Entanglement

Chapter six

Ronon hated waiting. He could stand the stillness and silence required for hunting and stalking, but this was different.

Pacing the rear cabin was the only outlet for his frustration. Sheppard had ordered them to move, and Kusanagi had been trying to take the puddlejumper toward the hills to the south, but the Mirror's last abrupt discharge had forced them down in the grassy plain not far from their original position. Now Ronon couldn't even help Kusanagi and Zelenka by volunteering to stare at a screen; the interference had turned all the sensors to glittering multi-colored static. They had sent the transmission to the camp on the other moon, but now the comm wasn't working either, and they had no idea if there had been a reply.

And the whole thing had been a trick, a Wraith trap. He should have seen past it, even if the others hadn't. That was the whole reason he was here. But he had never heard a Wraith speak like that before. Speak to people as if they were equals, not just prey. The voice on the comm had sounded as much like a human woman as Teyla or Kusanagi, and he had been deceived by it as easily as the less wary Atlanteans.

"Still nothing. I can't get through this interference." In the jump seat, Zelenka typed on one of the little portable computers, glancing worriedly at the hazy cloud hovering in the air where the HUD was normally displayed. "Surely they weren't hurt. They were moving away from the Mirror or they would not have been able to get that last transmission through."

In the pilot's chair, Kusanagi tapped the control board impatiently. The holographic display just responded with more fuzzy bursts. She said, "I don't understand how Trishen could be a Wraith. The data that Dr. McKay described-"

"Yes, I don't see how Wraith could fake those readings, not well enough to fool Rodney," Zelenka said. They shared an uneasy look. "Perhaps Wraith from some other reality have come through the Quantum Mirror."

Ronon felt his.) aw tighten. "That's all we need."

"Perhaps they'll fight with the Wraith here and kill each other." Zelenka saw the expression on Ronon's face and shrugged philosophically. "Well, we can hope. Wait, wait-" Looking back to his small screen, he waved a hand excitedly. "I'm receiving sensor data-" He touched his headset. "Colonel Sheppard, are you there? Can you hear me, anyone? Rodney, Teyla?"

Kusanagi's hands moved competently over the board. Her face intent, she said, "The HUD is coming back online. The life signs detector should show us-" But when the HUD screen popped up, she gasped. "Dr. Zelenka-"

Zelenka flung his arms up in frustration. "I can't get through to the others! Do prdele! There is still too much interference!" He turned his chair, looking at the HUD, then froze. "Oh, no."

Ronon stepped forward, leaning on the back of Kusanagi's chair. He couldn't read the language scrolling along the sides and bottom of the image, but he knew that glowing dot in the center was a ship. "Wraith." He felt his lip curl into a silent snarl. This was just getting worse. "A hiveship?"

Zelenka shook his head, going pale as he studied the screen. He said faintly, "Too small. It's a scout ship, already in orbit. The interference from the Mirror must have concealed its approach." He touched his radio headset again, his voice tight with urgency. "Perhaps they did not detect-"Another screen popped up in the HUD, displacing the longrange sensors, flashing with urgency.

Ronon knew this one, too. It was the jumper's life signs detector, blinking dots superimposed over a grid. It was picking up three signs close together, moving through the lower level of the giant building behind them. And five more signs moving toward those. Ronon's hands tightened into fists. "They're heading right for them."

John led the way back down the passage, glancing warily at the ceiling, checking for signs of imminent collapse. The dust was a thick haze in the air, glittering in their lights.

His voice tight, Rodney whispered suddenly, "Wait, wait, I'm getting life signs." John looked back to see him studying the detector, his face set in a grim expression. "Five, out in the main corridor. We were right, she must have had company."

John fell back a step to look at the detector's screen. It was still fuzzy from the Mirror's interference, but he could see the five signs were moving fast down the corridor from the direction of the Mirror platform, blocking the clear path to the outside. "Crap. Come on." He turned back the other way, deeper into the building, hoping this passage wasn't blocked.

