Reliquary

Chapter Eleven

John opened his eyes to see McKay crouched by the generator, fiddling with the last connection, watching him anxiously. And here we go. John lifted a brow, giving him a “what are you waiting for” look.

McKay glared at him, then took a filament-thin loop of clear cable out of the floor access and did something with it inside the generator’s panel.

John felt the shudder travel through the wall before he heard the explosion. The abrupt blast came from the south, from the outer part of this section, and it wasn’t at all distant. Oh, crap, John thought, aghast, what the hell did he do?

His expression of stunned dismay bought them an extra few seconds as Dorane looked first at him, then at McKay, who was staring at the generator as if he had never seen it before. “What was that?” Dorane demanded.

Still looking at the generator, Rodney shook his head, as if really baffled. Then he grimaced in relief and said, “Oh, there it goes.” He shoved himself back just as silvery sparks fountained from the access, shooting up toward the ceiling.

Even under low power, the ATA didn’t so much switch on as burst to life inside the walls. John was suddenly aware of circuits threaded in the metal behind him, felt something whoosh through piping as if the room was drawing a breath; he knew exactly what was about to happen. Ducking around the bewildered Koan, he winced away from the sparking generator. The emergency lights flickered, a wailing Atlantean klaxon sounded, and all four doors shot open. John slammed Ford out of his way, feeling the first blast of something that wasn’t air. McKay was on his feet and John tackled him, sending them both out the nearest door and into the corridor. They landed hard and John thought close, close, come on, close at the door. Somebody got off a burst from a P-90 and bullets bounced off the silver wall panel right above their heads, just before the door slid shut.

Rodney was glaring up at him. “Oh fine, you just broke half my ribs.”

John rolled off him, asking, “What about Ford and the others?” He shoved unsteadily to his feet, dragging McKay with him. He had gotten a lungful of the gas released by the emergency system and his throat felt raw. He could hear Koan howling and pounding on the door behind them, but it refused to budge.

McKay was red-faced and breathing hard, and he had to steady himself against the wall. But he said, “They’re fine. The system will sense that there’s no fire and flush the room with outside air.”

That was a relief, at least. “God, Rodney, I said ‘diversion’ not ‘blow up half the city’!” John started down the corridor, coughing. “And what was that stuff, halon?”

McKay hurried after him. “It’s similar. And I’m fairly confident that the Ancients wouldn’t use a fire suppressant that was poisonous to humans. That sparking was just a harmless light show, and the explosion was just the grounding station in this wing—”

“Oh, was that all? A harmless naquadah light show? And don’t we need that station for grounding electricity?” John took the next corridor intersection. The lights were a little dimmer, and he couldn’t sense any Koan moving towards them. But he could hear the control device heading rapidly away from the direction of the blast, trying to get back to Dorane, looking for a way around the sealed doors now blocking the direct path.

McKay waved his hands like John was being unreasonable. “That wasn’t actually naquadah, that was just electricity, and this section can do fine without a discharger — for a while, unless there’s a storm, or a buildup of static — Anyway, I created a small power surge in the generator that started a feedback loop between it and the grounding station. With Dorane shutting down most of the city systems, I wasn’t sure the fire-control was still online. It probably helped that your Ancient gene panicked and set off the protocols.” Rodney stopped at a wall console at the end of the corridor and tapped a rapid sequence into it. “Now that the fire-control is active I can tell it to block access to the generator room, which should seal off all the doors in this section.”

“Dorane will have to get the doors to open individually.” John was starting to feel a little better about the whole “let’s blow important and dangerous stuff up as a distraction” plan.

“So will we, but I’ll be faster at it than he is.” McKay finished keying in the sequence and the panel beeped quietly, displaying a series of Ancient characters. “Right, that should do it.”

“Good. Now come on.” John started down the corridor to the outer portion of the wing. The device was moving fast and he didn’t want to lose it.

