Nightfall

Chapter Eleven

Rodney reached out and touched a virtual tab on one of the holo-screens. The panel unfolded, panes extending and shifting, infinite boxes building upon one another until they had grown to encompass the entire room. Instead of the data cascades or the unreal images of the star system, new scenery projected itself over the walls of the compartment, building simulated ceilings and walls, sketching in metallic chairs and tables, an arching bench and an enclosed dais; he had the immediate impression of a courtroom.

The detail was indistinguishable from the real thing. McKay and Sheppard were no longer in a cramped room aboard the starship Odyssey, they were standing in a long vaulted chamber on the far distant — and now long since destroyed — planet Hala.

As a last touch, the holo-projectors conjured images of a handful of Asgard, each one standing at a different podium. Most were unadorned, but some wore metallic collars about their throats, ornate devices that appeared to be as much technological as ceremonial.

The last of the aliens to appear stood alone, isolated and off to the far side of the room.

“Fenrir…” muttered Sheppard. There was no-one else it could have been.

McKay glanced around. The illusion of being there was total, the actual walls of the core room hidden beneath the false reality of the Asgard chamber. As long as they didn’t stray to far from where they stood, there would be nothing to break the artifice of it.

One of the Asgard took the tallest of the podia and swept a gaze across the room. “Here comes the judge,” said Sheppard, from the side of his mouth. “This is like A Few Good Asgard…”

“This assembly is gathered to address a matter of most serious import,” said the alien. “Let the record show that I, Thor, First Scientist and Commander, have opened this conclave.”

“That’s Thor…” whispered McKay. “He’s not what I expected.”

“Did you think he’d be taller?” Sheppard eyed him. “And why are you whispering? It’s not like they can hear us.”

Rodney nodded. “I know that,” he said defensively. “I was just, uh, paying attention.”

Another Asgard bowed. “I, Eldir, Healer and Biologist, second the word of Thor.”

The other aliens ranged in a semi-circle bowed their heads and spoke one at a time.

“Freyr, Commander, accedes.”

“Penegal, Counselor, consents to this.”

“Jarnsaxa, Commander, agrees.”

“Hermiod, Engineer, gives consent.”

Sheppard wandered closer to the alien engineer and studied him. “Our little buddy from the Daedalus,” he noted. “Guess this was him in his younger years…”

Thor looked right through the colonel to the podium where Fenrir stood. “You know why you have been called to this place,” he began. “You must answer for your crime.”

Fenrir’s eyes flashed and he looked up. “I committed no crime.” There was real heat in his retort. “What transpired was an accident. I deeply regret it, but it was through no deliberate action of mine.”

“That is open to definition,” said Jarnsaxa; the Asgard’s voice had a slightly feminine timbre. “How would you characterize the action of negligence? Is that deliberate, or not?”

“Warnings were given,” stated Hermiod. “On more than one occasion, as I have documented.” A panel of text floated into being before him, runes filling the space. “They were ignored.”

Freyr leaned forward. “Is that so, Fenrir?”

“I did not ignore Hermiod’s counsel…” muttered the alien. “I merely considered it to be… Too conservative.”

Eldir nodded. “The engineer’s cautious nature is well known to all of us, that is so.” Hermiod made a tutting noise as the biologist continued. “But surely there were other concerns?”

“Nothing I considered insurmountable,” Fenrir replied.

Thor seized on the comment. “So you concede that you were aware the collapsar device was flawed?”

“Not flawed,” came the firm reply, “only untested.”

McKay watched the action unfold, his head going back and forth as if he were observing a tennis match. Fenrir seemed different from the alien he had briefly met aboard the Aegis; this other version of him seemed more arrogant and cocksure, defiant in the face of the assembly’s displeasure.

“And so you deployed an untested device that you were aware could malfunction, within a populated star system.” Freyr’s words were flat and damning. “The result is known to us all.”

“I’ll say,” added Sheppard.