Teyla kept an eye on their six, saying sourly, "At least I can sense them now that they are not in Trishen's ship."

"It's still only an assumption that they came from her ship," Rodney corrected her sharply. "If they have some kind of advanced shielding now that our sensors can't penetrate, they could have been concealed anywhere-" He stared at John, appalled. "They could have already found the jumper. That ship has sensors that can penetrate the jumper's cloak-"

Still trying his radio and getting nothing but static, John shook his head. "They had time to get away." He didn't want to say anymore, because it was all too frigging possible the Wraith had found the others.

His eyes on the detector again, Rodney reported, "They're turning down this passage." His voice was urgent. "We need to-"

"Yeah." John increased his pace to a fast jog.

A short distance up ahead the corridor took an abrupt turn, ending in a triangular hatch. John stepped back to the corner to cover the passage behind them, while Rodney hurriedly wrenched off the wall console and Teyla watched the door. Rodney said in frustration, "And how the hell do they know we came this way? As far as we know, they don't have bio-sensors this exact and they can't use the Ancient devices-"

"The corridor floor was covered with sand," Teyla pointed out, her voice grim as she kept a wary eye on the door. "Our tracks led them to us."

John flicked off the P-90's light before he risked a look back down the passage. He could hear a faint scraping that might be footsteps. "Now would be good, Rodney," he whispered harshly.

"No, really?" Rodney snapped, "I thought we'd just stand around here and wait forGot it," and the doors were sliding open, releasing a rush of air.

In another moment they were through the hatch, with the doors sealed safely behind them. Rodney pulled two of the crystals from the wall console on this side and tucked them into a vest pocket. "That should hold them for…a minute or so, anyway."

"That's all we need," John said, flashing his light around. It glinted off cool blue stone and embossed metal. They were in a large foyer, with three open corridors heading off in different directions. Teyla shone her light across the floor. No sand, so they wouldn't leave tracks. This section was pressurized and the seals must have kept out the dust and dirt. The Wraith would be expecting them to head for the outer edge of the installation, toward the jumper's last position, so John picked the corridor leading back toward the inner ring and Mirror platform. "This way."

They started down the new corridor, and not far along they were rewarded with another set of branching passages. His eyes on the life signs detector, Rodney said in relief, "We're good. They picked the wrong corridor." As if in response, a low vibration trembled through the floor; the Mirror was still dangerously active. "They might be doing something that's setting off that interference," Rodney added with a grimace. "If they have darts or another ship close enough to affect the Mirror's nimbus, it could be causing those energy bursts."

Teyla said reluctantly, "There may have already been another Wraith ship in position to attack the jumper. Once we entered Trishen's ship, the trap would have been sprung."

"Yes, but the problem is that the trap wasn't sprung," Rodney bit the words out. "Why didn't she lock the hatch before she showed us what she was? It doesn't make sense! If she had just left her helmet on, she could have kept us there, out of radio contact, with no chance to warn the jumper until the attack was over." He waved his free hand, warming to his point. "Trust me on this one, if Miko was in a dogfight with darts or Ronon was manfully wrestling drones in the rear cabin, Radek would have mentioned it!"

"I don't know," John said, teeth gritted. The radio was still picking up nothing but static. "You said that data wasn't fake. If these Wraith got that ship and that shielding technology from some place they went to through the Mirror-"

"Maybe." Rodney shook his head, frustrated. "I still think we could actually be dealing with Wraith from another reality."

"I believe you are right," Teyla told him. "She did seem different. And it is strange that she gave us a name. I did not believe they had names, even among themselves."

"But it doesn't matter which reality they came from." Rodney's face was grim, his mouth a hard line. "We have to shut this Mirror down permanently, now. Even if it destroys this entire installation in the process."

John exchanged a look with Teyla, just in time to see a flicker of hope in her eyes. If this new technology spread to all the other Wraith… That wasn't an option. They couldn't let it be an option. "What do you need?"