McKay jogged to catch up with him, but protested, “Why are we going this way? We should go—”

“Beckett and Zelenka thought Dorane had to have some kind of device that’s helping him control our people. I think I saw him with it back at the repository, I just didn’t know what it was. It’s using his version of the ATA, and I can hear where it is.” John barely paused at the next intersection, knowing his quarry was already about two corridors ahead. The emergency lighting was growing dimmer; this roundabout route took them into a part of the wing that had been damaged in the flooding just before the city rose from the sea bottom. The ATA was just a low background whisper, blending with the distant sound of the sea outside the walls, making the sour thread of the controller device much easier to follow. “Any reason he’d give it to someone else to carry?”

McKay gestured erratically. “Lots of reasons. That personal shield might interfere with any device emitting a signal. Or the device might interfere with the shield. We have no idea how compatible his version of the gene is with the real thing, and those shields are highly attuned to whoever’s wearing them.” He added in exasperation, “And just where is everybody? Didn’t you go down there to get the Wraith stunners—”

“Yes. Bates is getting our people out of—”

“What about me? Us? We need to be rescued too!”

“You need to wait your turn, Rodney.” The air was getting dank, and it was laced with the odor of stale seawater. Somewhere off in the dark corridors there were doors that were permanently sealed, deep shafts jammed with sand and sea wrack, rooms full of strange equipment that no longer operated. John knew this section fairly well; they weren’t far from the passage out to the grounding station McKay had blown up. He didn’t think Teyla had been through here before, and the way she kept trying to take direct routes suggested that Dorane was giving her instructions instead of simply commanding her to return to him and letting her find her own way. Hopefully that was because she was still trying to resist him.

McKay caught John’s arm, saying, “About the waiting thing.” He sounded worried and deeply uncomfortable. “That drug Dorane gave you, he said — He’s probably lying, but he said—”

John pulled free and kept walking. “Rodney, I know, Beckett scanned me. And if Dorane said how long it would be, don’t tell me, all right? I don’t want to be looking at a clock while I’m doing this.”

“Wait, wait!” Rodney caught up, staring at him incredulously. “Carson knows about this and he didn’t do anything?”

“Like what? He didn’t have any time.”

“I can’t believe that! He’s supposed to be so damn brilliant and he just let you walk out of there—”

“Rodney, for God’s sake, shut up about it!” After a short curve the corridor opened into a walkway over a larger chamber. “And shut up, period. You want her to hear you?” The few working emergency lights made the big space look as if it was etched in black and silver, and John could see it was empty. He paused before stepping out onto the walkway, trying to get his bearings. Teyla was past this point, down and to the right somewhere in the other corridor that led off the lower level of this room.

“Who? I don’t even know what we’re doing!” McKay whispered furiously.

“We’re looking for Teyla.” John thought he had said that already, but even in panic mode, McKay wouldn’t have forgotten or misheard a piece of information as vital as that. It scared John the way nothing else had so far; they didn’t have much time to pull this off, and he couldn’t afford to lose his concentration. He started across the walkway, not wanting McKay to notice the moment of uncertainty. “I think Dorane gave her the device.”

Fortunately, McKay had too many other things to panic about to notice. “How are we going to get it away from her? You don’t even have a gun.”

“That part’s a little fuzzy,” John admitted.

“Oh, God. This is a woman who puts on a dress to beat the crap out of you in that stupid stick fighting, and now you’re dying, how are you going to—”

“Rodney, can we go, I don’t know, maybe a minute without you reminding me that I’m dying? And you really need to shut up.” John found the stairway down to the lower level of the room and started down it. He stopped abruptly and McKay bumped into him from behind. “She’s coming back.” There were two doors in that lower corridor that he distinctly remembered were wedged open, the metal around them buckled when the pressure from the sea had hit this section. After that he thought the corridor led back into the powered portion of the wing, but the fire-control must have blocked her path again.

John turned, and McKay scrambled back up the stairs.

John pushed him in the direction of the sheltered corridor access, and McKay hurried back along the walkway in the dark. He stopped at the doorway, flattening himself against the wall, and John crouched down where he was, at the head of the stairs, trying to fold in on himself and blend in with the darkness and the silvery material of the walkway.