“It was an accident!” Fenrir snapped; McKay had never heard of an Asgard shouting before, but there it was. “The detonation profile was never meant to progress beyond the initial phase! But there was radiation interference —”

“Has that been confirmed?” Penegal, who had remained silent until now, addressed the question to Hermiod. Clearly he was of important rank; when he spoke, the others fell quiet.

Hermiod gave a terse nod. “Yes, counselor. But it was a known phenomena. It should have been guarded against.”

“It was,” insisted Fenrir, “just not well enough.”

A question was forming in McKay’s mind at the same moment Jarnsaxa gave it voice. “Why did you choose this system to test the collapsar device? Why not another, with no indigenous life?”

Fenrir’s hands reached out and clutched the podium before him. “It was the best profile in our database. The presence of life was not an issue. I expected no complications. I was secure in the knowledge of my own skills.”

“Huh,” said the colonel. “Who does that remind me of?”

“Are you ever going to let that drop? I blew up one planet with nobody on it,” scowled Rodney. “He destroyed a whole star system. Big difference.”

Eldir was speaking once again. “Then you are not guilty of negligence. Only arrogance.”

Fenrir drew back. “I have made myself clear. I am not the only Asgard to have made errors in his works.”

“Loki was punished for his misdeeds,” offered Thor, but Fenrir ignored the comment and spoke over him.

“I did only what I thought was right! I did what was needed to forge a way to defend us against the threat of the Replicators!”

“By building an unstable weapon of unmatched lethality?” said Freyr. “Perhaps, if you had remained within your original field of expertise —”

“The losses inflicted on all of us by the Replicators are open wounds,” said Penegal, bringing silence once again. “The worlds they have destroyed, the numbers of our kindred killed…” He gave Fenrir a meaningful look. “We have all suffered great losses.”

“Revenge…” muttered Sheppard, seeing the moment between the two aliens. “Is that what it was about? Fenrir lost someone he cared about to the Replicators, so he went gung ho?”

“But that forgives nothing,” noted Thor. “A terrible error has been made. It cannot be undone. There must be consequences.”

“Here it comes,” said McKay. “They’re going to throw the book at him.”

“I reject the authority of this assembly,” Fenrir sneered. “I reject any edicts you may make!”

Jarnsaxa nodded. “That right is yours, if you wish to be avowed as a renegade. If you wish to follow in the footsteps of Loki and all the others who renounced our ways. But if you make that choice, you will be declared lost. You will no longer be one of us.”

The room was silent for a moment, before Thor spoke again. “I move we declare a punishment for Fenrir.”

“Did the Asgard have the death penalty?” said Sheppard. “Did they even have prisons?”

“I don’t know,” McKay admitted. “I didn’t think they’d ever had need of that kind of thing. They were a highly evolved and intelligent species.”

Sheppard folded his arms. “Those two things don’t automatically make you a saint,” he replied. “Look at the Ancients. Hell, look at the Ori.”

The other aliens spoke again, each one saying the same single word. “Exile.”

“Fenrir,” Thor was solemn, “it is our judgment that you will be banished from the worlds of the Asgard for five hundred seasons.”

“Your body will be placed in stasis aboard your ship,” said Penegal, “and it will roam the galactic clusters, on a course set to return you to Hala when your sentence is complete.”

“Your mind will remain in a wakeful state,” added Thor. “On your journey, you will have time to reflect on the mistakes your haste and belligerence have led to.”

“A penal cruise,” murmured McKay. “That’s why his ship was in the Pegasus galaxy. It would have had to drop out of hyperspace every so often to make course corrections.”

Sheppard gave a slow nod. “And he just happened to find himself in the middle of a Wraith hunting party. There’s a battle, his ship is damaged, he crash-lands on the moon… And the rest we know.”

If anything, the pale flesh of Fenrir’s face was even more pallid than usual. “And if I choose not to agree to your decree?” he demanded.