"I don't know yet…" His expression intent, Rodney dug into one of the pockets of his tac vest, pulling out the camera he had used to record Trishen's data display. "But this might tell me."

Rodney needed a place to concentrate with a little less threat of imminent painful life-sucking death. He would have preferred his main lab at Atlantis, but that not being available, he settled for following Sheppard and Teyla further up into this section of the installation.

A short distance down the passage they found a stairwell and went up a couple of levels, further away from the area the Wraith were searching. The power was fluctuating all through this section, lights blinking out at random, doors wedged partly open, drafts where bursts of recycled air came out of broken vents. Now that Rodney knew that Trishen might be monitoring the security system, he set his equipment to scan for the video signals. But fortunately the system didn't seem to be active here.

Sheppard found an empty lab where most of the vents were working, providing enough air to let them turn off their SCBAs and save the tanks. Rodney sat down on a broken stone plinth and said, "Don't talk to me." He ignored Sheppard's eye roll, got the camera out, and started reviewing the playback and the data downloaded to his tablet. Sheppard and Teyla took up guard positions on the door, and Sheppard tried to raise the jumper again.

The static on the radio seemed to be dying down, but Sheppard still couldn't get any response. Rodney swal lowed in a dry throat, put that out of his mind, and tried to concentrate.

At one point, Sheppard showed the life signs detector screen to Teyla, telling her, "The interference keeps messing with the signal, but it looks like the Wraith are leaving this section, heading in toward the Mirror platform."

She frowned. "Perhaps they are going to Trishen's ship. But I wonder why."

"Maybe they're having a meeting," Sheppard said. He sounded sarcastic, but then everything Sheppard said sounded sarcastic, even things like "pass the salt," and Rodney had always put it down as an unintentional byproduct resulting from the combination of his unidentifiable accent and his slacker attitude. Sheppard seemed completely unaware of it, though it probably explained the recurring problems with his military career. And of course, the damn Mirror could pick now to have one of its catastrophic discharges and wipe out the Wraith on the platform, but Rodney knew their luck didn't run that way, and if the Mirror was going to kill anybody that way it would be them.

Then his headset crackled and Rodney heard a babble of familiar voices. Startled, he looked up as Sheppard hurriedly keyed his radio, saying, "Jumper One, please respond. This is Sheppard."

Over the rush of static, Rodney heard Zelenka saying, "Colonel! Such a relief to hear your voice!"

Rodney felt the tightness in his chest unclench just a little. The Wraith hadn't found the jumper. So far, despite the Mirror, the Wraith, and what was apparently a group inclination for suicidal behavior, they had all managed not to get killed. He went back to verifying the direc tional indicator on that elusive power signature that kept reappearing in the data. "You too," Sheppard replied to Zelenka, exchanging a look of relief with Teyla. "What's your situation?"

Zelenka began, "We thought-" In the staticobscured background, Miko said something urgently and Sheppard's pet caveman growled. Zelenka finished, "Yes, yes, I'm telling him! Colonel, there are Wraith everywhere."

Rodney rolled his eyes and spared a moment to contribute, "You don't say."

"Zelenka, I need you to define `everywhere,"' Sheppard persisted. "Is it a hiveship?"

"No, not yet," Zelenka replied hurriedly. "The jumper has detected a small ship in polar orbit, matching our data on the energy signatures for a Wraith scout ship."

Teyla's brow furrowed. "We must assume a hiveship is on the way."