He felt ridiculously exposed, and it was hard to remember that for Teyla and McKay, the emergency lighting was barely existent and the room was almost as dark as a moonless night. An instant later he heard her footsteps, the light tread of her boots on the metal. She wasn’t bothering to be quiet; Dorane probably hadn’t thought to give that order.

John stopped breathing when he heard her come up through the doorway below. She started up the stairs, and he grimaced. He had been hoping she would cross the room on the lower level and he could drop down on her from above.

She reached the top of the stairs and started to turn back toward the corridor access. John launched himself at her the same instant she must have sensed his presence. She was turning toward him, lifting her P-90 when he slammed into her. They hit the walkway, John on top, flattening the gun to her chest. The device was right there pressed between them, in the lower right hand pocket of her tac vest, the bastardized ATA sending a jolt of pain right through John’s head. He felt her fingers scrabbling for the P-90’s trigger and used his claws to rip through the cord holding it around her neck. He jerked it out of her grasp and lifted up just enough to fling it off the balcony.

She took advantage of the moment to roll them both, knocking him sideways into the railing and trying to shove him under the lower rail. Sinking his claws into her tac vest kept him from going off the walkway, and he got the heel of his hand under her chin and pushed her back. Then it was a mad scramble, with Teyla trying to do as much damage as possible and tear herself away, and John trying to hold on and get to the controller. Then he twisted in the wrong direction to duck a blow to the throat, and she tried to plant a knee in his groin. John writhed desperately to avoid it, but managed to keep one hand hooked in her vest. She clawed the pistol out of her holster, but John went for the device instead, ripping it out of her pocket. She cried out, shrill and pain-filled, and dropped the pistol, grabbing for the device.

Then McKay yanked it out of John’s hand, slamming it against the walkway to get the case open and ripping the crystals out.

Teyla froze, gave a heartfelt gasp of relief, and collapsed on top of John. He slumped, letting his head fall back, taking a deep breath.

“Are you okay?” McKay asked, hovering anxiously over them. “Is she okay? Teyla?”

Teyla was a warm weight, limp and utterly still. “I think she’s out.” John rolled her off, McKay catching her and helping him ease her down onto the walkway. John pushed himself up on one elbow and felt for the pulse in her neck; it was strong, and she seemed to be breathing normally. He just hoped she wasn’t in a coma, that they hadn’t just given everybody under the influence of the control drug brain damage.

McKay nodded, relieved. “If this means everybody he gave that drug to just collapsed, then all we have is the Koan to worry about.” He winced. “And I said that like it was a happy thought.”

“It is a happy thought. The Koan we can shoot.” John pushed himself up, grabbing the railing and leaning on it until he could stand up straight again. He found the pistol on the walkway, checked the clip and put the safety on, then tucked it into the back of his belt. He reached down for Teyla. “Help me with her. Dorane knows her last position and we need to get out of here.”

“Right.” But as McKay took her other arm, Teyla twitched and opened her eyes. McKay grimaced and muttered, “Uh oh,” but her expression was bewildered and frightened.

John leaned over her, brushing the tangled hair out of her eyes. He was just relieved she was conscious. “Teyla, it’s us, Sheppard and McKay. We’ve got to get you moving, all right?”

After a moment, she nodded in relief and recognition, and they got her up off the walkway and sort of walking between them, though she had difficulty getting her legs to move. From the hard grip she had on his shoulder and the collar of McKay’s shirt, John thought she was glad to see them.

They got her off the walkway and into the corridor, John steering them away from the area near the generator room and in toward the center section of the city. He wanted desperately to know what was going on in the operations tower, to find out if Bates had released the prisoners yet and how close he was to — John halted suddenly, making Teyla and McKay stumble. In the floor below his feet, radiating out of the walls, he felt the ATA rushing back to life and awareness, a dull roar of sound that started at the center of the city and spiraled outward. It scared the hell out of him for an instant and he couldn’t think what was causing it, if the city was about to blow up, sink into the ocean, or lift off the planet. Then the emergency lights flickered and the swell of sound dropped a little, settling into what something told him was a normal level. “I hope that’s what I think it is,” he said under his breath, waiting tensely for confirmation.