“Then your exile will be permanent,” said Freyr, with finality. “You will die alone, lost to the Asgard for all time.”

Fenrir looked down. “It seems that I have no choice.” The Asgard’s head snapped up abruptly, and he glared at Thor. “But you will not banish the Replicators so easily! They will destroy us… Or we will destroy ourselves in the fight with them.”

The image froze and disintegrated, becoming grainy clusters of holographic pixels that melted away; once more McKay and Sheppard stood in the middle of the dull grey compartment, the bubble of illusion broken.

“He was right, in a way,” said Rodney. “The Asgard did destroy themselves trying to endure long enough to wipe out the threat of the Replicators. It’s ironic, really. Thor and the others actually used Fenrir’s collapsar technology to destroy Hala’s sun when the Replicators finally overran the planet.”

Sheppard picked up McKay’s data pad and handed it to him. The colonel’s expression was bleak. “We’ve got the whole story now,” he said. “We have to warn the others. Until we know otherwise, we have to consider Fenrir a threat.”

Teyla ducked as the combat knives slashed through air. She felt the wind of the blades passing on her face and pivoted, sending a hard sweep kick out at the legs of the Wraith warrior. He dodged and gave a guttural chuckle, rebounding off a bouncing motion to come at her again. This time he stabbed and slashed, aiming at the centre of her body mass, her abdomen.

The Athosian’s fighting sticks slipped from the sleeves on her thighs and into her hands. She blocked and parried, aware that the bigger, more muscular alien was pushing her back toward the Asgard cryogenic capsule. He stabbed out again, trying to draw blood.

“I know you are with child,” it snarled, “I smell it inside you. It makes you hesitant! The fear makes you slow. Too afraid to exert, to fight!” The warrior laughed again.

“If that comment was meant to intimidate me,” she said between grunts of breath, “then all you have proven is how little you know of Athos’s daughters!” Teyla flicked the sticks around and hit the Wraith in the face with the blunt ends; the blows caught the sensitive sensory pits on the cheekbones and drew a reedy yowl of agony from the alien as it rocked backward.

“I will cut your spawn from you!” Fresh with anger, the warrior went for her once again.

Lorne used the oddly-shaped hand-holds on the plastic ladder to propel himself up to the drive room’s second tier. He led with the P90 and fired off a burst; his target, the Wraith that had used one of his men as a shield, spat at him and threw itself off the balcony, somersaulting to land on its feet across from Carter. “Colonel!” he shouted.

She took aim without looking his way. “I got this,” she replied, and opened fire.

Satisfied Carter was in control down there, Lorne vaulted up the rest of the way to the upper tier. A few feet away, an airman fought face-to-face with a snarling Wraith, the two of them going tug-of-war over the assault rifle trapped diagonally between them. The airman was bleeding from scratch wounds across the face, one eye bloody and gummed shut; the Wraith was attacking in a frenzy and the fight wouldn’t last much longer.

Lorne had emptied half a clip of ammo into the freakish alien and still it wasn’t lying down to die. He dimly remembered something Doctor Beckett had once said about the Wraith, how they regenerated faster than anything, how their bodies appeared to secrete some kind of enzyme that made them ignore pain, set themselves into a berserker rage or something…

The two combatants were too close for Lorne to chance taking a shot; he was good marksman but he wasn’t going to risk it. If in doubt, fall back on traditional methods, he told himself.

The major turned around the very hi-tech, state-of-art submachine gun in his hands and proceeded to use it in the manner of a weapon that his species had been employing since before they walked upright. Lorne clubbed the Wraith hard in the spine with the butt of the SMG and heard a nasty crunch of breaking cartilage. The alien howled and spun about to attack him, slamming the injured airman to the floor. The major hit it again and knocked the Wraith off balance; then before it could shake off the pain, he put the P90 back the way it was supposed to be and squeezed the trigger.