Ah ha. Here we go. "Got it." Rodney pushed to his feet. He stepped over to Sheppard and Teyla, tapping the tablet's display. "I was certain I saw this but I wanted to verify the location. Trishen's equipment registered an energy pulse coming from along the top of the installation." He pointed up for emphasis. "If I'm correct, that pulse is designed to generate a containment field just above the Mirror's accretion surface, to stabilize the singularity's event horizon. Without it, the singularity keeps trying to expand, pushing at the naquadah frame, the structure of the installation, the bedrock beneath it. Like the rest of the installation, the pulse generator is drawing power from the Mirror's subspace conduit, but something is causing it to only function erratically at the moment, which is why the discharges are occurring. And the energy signatures of the jumper and any Wraith darts may be disrupting the pulse itself whenever they come within range, causing the discharges to occur more frequently." Rodney tucked the tablet under his arm. "The Mirror is already dangerously unstable. The key to rendering it unusable is going to be in destabilizing it further-"

"So you want to blow up the thing that's generating the pulse?" Sheppard said.

Watching Rodney intently, Teyla asked, "Can we use the jumper's weapons?"

"The shielding!" Zelenka was saying in the headset. "The shielding may prevent-!"

Rodney waved at them all to shut up, even though Zelenka couldn't see him. "Yes, and no. We need to disable the pulse generator, but taking the jumper up into a firing position above the roof may just trigger another violent discharge; we could be smashed into the building before we have a chance to fire. And the shielding on the installation's inner ring and the roof must be designed to deflect the full force of the energy spikes that the Mirror can generate; the jumper's energy drones may not be able to penetrate it." He rubbed his hands together in anticipation. "But the good news is, the pulse array stretches along the entire circumference of the roof, and we should be able to disrupt it at any point."

Sheppard was watching Rodney as if he didn't have a clue what Rodney was saying, as if he wasn't even sure Rodney was speaking English, but Rodney had learned long ago that was just as deceptive as the involuntary sarcasm. Proving it, Sheppard said, "So we need to get up there and disable one section so the whole thing will shut down. And the Mirror will do what?"

"The Mirror is going to-" Rodney hesitated uneasily, thinking it over. The singularity would take time to collapse, but the discharges would become more violent immediately. "We're going to have to get back inside the installation as quickly as possible. The instability should cause the singularity to begin a collapse, but it'll take some time. Hours, probably days. After the initial reaction, we should be able to lift off in the jumper and get away." Remembering all his practical experience was with a Quantum Mirror the size of a bathtub rather than an Olympic stadium, he added, "Theoretically."

"Right." Sheppard looked at Teyla and got a grim nod in response. In Rodney's headset he could hear Zelenka and Kusanagi unhelpfully debating the possibility of the collapsing singularity punching a hole straight through the moon and taking all matter in the area with it. Sheppard asked, "What about the jumper? Are they going to be safe out there during this?"

"In a word, no." Rodney touched his headset. "Radek, does your life signs screen show the Wraith anywhere near that big freight corridor?"

Zelenka answered, "No, they are not there. We can not see their positions exactly-there is still much interference-but we saw them move into the center section."

Rodney nodded briskly. "Good. I need you to move the jumper, still cloaked, into that passage. That's what it was designed for; there's plenty of room. Look for a stable bay along the side and take the jumper into it. That should shield you from the initial reaction discharge and cut down the chances of the Wraith stumbling into you if they come back down that way."

Teyla lifted her brows doubtfully and looked at Sheppard. Sheppard got that expression he always got when someone other than him wanted to do something crazy with a puddlejumper. There was a static-laden silence from the radio. Then Zelenka said, "Ali… Colonel, is that good idea?"

Rodney mentally rewrote Zelenka's next performance evaluation to include the term "mutinous."

But Sheppard just said, "Affirmative, Zelenka, take the jumper inside."

The comm was chiming for attention, but Trishen hesitated, leaning on her control console. Unlike her drive, her sensors had survived the abrupt unplanned trip through the Quantum Mirror, and her holo display showed the newly arrived ship in orbit. She had seen the energy signatures when it had used a transport beam to send a landing party to the installation, and the effect that had had on the dangerously unstable Mirror.

She should answer the comm. Except… something's wrong, she told herself, grimly eyeing the screen. She hadn't been able to sense the humans' presence. But these newcomers were not humans, and she could taste the matrix of their minds, just on the edge of her awareness.