Watching him anxiously, McKay demanded, “Oh God, what now?”

The tenor of the ATA changed and John knew lights were coming on in other sections. “We’re getting full power back.” With his free hand, he dug the sunglasses out of his pocket just before the corridor lights brightened to full strength. He kept his eyes squeezed shut until he could get the glasses on. “Hopefully that means Bates took back the ’gate room and Grodin’s restarting our systems.”

“Finally,” McKay said in relief. “If we have the com back and our radio traffic isn’t jammed—”

Teyla dug her fingers into John’s shoulder. “Major,” she managed to say, her voice weak and uncertain. “I remember — He brought something with him, in the jumper. Another device…”

“Crap.” John exchanged an incredulous look with McKay. “Another controller?”

“No, a weapon.” She was struggling to get the words out, her face sheened with sweat. “He said…it would prevent Atlantis from being occupied again.”

McKay looked simultaneously frightened and outraged. “A bomb? We scanned for that, the repository didn’t have any munitions or explosive materials left, certainly nothing big enough to do more than—” He stopped suddenly, eyes widening. “Unless it’s a—”

“A biological weapon,” John finished, dragging them both into motion again. Teyla was still wearing a headset, probably because Dorane had never bothered to tell her to take it off. John took it, getting it over his ear while McKay found the base unit in the pocket of her tac vest and switched it on. “Which jumper, Teyla?”

“Five, the one…we used to bring the Koan.”

The radio crackled with static and John said, “Bates, come in, this is Sheppard. What’s your position?”

“This is Bates. We’ve retaken the ’gate room and—”

“Bates, I need you to seal off the jumper bay. We have a possible bioweapon in Jumper Five—”

John gave Bates the short version of the situation and got an acknowledgement, the radio cutting off to the sound of Bates yelling for Ramirez.

“Oh, God.” McKay was muttering under his breath, running through a list of everything horrible that could be in a biological bomb. “Dorane has to know about the city’s quarantine protocols—”.

“Yeah. He’s either got a way to turn them off or he’s got something that the city can’t stop that way.” John knew which one he was betting on. And he felt like he should have expected this. Dorane knew how many of us there were, he knows how big A Atlantis is, that there was no way he could round up all of us. And he knew we were just that dangerous. The bioweapon could have been insurance, making certain there would be no survivors left to free prisoners in the repository or to build bombs to lob through the ’gate. Or it could just render everybody helpless for collection by the Koan.

Two corridor turns further, they came to the first working transporter, the colored crystal doors sliding obediently open as soon as they came within range. They got Teyla inside, and the destination console with its map of the active transporters opened for John with a roar of white noise. He realized he hadn’t heard the ATA as music for a long time, even as weird alien not-quite-music. He hit the location for the transporter in the operations tower, nearest the ’gate room.

The trip took less than a heartbeat, but the transporter and everything else dissolved into an intense burst of agony. As the doors opened John pitched out and rolled around on the floor, clutching his head, holding in a scream. Finally the pain faded enough that he realized McKay was kneeling beside him, snarling at someone, “It’s killing him, what the hell do you think?”

“Rodney, shut up,” John grated out. He could taste blood at the back of his throat. He told himself, your brain isn’t actually leaking out of your ears; it just feels like it. He managed to get his eyes open and the bright light stabbed through his head; he didn’t remember losing the sunglasses.

He didn’t know why this was a shock; he had known it was getting progressively worse, that it wasn’t going to stop, that he was going to get more and more sensitive to the ATA until it finally killed him. Somehow part of him just hadn’t believed it until now. Going through the ’gate would probably make my head explode. Not that that was going to be a problem. He heard Rodney order someone to find Beckett, and John managed to say evenly, “Tell them we need the hazmat gear up here now.”

“And a medical team,” Rodney added, and then in frustration, “Why the hell didn’t you say that would happen? We didn’t have to use the transporter—”

Assuming this was directed at him, John interrupted, “I didn’t know that would happen!” Somebody put the glasses back in his hand, and he managed to get them on and get his eyes open again.