Teyla saw the two Risar that had been stunned by the flash bang grenades shake off the effects and as one, rush the Wraith. The alien heard their heavy footfalls across the steely deck and spun the combat knives about, bringing the pommels to his thumbs. With a sudden, hard strike, the warrior stabbed backward and buried the blades to the hilt in the chests of the Risar drones. Fenrir’s clone-proxies spat grey foam and fell to their knees with airy moans; of the Asgard’s holographic projection, there was no sign.

She took the opening presented to her and slammed the sticks toward the bruises she had made on the Wraith’s face; it blocked her with bone-armored wrist guards. Teyla pressed the attack, regaining some of the ground she had lost.

But something seemed wrong. Many times she had fought the Wraith, many times in hand-to-hand combat just as she did now, and she knew their ways. Wraith warriors did not play the tactical game, they did not wait for opportunity or moment, most certainly not when fighting a single, lightly armed opponent. Teyla kept waiting for the creature to claw at her, to make a pass with the fanged maw in the meat of its hand; but he did none of those things, instead defending, not attacking. Marking time. Waiting for something.

Sam chased the Wraith around the chamber, finding it and throwing bursts of blazing gunfire wherever it paused; she had to concentrate hard. The thing was trying to cloud her mind, to throw off her perceptions. She’d read the reports filed by Colonel Sheppard and other members of the Atlantis military contingent; no-one was quite sure how the aliens did it, the effect was some kind of natural psychic aura they gave off to confuse their prey.

Carter was damned if she was going to be that.

The way to beat the Wraith mind games was to concentrate, to burn through it. Fail, and it was a downward spiral; once you were convinced there were more of them, or that they were hiding in every dark corner, they had you. Sam’s eyes narrowed and she focused everything into the small cone of vision down the iron sights of her P90. The fogging flickered, faded —

“Gotcha,” she snapped.

A tongue of muzzle flare leapt from the barrel of her weapon, a fully automatic storm of hollow point bullets ripping into the torso of the alien, shredding the ragged leather jerkin and hammering it backwards. Carter moved up from the partial cover of a console and nudged the Wraith with her boot. The acrid smell of cordite was strong, along with the battery-acid stink of the Wraith themselves.

Black, oily blood pooling in its mouth, the alien fixed her with a glare and did something she wasn’t expecting. It grinned.

“I… Can only die once,” it managed, coughing. “But the Queen… Will take you to death and bring you back, over and over. Kill you a hundred times…” A spasm ran through the Wraith and it fell silent.

“The Queen,” repeated Carter. Ice formed in the pit of her stomach. “Major Lorne!” she shouted. “This isn’t over yet!”

The alert siren was a peculiar ululating whoop, and it reverberated through the chamber. The sound startled Teyla for a split second, and she flinched, ready for the blow that her momentary distraction would allow the Wraith warrior to inflict.

It never came. The warrior grunted with amusement and dropped its guard, clawed fingers flexing as its hands fell to its sides. Teyla held her fighting sticks to the ready, unsure of how to react. What kind of ploy was this? Surrender? A Wraith would only do such a thing if grossly outmatched, and she, as much as Teyla was sure of her fighting skills, was at best only an opponent of level prowess.

The hatchway opened and a quartet of Risar lumbered into the chamber.

“Teyla Emmagan,” said one of them. “Step away from the prisoner.”

“I have the situation in hand,” she panted.

The Wraith chuckled again. The noise was a rattle, like stones in a can. “Nothing could be further from the truth. If you have any intelligence, you will surrender to me now.”

“I see no reason to do so,” retorted the woman, adrenaline still coursing through her.

“No?” It cocked its head, and Teyla felt a brief moment of pressure deep inside her skull. “Ask your friend.” The warrior gestured at the cryogenic pod.

Fenrir’s projection reformed in a whirl of photons. “We are in danger,” said the Asgard urgently. “We must retreat. A battle cannot be won in this state against such odds.”

“What are you talking about?” she demanded, even as a spidery sensation crawled along the flesh of her spine. “No…”

“Oh, yes,” rumbled the Wraith. “Reach out, Teyla. Reach out and know that your defeat is coming.”