It felt wrong. There was nothing she could articulate, no one element that seemed to warn of danger. But deep inside her, a buried instinct said, fear this.

The humans had spoken of Wraith, of the danger of revealing her presence in this place. Of course, then they went mad and threatened to kill you, she told herself ruefully.

Their fear she had been able to understand; she was too different from them, perhaps they had never seen an alien being before. It was the hate that baffled her.

When she had first glimpsed them on the security camera she hadn't known what she was looking at. They were so alien, so unlike Eidolon, all different sizes and colors. Then one had looked directly at the camera, and she had had a sudden clear view of his face. It had been like looking at one of the ancient holo recordings of the Creators.

She had gripped the cold metal of the console, staring in shock. If the Creators were alive in this reality… This is incredible; all our questions could be answered! But surely Creators would know how to override their own security measures. She had turned the damn system on accidentally when trying to power up the complex and it had taken her hours to figure out how to keep it from locking her in constantly. If she hadn't had the Creators' gene, it would have been impossible.

That was when she had realized that they must be humans. The Eidolon knew that the first human colonies had died out even before the Creators, the first victims of the plague that had eventually destroyed the Creators' civilization. She had been desperate to speak to them, and not only for the value to Eidolon science. She wasn't accustomed to being alone, to being separated from her own kind; she was desperate to speak to anyone.

The comm chimed again and she grimaced at it. The humans could have been lying about the danger… Why? They weren't afraid until they saw your face, until they saw you weren't one of them. Before that, she thought they had honestly meant to help her. She knotted her fists. She still needed that help. You should be able to deal with this. You're not a child, you're an adult, skilled in your calling, an expert in the Creators' lost technology. She was also alone, trapped away from her world, away from the protection of her mother and her male lineage, and it frightened her in a way that struck her to the core.

She had to find out who was on that newly arrived ship. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She carefully stretched out toward that tenuous mental connection, toward the alien ship in orbit.

It came almost immediately.

Hunger They had traveled far from the hive, chasing the elusive energy traces that might indicate Lantian technology, and there had been little to feed on along their route. There were tantalizing hints from other hives that a new feeding ground existed, rich beyond measure, that Lantian technology might lead to it.

Trishen retreated, startled. She didn't think they were aware of her; there was something primitive about most of the minds in the matrix, and she could tell there was no female onboard. That can't be a good sign. She pushed harder, slipping past the higher levels of awareness, choosing an individual mind at random.

She saw with his eyes.

He was walking through the ship. It was primitive too, at least this section of it. She caught sight of another crew member, and was baffled by the heavy mask of what looked like bone concealing his-its? — face. Another passed by, but this one looked like an Eidolon male. That doesn't make sense. The humans had acted as if they had never seen an Eidolon before. Trishen opened her senses further, trying to understand. Then she gagged, her throat nearly closing at the stench of death; the sweetness of rotting flesh was thick in the air. There's been an accident, she thought, bewildered, a hull breach. But she could see the crew, Eidolon and the masked beings, passing in the corridor as if nothing was wrong. And the stink; had they just left the bodies where they lay? And there was web everywhere, thick bundles of it. What in the name of the Creators are they doing? she wondered incredulously.

Then the being she was riding stopped in front of a small chamber, in front of a mass of web, and she saw a body trapped in it. A human female, naked except for a few rags, slumped over with only the web holding her upright. Dead, surely she was dead. He reached toward her, his hand on her chest, and Trishen's thoughts dissolved in horror. No. It can't be. This can 't be.

The human jerked and screamed.

Trishen fled, snatching her awareness away. Back in her own body she shoved away from the console, staggered blindly to the wall. Bile rose in her throat as her body tried to revolt. Wraith. Not Eidolon. Wraith. The species that had destroyed the Creators.

This… explained a great deal.

