouth twisting. "I was guessing that Rodney's usual appointment time might be free, since he's still locked in a cell."

"Is that what you want to talk about?" Eva asked.

"I hardly know where to start," Jennifer said. "Last night Rodney and I broke up. I think. He asked me to marry him, and I said not right now, and he said then we shouldn't be dating seriously anymore. And this morning he took his cat and 'moved out,' only half of his stuff is still all over my quarters. And then this afternoon, I found out that he may still be under the control of the Wraith. I don't know what to think."

"Let's leave the question of any Wraith influence on this aside for a moment," Eva said. She was getting plenty of practice at saying things like that. "How did you feel when he said he was leaving?"

"Well, upset, obviously," Jennifer said. Eva waited. "And relieved," Jennifer said after a long pause. "And I know exactly how horrible that sounds."

"I think that's very understandable," Eva said. "You're under a lot of pressure at work, and at the same time you're trying to care for a partner who's been through a traumatic experience."

"And I'm not sure I want to get married. But I thought we could work things out. I wanted to work things out. I didn't expect him to just say, well, if you don't want to get married, I'm leaving. And now I don't even know whether he really means it, or whether he's just acting strangely because he's being controlled by the Wraith."

Eva sipped her cooling coffee and took a moment to think about her answer. She figured she'd have to add that one to her mental list of questions that most psychiatrists in private practice never got asked, right up there with "is there any point in talking about my childhood issues if I'm a clone of the person who actually had the childhood?"

"So what you're asking is whether being controlled by the Wraith would mean that he might change his mind?" she said finally.

"Something like that."

"Do you want him to change his mind?"

Jennifer let out a long breath. "I really don't know." She shook her head. "I love Rodney. I really do. But it seems like he wants to spend the rest of his life in Atlantis. And I don't… really think I like my job here." She looked guilty, but went on clear-eyed. "You know, when I got my medical degree, I wanted to do fieldwork. Disaster relief and public health. When I go to New Athos, or help people who've lost their homes to the Wraith, it feels like I'm doing what I always wanted to do. But that's maybe a few days out of every month. The rest of the time, I'm a general practitioner for a military base where we do a lot of questionably ethical things. And that's not something I ever wanted to do. It's not even something I like."

"You've done a lot of good work here," Eva said.

"I know. That's part of the problem. They need me here."

"Just because you've done a good job here doesn't mean you have to stay forever. There are other doctors who would also do good work here. Just because you stop doing something, it doesn't mean you've failed. Sometimes, it just means you've finished."

"I guess I've been waiting for Rodney to be finished," Jennifer said. "But I don't know if that's ever going to happen. And I know I shouldn't even be worrying about this now, because we're about to be under attack by the Wraith, and my relationship problems aren't a priority."

Eva shrugged. "What would you be doing if you weren't sitting here talking to me?"

"I don't know. Maybe taking a shower. We're pretty much set for tomorrow. I've triaged the patients to be transferred back to Earth, and we've packed up nonessentials in case they decide on a total evacuation. And we're pretty much always stocked for an apocalyptic disaster."

"Would you rather talk, or take that shower?"

"I think talk," Jennifer said. "I'll risk having to face the Wraith without my hair washed."

"All right, then," Eva said. "What do you want? Never mind what Rodney wants for a minute. What do you want?"

"I want a different kind of job," Jennifer said. "And I want to be able to figure out what that should be without making someone miserable. And when I do get married, someday, I want it to be when I'm ready to settle down and have kids somewhere that's not a war zone. Maybe that could even be Colorado Springs. Or Area 51. Both of them get invaded by aliens a lot less often."

"True enough."

"And when I thought that was what Rodney wanted, I figured, okay, we'll go ahead and move on to the part where we live in Nevada and have a cat and a baby and neighbors who probably aren't going to all die. If that's not on the table, then I don't think I'm ready to go home yet. I'm still okay with working in a war zone. It's just my actual job here that's driving me crazy."