A holo-screen sketched itself in above the consoles in the room, displaying an image of Heruun turning slowly beneath a black sky. A shape, a massive insectile form of bone and chitin, crawled inexorably up over the horizon from the planet’s far side, homing in on the orbit of the Aegis.

“Hive Ship,” she breathed, her blood chilled.

The Wraith nodded. “My Queen approaches.”

In the drive core, the siren was accompanied by red-orange strobes that gave the room a hellish, otherworldly glow.

“Teyla!” Carter spoke into her radio. “What’s going on up there? The power systems are ramping up to maximum. What’s Fenrir doing? We haven’t even tested them at half-capacity yet!”

In reply, a flash of light signaled the appearance of the Asgard’s holographic avatar. “Colonel Carter, the status of main weapons and shields remains inactive. Auxiliary craft offensive capabilities are insufficient to match threat. This vessel cannot resist.”

“What threat?” demanded Lorne.

“At a guess, a Hive Ship…” said Carter, fixing the image of the alien with a hard glare. “Or worse.”

“Worse would suggest there is a greater extant threat to the safety of this ship at this time.” Fenrir glanced at one of the control consoles and it lit up, streams of indicators turning a stark blue.

The spinning rings of the power train moved faster and faster, becoming a blur. “Fenrir, what are you doing?” said the colonel. “The sub-light engines may not be able to handle full thrust.”

“I do not intend to employ the sub-light engines,” came the reply. “I would suggest you prepare yourself. Many of the required safeguards are not in place. You may find this displacement uncomfortable.” The avatar winked out, leaving them alone in the engine room.

In that moment, Sam knew exactly what was going to happen. “No—!”

In the skies above Heruun, a skein of coruscating blue-white energy rippled into existence, spilling out from the gap between quantum states, bleeding icy color across the void. The hammerhead shape of the Asgard vessel Aegis turned in a steep, ungainly banking turn and fell toward the phenomenon, retreating from the questing lines of plasma fire reaching out from the encroaching Hive Ship. The vessel touched the ephemeral interface between space and hyperspace, and vanished into it with a silent collision of unreal forces.

Now alone in orbit over the brown and green planet, the Hive Ship paused; then it turned to face its serrated prow at the surface, and from its flanks fell sharp arrows of bone, primed for the hunt.

He was dreaming of Sateda, of safety and quiet. He was dreaming of a place where he could rest, where it was all right for him to be fatigued and weakened, a place where he could just let go, heal up, and forget the war.

They took that from him. The sound, in the sky, crashing down around him, lancing into his thoughts. Ronon heard the razor-edged keening, the nerve-shredding buzz of the enemy; but it was just a dream.

Just a dream —

“Ronon!” He blinked back to wakefulness with a gasp of effort. Sleep and the heavy pull of the sickness dragged on him, threatening to draw him down again to soft oblivion. He shook his head, and it felt like it was full of sand.

Keller pressed something to his throat and he felt a pinprick of pain. In a moment it was gone and some vague semblance of clarity returned to him

“What did…” At first he found it hard to form the words.

“A stimulant,” she explained. Her voice was high and tight with fear. “Ronon, we have to get out of here.”

It was then he realized he could still hear the sound of the Wraith Darts crowding the sky.

Ronon threw himself from the bed, using a support stanchion to haul his body to its feet. He grabbed at his pistol and pushed his way outside, into the morning light. The gun felt good and familiar in his grip. It gave him a point of reference, something to focus his anger through. It was a lens for his revenge.

“Stay back!” he threw the words at Keller, waving her away as he staggered out of the sick lodge and on to the settlement’s wide wooden boulevard. His gaze found Laaro, the boy huddled in the shadow of a tree bough, eyes fixed on the sky. White shapes with needle prows and bladed wings shrieked past overhead.