Ignoring the chiming of the comm unit, she leaned on the wall, breathing in the clean air of her own ship. Squeezing her eyes shut didn't help; the human female's horrific death was burned into her brain. Now you know why the humans ran from you, she told herself.

Now she understood the hate, too.

They found the roof access on the uppermost level, a lift platform that took them up into a circular structure with one section open to the outside. The elevator doors opened and John stepped out cautiously, Teyla beside him, warily surveying the scene. The flat roof stretched away, an empty expanse of dust-streaked blue stone, under a sky that was starting to dim as the moon's orbit took it into eclipse again. John said, "This the right place?"

"No, the elevator took us to another dimension." Rodney was already checking his various screens.

John exchanged a startled look with Teyla, then he rolled his eyes in annoyance and they both glared at Rodney. "McKay."

"What?" Rodney demanded, not looking up.

Brows lowered and sounding distinctly testy, Teyla began, "Considering where we are-"

John finished in a flat voice, "That wasn't funny."

On the headset, John heard Zelenka confide in an undertone to either Kusanagi or Ronon, "Rodney thinks he is hilarious."

"I can hear you, Zelenka, and all right, fine, yes, this is the right part of the roof." Rodney checked his tablet again. "The array is straight ahead, on the inside edge."

John waited while Rodney did a last check through of all his equipment. Mirror: probably not about to discharge and kill them. Life signs: currently clear except for the three of them. Wraith darts: none close enough to detect. Scout ship: at the far end of its polar orbit, out of range for at least the next half hour. Then John stepped out into the open, trying to ignore the sensation of being fully exposed to the view of every Wraith in the entire system.

As they started across the open expanse of the roof, Radek reported that they had reached the freight entrance and that Miko was maneuvering the cloaked jumper down the corridor. A moment later John heard a yelp and a faint metallic crunch. Miko snapped, "Shimatta!"

John winced in genuine pain. It was his favorite jumper. "What happened?"

"Nothing," Radek replied hurriedly. "It's a small scratch, I'll fix it when we get home."

Rodney snorted in exasperation. "It's `The Bobbsey Twins Try to Park a Puddlejumper.

"Just be careful," John told Radek.

As they neared the edge of the roof, John saw a wide square trench, close to thirty feet across and about five feet deep, apparently running the full circumference of the building, just as Rodney had predicted. The far side curved up into a blue-green metallic housing that he hoped was for the pulse generator, forming a square block that extended out over the edge of the installation like a porch roof. Okay, this is what I saw from the window bubble in that monitoring room. There were a scatter of low stone platforms of different heights along the trench, probably bases for equipment that had been long removed.

John jumped down into the trench and Rodney and Teyla used the little set of steps. After a little searching, they found the nearly invisible seams of a large square access port. Rodney set his tablet down and unslung his pack, taking out his toolkit. He tapped his radio. "Radek, we've found it. Pull up the database on Ancient conductivity and energy control-"

"I have it, Rodney," Radek replied. "And we have found a nice bay to sit in."

Studying the sky uneasily, John asked, "How long is this going to take?"

Still holding the toolkit, Rodney rolled his eyes. "A long long time, if someone interrupts me every ten seconds to ask-"

Then Teyla shouted, "Colonel!"

John turned, saw the white flash. Wraith were beaming down on the inside edge of the trench, between them and the lift platform. He yelled, "Wraith!"

He opened fire with Teyla as the Wraith materialized. A high-flying dart must have picked them up on its sensors, beamed down this search group. There were at least seven of them, males and drones, and that was too many. One drone dropped, then another. The others were lifting stunners. In his peripheral vision, John saw Rodney turn, aim his pistol at his tablet where it sat on the pavement, squeeze off two shots. Good, John thought, right before the stun blast hit him in the chest.

John saw the ground rushing toward him, and slammed into it.