"Then maybe you should think about how you could change that," Eva said.

"In all my copious spare time?"

"Try to make some time," Eva said. "I'll grant you tomorrow is probably all booked up."

"Yeah, I think the Wraith have penciled themselves in. My life crises will have to wait."

"Once we're through this, you can talk to Rodney about what you both want in the future. And that includes whether you want a future together or apart."

"You mean if he's not still brainwashed and carrying out a secret plot to kill us."

"If that's the case, then obviously we'll want to address that problem first," Eva said dryly.

Jennifer breathed a laugh. "Good plan," she said. "I think I'm going to see if I can take that shower."

"Good luck," Eva said, and hoped they'd all have it in the day to come.

The blade's face was smooth and old, but his voice was sharp. "The time has come," he said, the transmission crackling faintly on the screens of the hiveship Promised Return, "to make a choice. Will you stand with Queen Death against the Lanteans?"

Waterlight took a deep breath. At her side she felt Thorn stir, her Father who stood in the place of a consort until she was grown.

"We are in no condition to engage in battle," Thorn temporized. "Our ship is in poor condition, and we are far shorthanded since the war with the Replicators. We would be of little assistance to so great an alliance."

The blade snarled. "That may be. But it is your loyalty in question, and your courage. Are you too much of a coward to face the Lanteans? Is that true, Thorn?"

She felt his humiliation, the slow burn of disgrace that accompanied him, a consort who had not died for his queen and lived yet, branded coward and with nothing to do about it.

"It is not Thorn's decision," she said clearly, lifting her head, and the blade's eyes fell upon her though he had previously held her of little account. "I am the Queen, and I choose." Thorn moved, but she spoke on, her eyes on the Old One. "I reject alliance with Queen Death," Waterlight said. "I stand instead with my sister, Queen Steelflower."

At that he did hiss, his face contorting. "You will regret that, little queen. Death will drink your overlady's life, and she will not spare you in your turn. I name you renegade! None shall succor you or treat with you."

"Except my sister and her alliance," Waterlight said. Anger welled up in her, fierce and proud. "I do not fear you or that harridan you serve!"

Her father's voice was sharp in her mind. “Waterlight, mind what you do.” He feared. But she did not. His fears were for her safety, but if one cannot spend one's own life in pursuit of what is right, what can one spend?

“What manner of queen would I be,” she said to Thorn, “were I to yield to this?”

The Old One sneered. "What else could I expect of a hive such as yours? Criminals, who trespassed upon the oldest rules, creating monsters as that madman Michael did! It will be well when your line is snuffed out."

"Not while I live," Waterlight said, and with a mind touch she instructed the ship to cut the transmission. The last sight was his snarl, but his retort was lost. She dismissed him as though he were lowly indeed.

Thorn took a deep breath. “Daughter,” he said, and his mind was filled with warring fear and pride.

“Death would not have spared us anyway,” Waterlight said. “Better to defy her openly and perhaps we will draw some to us who hate her. It could not make it worse.”

“It could,” Thorn said. “The Old One will not let this be forgotten.”

“It would not be anyway,” Waterlight said. She paced to the other side of the chamber, kicking her skirts before her, too long and too confining. “What did he mean about Lastlight, who he called Michael? About criminals?”

Thorn sighed. “A long story, and worth little. It is simply one of those things that any hive does not wish to speak of.”

“It is my hive, and I wish to know. I have the right to know.”

He sighed again. “Before the last hibernation, before you were born, your mother had a brother.” Thorn went to the screens, bending over the control boards. “He was a cleverman, brilliant but headstrong. Had he but tempered his genius with sense he might have been Master of Sciences Biological. But instead he decided to conduct an experiment, one that has been forbidden to us since the earliest days of our people.”

“He created monsters?”