“The Wraith…” said the youth in disbelief, his trembling lips almost unable to form the words. “The Aegis has forsaken us. The Wraith have returned!”

“Get inside,” he growled, and then shouted at the top of his lungs to all the Heruuni who stumbled and panicked in the street. “Get inside your homes! Don’t let them catch you in the open!” He grabbed Laaro’s arm and pulled him back toward the sick lodge.

Above, the Darts wheeled and turned, sweeping back and forth in patterns that cross-hatched the sky.

The healer Kullid pushed his way to the door to stand by Keller’s side. “They have come back, after all this time…” He spoke in hushed, awed tones, fascination in his eyes.

Ronon shoved the boy toward Keller and hesitated on the steps of the lodge, kneading the grip of his pistol. Something was wrong. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but there was something missing… Annoyed with himself and cursing the Asgard for making him sick, Dex shook his head, as if the gesture would force away the fog in his thoughts.

The realization struck him like a slow bullet. “They’re not… Culling.” None of the Darts weaving above them were streaming the capture beams from beneath their hulls, sweeping the settlement for prey. None of them scooped up the frightened and the terror-struck, they only moved in lines and circles.

“What are they doing?” said Keller

Ronon nodded to himself. He had seen this behavior before, on wilderness hunt-worlds when he had been a Runner. “They’re searching for something.”

The Puddle Jumper blew through the open Stargate and into the middle of chaos. Rodney ducked instinctively as a white streak of energy slammed into the canopy of the ship, and he saw the sparks of automatic weapons fire flash by as they swept up and away from the valley where the portal was located.

“Did you see that?”

Sheppard didn’t reply; instead he turned the barrel-shaped ship around in a tight stall-turn and swept back the way they had come.

McKay saw more clearly now. The valley was being swarmed by Wraith warriors, a cluster of the steel-armored, blank-faced creatures storming forward with weapons blazing.

The colonel spoke quickly into his headset. “Jumper Three to all units, this is Sheppard, respond!”

Rodney’s stomach tightened as he heard Sergeant Rush’s voice over the radio. Gunfire was thick and noisy in the background. “Colonel! They came out of nowhere, sir, we’re being overrun! We’re gonna lose the gate!”

“But, the Asgard ship…” began Rodney. He picked out the figures of men in Atlantis uniforms lying sprawled out on the ruddy dirt below them.

“Rush, disengage and retreat through the wormhole! Get back to Atlantis, double-time!”

The sergeant’s voice wavered. “No can do, sir. They’ll take us down before we make it ten feet! You have to shut it down! We can’t let them get to the city… Tell Atlantis to shut it down!” The hiss of Wraith blasters crackled through the air and suddenly the channel went dead.

“Sergeant? Sergeant, do you read me?” Sheppard cursed the static that answered him.

Energy pulses reached up from the ground toward the Jumper as the Wraith took aim at a new target. McKay saw alien figures break from the group and run towards the glittering vertical pool. He spoke into his headset, shouting down the base channel with frantic urgency. “Atlantis, McKay! Condition Black! Condition Black!”

The Wraith were almost at the Stargate when the wormhole evaporated, the connection cut. The code-phrase had done its job; the gate technicians back on Atlantis had severed the wormhole, and until a set of pre-determined security protocols were cleared, it would remain locked out of the dialing computer.

“Good call,” said Sheppard grimly. He reached forward and toggled a control. “I’m cloaking the Jumper.” A glassy shimmer hazed the exterior of the craft and rendered it invisible; the Wraith continued to fire, shooting wild in hopes of clipping the Ancient ship as it sped away.

“Rush,” said Rodney, his breath tight in his chest. “And the others… Oh god, what did I just do?”

“The right thing,” said Sheppard. “Atlantis has to come first. We lose that, we’re all dead. Those men know that.”

Rodney nodded stiffly. He knew John was right but that didn’t make him feel any better. “We… We have to find the others, Sam and Jennifer, Ronon…”

The Jumper was rising high into the air. “Already on it. I’m gonna get some altitude, run a sensor sweep.” Sheppard brought up the HUD overlay and swore for the second time. “Oh, that’s not good.”