Dazed, Rodney opened his eyes when something tugged at his SCBA. No, no, what the hell? I need that. He fumbled for the chest strap with numb fingers, trying to hold on to it. The next tug was violent, ripping the mask away, taking the tank and his tac vest with it. It yanked him around so that he was sprawled on his side; Rodney choked on a breath, the thin air laden with dust, and stared upward.

There was a Wraith drone standing over him, faceless in the bone mask it wore. He choked on an outcry, his throat closing. He tried to scramble away but his muscles were limp, his body like an unstrung puppet.

The drone stepped back and Rodney saw Sheppard lying on his side a few feet away. His jacket, vest, and SCBA had been pulled off and tossed aside. Teyla lay in a crumpled heap not far beyond Sheppard, another drone just now dragging off her vest and breathing unit, ignor ing her startled outcry and her weak attempt to punch it. Rodney gasped, "No, we need those," the words came out in a weak wheeze and Rodney felt the first pressure on his lungs. The Wraith had taken their weapons, the headsets. And their air.

Hypoxia. Ten or twelve percent oxygen, just enough to die slowly. It meant gasping for breath, muddled thinking and inability to make decisions, fatigue, and other things that weren't going to matter because they were going to be fed on, they were going to die, very, very painfully and very, very soon.

He saw Sheppard shove at the pavement, trying to push himself up and falling back helplessly. He looked feral and desperate and furious, like a trapped predator. He met Rodney's gaze, and for a moment there was nothing there but wide-eyed despair, before Sheppard looked away. It's not fair, Rodney thought, feeling the odd detachment of incipient hysteria. It should have been quick, an explosion; Rodney had been mentally prepared for them all to die in an explosion, eventually. Not this, they didn't deserve this.

At least he had destroyed his tablet, with its information on the Mirror. Small consolation, he told himself bitterly.

A male Wraith stepped into Rodney's view, its long white hair and dead pale skin almost glowing against the dark stone. It had at least a dozen bullet holes in the dull silver armor on its chest, but it must have fully regenerated already. It wore something around its neck, a gray bulbous device with nodes clamped over the slits on its face. Some sort of breather unit, Rodney thought. It nudged the shattered tablet with a foot and hissed with displeasure. Then it paced toward them, standing over them, barring its teeth in a sneer. It said, "How did you get to this moon?"

Right, there's no Stargate here. Rodney groaned under his breath. There was just no good answer to that question.

Teyla tried to push herself up, shaking the hair out of her eyes, her face set in a snarl nearly as intimidating as the Wraith's. Sheppard looked up at it with narrowed eyes, sneering back. "We walked."

The Wraith hissed and leaned down toward him, lifting a hand. Rodney choked out, "No! Stop, God-" But the Wraith only slapped Sheppard, the open-handed blow slamming him back into the pavement. Rodney winced away.

Teyla made a strangled noise of rage, nearly shoving herself upright. Rodney didn't see the drone, not until it stepped in, swinging the butt of its stunner, striking her across the face. It knocked her flat; she twitched once and lay unmoving. Rodney shouted, "Dammit, we're stunned already, you didn't have to-" He ran out of air at that point and slumped, gasping.

Ignoring him, the male Wraith grabbed Sheppard by the shirt, dragging him up as if he weighed no more than a rag doll. It turned, slamming him down on his back on the nearest platform. Sheppard was moving slowly, dazed and weak, but he clawed at its hand, tried to kick it in the chest. "There is no Stargate on this moon," the Wraith said, apparently thinking that it had to spell out the problem. "You came here in a Lantian ship."

"What ship?" Sheppard managed to wheeze. The Wraith hit him again, snapping his head back against the stone.

It's going to kill him, Rodney thought, sick with the certainty. It's going to kill all of us. He found himself saying, "We were brought here-" He had to pause to gasp in another breath, wheezing out, "By Wraith. Other Wraith, not you, of course-We escaped, we were trapped here-"

The Wraith let go of Sheppard and he rolled off the platform, collapsing into a limp heap on the dusty stone. It stalked toward Rodney, saying, "You have Lantian devices. How did you get them?"