“He mingled his own genetic material with that of humans. Not sharing the Gift of Life as one may with ardent worshippers, but giving them a part of ourselves, partially transforming them. And that is forbidden.” Thorn did not look at her. “That is the thing that is forbidden — to change human into Wraith, the greatest crime we can name, at least by the old ways. He gave them our genes, our gifts, and then he released them to breed.”

Waterlight caught her breath. “What happened?”

“Your mother had to stop him. She closed his testing facility and destroyed his notes so that no other could follow him, but it was too late. His specimens had spread to a dozen worlds, and there was no way to seek them out or identify them. They did not look Wraith, you see. And yet he defied her. He tried it again, and that time she had to kill him.” Thorn bent over the board more closely. “He was her brother and she loved him. And so it fell to her to kill him for his crimes. The sorrow never left her.”

“Oh” Waterlight closed her mind so that he would not see her horror and think her weak. No doubt her mother would have told her in time, a disgrace in their line, even if it had been attended to. “What happened to the humans?” she asked.

Thorn looked up, surprised. “No one knows. Presumably as they spread world to world they mingled with the human populations they encountered. They live such short lives and breed so quickly, in the five or six generations of humans since then our blood would have become dilute. It would become an interesting recessive, but one never expressed. So it is a matter of no concern.”

“Ah,” Waterlight said. Her brow furrowed, a question forming. “And why is that forbidden? Why should we forbid something that is of no use?”

Thorn glanced away. “I do not know,” he said.

Perhaps that was not the right question, but now she found the right one, the one at the center surely as one may find the keystone at towers. “Lastlight — Michael — what did he hope to create?” Thorn did not answer, but she could find it herself, putting the pieces into place. “One who appeared human," Waterlight said slowly, "yet who spoke mind to mind and had our abilities. A human blade. Not a half-witted drone or a worshipper who could not use our technology or a mindless thrall. A human blade to be a knife to the heart of the Lanteans.”

“It may be so,” Thorn said grudgingly.

“And did he ever find such?”

“I do not think such has ever existed,” Thorn said. “But we have far greater worries now. Queen Death….”

Waterlight's chin rose. “We shall take our ship to join Queen Steelflower. Find her ships and we shall meet them at their next destination. We will stand with her against Queen Death.” She saw the expression in his eyes, and said softly for his mind alone, “Father, it is better to stand together than wait for her to come upon us alone.”

He knew that it was so.

A mess hall was a mess hall no matter where it was or what variety of human was in it. Laura Cadman glanced around the compartment the Genii had designated as the place to serve meals — very possibly it had served the same purpose on the Ancient ship, given the long counter along the far wall, though she had always somehow imagined that the Ancients were above mundane things like meals. They'd been people, though, or so she understood. They'd Ascended, yes, and left all that behind, but they'd been people once, and had needed starships and mess halls and ordinary things. And cities. Like Atlantis.

She couldn't help smiling a little at that thought, in spite of everything. She'd done her tour there, and never thought she'd get to come back, and now here she was again, off on another crazy stunt. She glanced over her shoulder at her team, seated around one of the unsteady square tables, a mix of MREs and local food spread out in front of them. Yeah, it looked like Hernandez had traded all of his for a bowl of the Genii stew — which looked like the posole she'd had when she was stationed at Area 51, though the smell was sweet rather than spicy — and, also typically, Johnson was eating only the mac-and-cheese and the dessert. He was pickier than McKay on a bad day, and that was saying something. They looked good, relaxed and ready, and she turned her attention back to the row of urns.

The Genii didn't use paper or plastic, but thin unglazed pottery that the new archeologist said could be re-worked as soon as it was broken. She picked up a cup and held it under the spigot that seemed to produce something that would pass for tea. It was hot, at least, and smelled a lot like her grandmother's Russian Caravan Tea in the shiny red-and-gold tin, and for just an instant she was overwhelmed by the image, the family at Thanksgiving all hanging out by the television for the big games, and Grandma making mug after mug of smoky tea because Uncle Bill wasn't drinking beer any more….