McKay glanced up and choked on the other man’s understatement. Toward the settlement, the display showed multiple glyphs moving and swooping around the tree-city. “Darts…”

Sheppard pointed at another glyph, a lone object out in low orbit. “And there’s home base. A Hive Ship. Seems like they got tired of waiting.”

“Long-range interstellar jump,” said the scientist, “if they entered hyperspace in the shadow of a planet and then dropped out again close to Heruun, the galactic sensors on Atlantis might have missed it.” He shook his head. “But to do that, they’d have needed to know exactly, precisely where they were going to emerge.”

“A scout. They must have had a scoutship out here, scoping the whole damned planet.” The colonel frowned. “And we never even knew it.”

“Uh, Sheppard?” said McKay, scrutinizing the tactical display. “There’s only one starship up there. Where’s the Aegis?”

The Darts had been joined by more of their kindred. Ronon could see them coming, the impassive, eyeless masks of Wraith warriors marching up the ramped concourse catching the dull sunlight. Stunner bolts flared, striking any Heruuni who ran in the back and laying them down hard.

Those who tried to fight — men in the robes of the guards he’d seen with Takkol and Aaren — did little to slow the advance. Ronon saw the spark of rounds from the primitive rodguns as they ricocheted harmlessly off Wraith body amour; he heard the howl of mai cats as the aliens cut down the guardian animals.

At his side, Lieutenant Allan gave him a hard look. “We can’t take them all on.” Her face was still pale from the effect of the serpent venom in her system, but Dex didn’t comment on it. He knew he had to look just as bad, if not worse. Every moment he stood still, the sickness pulled at him, threatening to drown him in fatigue.

“We’ll see,” he replied, through gritted teeth. Ronon turned and pressed a Beretta pistol into Doctor Keller’s trembling hands. “You know how to use this, right?”

The woman blanched. “It’s not really my thing —”

“It is now,” Ronon cut her off. Without waiting for a reply, he pushed off from the sick lodge doorway and came out firing, shooting over the heads of the guards who fired from cover or bended knee. The lieutenant moved with him, her P90 at her shoulder, marking off three-round bursts into the advancing line of the enemy.

The particle magnum spat red energy, knocking every Wraith they touched into a heap; but Ronon was hissing with annoyance as he missed with one shot for every two that hit home; the creeping malaise was affecting his aim.

The Wraith squads scattered, realizing that this new enemy was a more serious threat to them. He saw them make for cover, regrouping. A larger troop of them held back in a tight cordon. Protecting something? he wondered.

A stun blast shrieked past him and threw a Heruuni guard off his perch on a support rail, his rodgun firing wild. Allan dodged and emptied the rest of her clip at the assailant. “Reloading —”

She never finished the sentence. Ronon saw it coming, but something in him was just too slow to react. He saw a Wraith officer point a pistol her way and even as a warning cry was forming on his lips, the white flash crossed the distance from the muzzle of the alien weapon to the woman’s chest. She didn’t even have time to cry out; instead she fell silently to the boardwalk.

A storm of stunner fire converged on Ronon Dex, streaking past him, snapping at his heels as he forced himself to run. All the Wraith, so it seemed, now had him in their sights. He dove for the lieutenant’s fallen submachine gun, but still he was too sluggish. Too slow!

A stun bolt caught his arm and spun him with the shock of it. Dimly he was aware of his particle magnum turning to dead weight in the insensate flesh of his hand. The cold, numbing sensation swept down the side of his body, wiping out feeling from his nerves. He sagged, swearing a gutter oath as his legs gave out and let gravity take him.

The next moment he was prone, the instant between the hit and the fall gone to him. Ronon tried to drag himself up, toward the pistol that lay just beyond his reach. His fingers touched the warm metal; but then a heavy boot came down on the barrel, holding it in place.