"We stole them. When we escaped." It was an incredibly ludicrous lie. Rodney didn't know if he was stalling, trying to put off the inevitable, or just trying to get the Wraith to take him first so he wouldn't have to watch it happen to Sheppard and Teyla. He wheezed, "I suppose they're holding out on you, maybe you'd better check into that."

The Wraith canted its head to stare down at him, as if it was seriously considering this. "The alien ship is Lantian. Where did it come from?"

Rodney said, "What alien ship?" In retrospect, not the best response.

It snarled, drew its hand stunner, and before Rodney could even flinch it shot him again.

Rodney fell back against the pavement, his body suddenly an inert slab of meat. Bastard, Rodney thought in outrage, barely managing to drag in another breath. Wait, what just happened? By alien ship, it must have meant Trishen's ship. Then these Wraith hadn't known about it before they arrived here, they weren't allied with her. And..that wasn't going to help because they were going to kill them all anyway.

The Wraith turned away, then froze, staring upward. A shadow fell over the roof, and Rodney heard a rushing blast of wind.

Then everything dissolved into white light.

Rodney hit a soft rubbery floor, unable to even tense at the impact. His ears popped from the sudden transition to a pressurized environment, and he gasped in a real breath. He was in a room with dark walls, dimly lit. He lay sprawled next to Sheppard, who was half-twisted on his side; Teyla was a few feet away, a fall of red-brown hair partially obscuring her face. Alive, still alive. For now.

Rodney tried desperately to move and couldn't even twitch; the second stun had completely immobilized him. Where the hell are we? he thought, sick terror settling in his stomach. He knew they had been picked up by a transport beam, but a Wraith culling beam should have left him completely unconscious. He couldn't see Teyla's face, but Sheppard's eyes were closed, his brow furrowed in pain. If he was out, it was probably from that last punch.

Then a figure moved into his narrow field of vision. White hair, a Wraith… Trishen.

This.. doesn 't make sense, Rodney thought, startled and incredulous. That noise he had heard right before the transport beam must have been her shuttle. She stole us from the other Wraith? That was more support for his theory that she was from a different reality, not working with these Wraith at all.

She hesitated, then slowly moved toward them. His heart pounding, Rodney concentrated on keeping his eyes slitted and his breathing even. They had always suspected that much of the pleasure Wraith took in feeding came from the terror of their victims, from attempts at resistance. He didn't think she would want to feed on them when she didn't believe they were conscious. This would be a very, very bad time to discover we're wrong about that.

Then she knelt next to Sheppard. Rodney went cold. He tried to make his throat work, tried to say something, to argue, distract her, stall, but the second stun blast had frozen his vocal cords. She reached out tentatively, cautiously, and lightly touched Sheppard's hair.

If she had been human, Rodney would have said her expression was caught between curiosity and wariness. She touched Sheppard's face, just above his right brow, then put the back of her hand against his cheek. She looked like someone daring to touch a sleeping tiger; frightened and aware this probably wasn't the best idea, but too overcome by curiosity to resist the opportunity.

Rodney felt a pain between his eyes that he was certain was an aneurism, then he remembered to take a shallow breath. She must have heard him because she started, jerking her hand back, looking around nervously. Then she pushed to her feet and hurriedly backed away.

Rodney shuddered inwardly with relief. He saw her glance around, lean down to pick something up. Then he realized some of their equipment had been beamed up with them. Oh fine, that's handy, he thought bitterly. Squinting, he could see the pile of their tac vests and SCBAs, at least one of the P-90s. She was gathering all of it, carrying it away. He heard a few thumps and bumping noises, then finally a low power hum.

He waited, tense and hyperaware of every sound, but she didn't come near them again. She said she had never seen a human before. If she was telling the truth, if her species really had been created by a band of refugee Ancients from this reality… We'd be like living artifacts, relics of an almost mythical past.

He just hoped she meant to keep them alive.