She shook the thought away and went back to join her team, once again aware of the Genii watching her with something that wasn't quite hostility. It was a little bit like being in Afghanistan, where the local friendlies dithered between treating you like an honorary man and loudly not noticing you were a woman, but at least the Genii didn't seem to think there was anything actually wrong with women, just that they weren't suitable for the military. Still, she was glad it was Major Lorne who was doing most of the talking.

"Hey, Captain," Hernandez said. If anyone was going to ask an awkward question, she'd bet on Hernandez to be first.

"Yeah?"

For a wonder, Hernandez kept his voice down, so that the handful of Genii at the far tables were unlikely to hear. "Is it true that these guys are taking blood samples from the Major? Going to clone him or something?"

Well, she couldn't really expect that would have gone unnoticed. "Major Lorne is just here as a pilot," she said carefully. "We also agreed to let them try our gene therapy, the one that activates the recessive ATA gene. But it's not about the Major, and it’s got nothing to do with cloning."

"Outta sight," Hernandez said.

Johnson started to say something, then stopped.

"Spit it out," Cadman said. Whatever it was, it was better out in the open.

"Sorry, ma'am. It's just — is that a good idea?"

No, actually it sucks, she thought, and lifted an eyebrow. "That's not our problem, now, is it?"

Which was answer enough, really, and Johnson shook his head. "Guess not, ma'am."

Cadman looked around the table again. Peebles, the only other woman on the team, hastily lowered her head, but not before Cadman had seen the swollen lip.

"Lance Corporal Peebles."

"Ma'am!"

"What the hell?"

"Ma'am." Peebles straightened her back. "It was a demonstration, ma'am. Just got a little out of hand."

"How out of hand?" Cadman demanded.

"Not really out of hand, just — I thought I should show them what a Marine could do." Peebles fixed her eyes on the far wall. She was a judoka, Cadman remembered, black belt or probably higher — had a judo scholarship before she joined the Marines, and still worked out regularly. In fact, she taught a couple of unarmed combat classes back in Atlantis. And Peebles was maybe 5'3" on a good day, a petite 120 pounds of deceptively solid muscle. For a moment, Cadman was sorry she hadn't seen the "demonstration."

"I'd prefer you didn't teach them judo, Peebles," she said, and Peebles relaxed.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Tell me what you need right now," Jack said. He'd managed to catch both Sheppard and Sam in the mess hall as they stopped in to fill their mugs with coffee.

Sam and Sheppard looked at each other. "Daedalus," Sam said.

"What you need that'll fit through the Stargate, Carter."

Sam made a face. "In that case, I could use some more repair technicians for Hammond. We're still trying to get her back to a hundred percent. I know there's no way we can repair the Asgard weapons until we get back to Earth, but we can do everything else if we have enough people. And I'm down three 302 pilots."

"I can do that. Sheppard?"

"Hyperion's weapon," Sheppard said grimly.

"Do I look like Santa Claus to you?"

Sam's lips twitched. "A little, sir."

"Knock it off," he said without heat.

"More Marine teams if you have them to spare," Sheppard said. "Whatever the tactical situation shapes up to be in the morning, it can't hurt to step up our ground forces."

"If we can't keep the hive ships off and we lose the city's shield, we're already pretty much screwed," Jack pointed out.

"At that point, additional Marine teams would help cover a retreat," Sheppard said. "If we reach that point, I'd like to try to get some of my people out before we have to blow up the city." His people, not him. Those words were unspoken, but Jack didn't think for a second that Sheppard planned to leave Atlantis.

"The databurst goes at 2200 hours," Jack said. "I'll see what I can order up for you."

"In the mean time, I'll see if we can get Zelenka and Kusinagi out there to help you with Hammond," Sheppard said.

Sam nodded. "Thanks." She met Jack's eyes for a moment, and he was struck suddenly by how long he'd known her, and how proud he was to see her in her element like this. He hoped some part of that came through in the moment before he looked away.