He looked up into the leering face of a Wraith officer; closer now, and he could pick out the clan sigils that identified the male as the commander of a scoutship. “The Runner,” it said, cocking its head. “A good catch.”

“Bite me,” he spat. Rough, pale hands dragged him back to his feet.

The commander grinned. “Show some respect,” it told him. “You’ll live longer.” The alien stepped away as the cluster of warriors parted to reveal a figure standing in among them, the person they had been protecting.

She was Wraith; that was to say, she was the very essence of what they were, distilled into a single being. Lithe and sinuous, her flesh was a glistening greenish-grey the color of a bruise, and dark, oiled hair cascaded down around her shoulders. She wore a close-cut outfit made of some form of tanned hide that did not invite too close a scrutiny. But more than anything, it was the manner in which she carried herself that identified her, gave her name. The female was haughty and sinister by equal measure; she was every inch a Wraith Queen.

She gave Ronon an arch, disdainful glare, which by moments slowly transformed into a ready, fang-toothed smile. “Where is the alien vessel?” she demanded.

The Satedan gave a rough shrug. “The what?”

“I know who you are, Ronon Dex,” she continued, stalking slowly around him. “I know of you and your cohorts from Atlantis. I can imagine why you are here. You want it as much as we do.”

From the corner of his eye he saw movement and his heart sank. The commander was directing a group of Wraith to push people out of the sick lodge and on to the boulevard; first among them was Keller, the boy Laaro and Kullid. The healer was open-mouthed at the sight of the aliens, too fascinated by what he was seeing to understand the danger he was in.

Ronon made a play of yawning. “Let’s get this over with. You wanna go straight to the threats, or what?”

The Queen gave a throaty chuckle. “I don’t want you, Runner,” she sniffed, offering a hand to the commander as he returned, “you are just…collateral.”

The Satedan saw the Wraith commander drop an Atlantis-issue radio into the Queen’s spindly fingers. She studied it for a moment, and then spoke into the mike. “I wish to speak to Colonel John Sheppard. I know you can hear me, human. Your shuttlecraft was seen exiting the portal. I know you are nearby.”

There was a long moment of silence before the radio crackled into life. “Hi, this is John. Sorry I’m not in to take your call right now, but please leave a message and we’ll get around to kicking your butt just as soon as we can.”

Ronon rocked back on his heels, grinning. “He’s a funny guy.”

The Wraith Queen’s frosty smile became brittle. “Colonel. It is a pleasure to finally encounter your band. You have been quite troublesome to many of my race’s clans.”

“We like to keep busy,” offered the Satedan.

The alien ignored him. “Understand me, we have no interest in this planet or its people. There are so many rich worlds to cull and this ball of dirt has so little to offer us…” She sniffed the air, as if she smelled something unpleasant. “Nor do I care about you, your Runner or the rest…” The Queen shot Ronon a glare. “What I want is information, about the alien ship. The thing these tribals call the Aegis.”

A ripple of fear spread through the Heruuni who cowered in groups under the stun guns of the Wraith.

She gestured at the commander and inclined her head; in turn the Wraith strode over to Keller and the others, and grabbed the boy by the arm.

“Laaro!” shouted the doctor. “No! Leave him alone!” More Wraith crowded in, forcing her back.

Ronon took a step forward and got a rifle butt in the chest for his trouble. He staggered, wheezing. “Not… Not the boy. Me. Take me if you have to —”

“Be silent,” snarled the Queen, as Laaro was presented to her. She gave him a cold, indulgent smile. “Hello, little human. Do you know who I am?”

Laaro was trembling, but he didn’t look away. “I know.”

The Wraith Queen spoke into the radio again. “Sheppard. Give yourself up, show me where you have sent the alien ship. If you do not, then I will let my warriors free to feed on every living being on this planet. And I will begin the cull with this child before me.” She chuckled again, the tip of a black tongue flicking across the points of her teeth.