"And I'm going to keep looking for Hyperion's damn weapon," Sheppard said.

"We've tried scanning for naquadah," Sam said, before Jack could open his mouth. "The problem is, there's too much of it in the city. We've got entire storerooms full of small artifacts that are made of naquadah or naquadah-powered."

"Check the storerooms," Jack said. "Maybe somebody decided to hide a piece of hay in a haystack."

"Yes, sir," Sheppard said. If he'd already thought of that, he didn't feel the need to point it out. He'd mellowed over the years, settled into the fine officer Jack had hoped he could be without losing his flashes of reckless brilliance. They needed that as much as they needed more steady men like Hank Landry, even if Sheppard drove Jack nuts sometimes.

"We'll keep working on refining our scanners," Sam said. "Zelenka thinks one of the geologists with a background in mineral exploration may be able to help. But I can't make any promises."

"Morning briefing is at 0600 hours," Jack said. "Be there or miss out on the doughnuts."

Sheppard looked like he wasn't sure whether he was supposed to smile.

"Wouldn't want to miss that," Sam said.

Jack made his way up to the gate room at a brisk pace and arrived in time to catch Woolsey preparing to send the databurst.

"I've prepared a report for the IOA on our situation," Woolsey said.

Jack let out a breath. "Do we have to?" Woolsey gave him a look, and Jack relented. "Better you than me."

"I haven't mentioned anything about an Ancient device that might hypothetically kill Wraith," Woolsey said. He shook his head. "I used to feel more guilty about this kind of thing."

"It's hypothetical," Jack said. "If you told them every time we found a device that might turn out to be interesting, it wouldn't be good for their blood pressure.

"I said that we were hitting some snags in negotiating with the Wraith," Woolsey said.

"You could say that again."

"I have every confidence that Sheppard and his teams will find the missing device."

"When?" Jack said shortly.

"Soon."

"If it's too late for Guide to move his ships into position, it won't help."

"That depends," Woolsey said. "I expect Teyla is working right now on persuading Alabaster to start moving her ships into position tonight."

"That's not what Guide thinks she's supposed to do."

Woolsey looked at him shrewdly over his glasses. "Then the question is whether Guide or Alabaster is really in charge. At least, that's how I expect Teyla is putting it to Alabaster at the moment."

Jack snorted. "That should be interesting. You think Teyla can pull it off?"

"If anyone can handle the Wraith, she can," Woolsey said.

"In other words, you don't know."

"I don't know," Woolsey admitted.

"Understood. Let's dial up Earth."

The wormhole opened brilliant blue, and Jack stepped up to use the radio. "This is General O'Neill," he said.

"Landry here," Hank Landry replied after a pause just long enough for him to push his way forward to the mike. "What goes on in Atlantis?"

"The databurst explains, but I'll sum up," Jack said. "A massive Wraith fleet is bearing down on Atlantis. Our Genii and Wraith allies are not playing nicely with us at the moment. We're still hoping we can get them on board, but we may have to work with what we have."

"What do you need?"

"Dr. Lee and a repair team would help. Also some Marine backup. SG-3, if you've got them."

"They're offworld," Landry said. "I can send you SG-5 and SG-18."

"That works. And we could use some doughnuts for the morning briefing."

"I'll see what I can do about that," Landry said dryly.

"More news when we have more news. O'Neill out."

"Databurst transmission complete," Salawi said, her eyes on her computer screen.

"Shut the gate down," Jack said when Woolsey didn't say it first. "We're in no position to waste power."

Woolsey glanced sideways at Jack. "I thought you might want to return to the SGC, under the circumstances."

"What, and miss the doughnuts?" Jack clapped Woolsey on the shoulder. "I'm going to try and get a few hours sleep. Call me if anything interesting happens."

"I'll be sure to do that," Woolsey said, and moved to look over Salawi's shoulder at the long-range tracking signal. The cluster of lights it showed had brightened, a dozen ships still closing in slowly but relentlessly on Atlantis.