McKay was kneeling on one side of him, Bates on the other. Bates had one of the Wraith stunners slung across his back, the curved alien shape of the weapon contrasting oddly with the business-like P-90 clipped around his neck. Past them John could see some of the operations staff who must have been released from the level below, all of them startled and battered and generally traumatized. Peter Grodin was supporting Teyla, both watching anxiously. John managed to focus on Bates. “Did you secure the jumper bay?”

“Negative, sir. There were armed Koan guarding the entrance when we arrived. They’re inside the bay doorway, and we can’t get a clear shot at them.” Bates actually looked a little rattled, possibly from watching John writhe around on the floor, and for once he had forgotten to make “sir” sound like an insult. But Bates was really the very last person John wanted sympathy from.

“Dorane beat us here,” Rodney added, his mouth twisted grimly. “He must have made a run for the jumper bay as soon as he realized we had the controller device.”

“Great.” John gripped McKay’s arm and struggled to his feet, trying to make it look like McKay wasn’t actually holding him up. His head was throbbing, almost drowning out the hurricane-like rise and fall of the ATA. “We’ve got control back, right? Can you open the bay doors above the ’gate room?”

McKay looked blank. “Probably. Why? Wouldn’t that—”

John turned to Bates. “Get some stun grenades and a launcher up here.” That would take out the Koan but wouldn’t harm the jumpers or set off the energy drones they were armed with.

Bates turned half away, tapping his radio. Rodney finished, “Never mind, I got it.”

John put his back against the wall, trying to ignore the still-growing buzz of the ATA and his throbbing head. At least he had been able to borrow a tac vest and a P-90 from an unconscious Marine. Braced against the corridor wall opposite him, Bates watched him narrowly. Keeping his voice low, he asked John, “You sure you’re up for this?”

They were in position in the jumper bay’s access corridor, which was a lousy place to have to attack. There was a jog in the passage right as it turned into the bay, forming a small foyer, and the Koan could just stand in there and shoot anybody who made that last turn into the bay. John just said dryly, “That’s a really stupid question.”

He was working off pure adrenaline and a burning desire to kill Dorane. Waiting for the grenades to be brought from the armory, he hadn’t even been able to sit down for fear he wouldn’t be able to get up again. He had already told the others that, if the bioweapon was still in the jumper, he would go in for it alone. At least he hadn’t had to explain why this was best, since Rodney had told everybody on the control gallery that John was dying. It was one small relief that Elizabeth had called in, reporting that the Koan had withdrawn when the controlled Marines guarding their room had collapsed. On John’s instructions, Bates had told her to stay in the lower levels with the others until they dealt with the bioweapon. John hadn’t wanted to speak to her himself, because he was desperately trying to avoid having the “by the way, this is probably it for me” conversation with anyone.

Over the radio, John could hear the low-voiced discussions in the ’gate room as Ramirez got the launcher set up. He whispered into his headset, “What’s your status?”

“Ready, sir.” With the transporters back online it had only taken a few minutes to get the stun grenades, but the medlab was still scrambling to organize hazmat and biohazard gear.

John had put Ramirez in the ’gate room with the launcher, and himself, Bates, Audley, and the only other Marines still mobile enough to hold a gun in the jumper bay’s access corridor. Most of the military personnel were still unconscious from the control drug or the stunners; Teyla, who had had some level of resistance to it that the others hadn’t, was the only one on her feet, and she was still unsteady enough that John had made her stay down on the control gallery. Many of the others had been injured in the first Koan attack, and one man, Masterson, had been killed. “McKay, what about you?”

“Ready.” McKay sounded tense. “I can override from down here if he tries to stop it from one of the jumper consoles.”

John caught Bates’ eye, got a nod in reply, and said, “Ramirez, as soon as you get a clear shot, fire. McKay, open the doors.”

There wasn’t a rumble in the floor; the Ancient technology worked too smoothly for that. But over the radio John could hear the faint hum of the doors retracting, hooting cries of alarm and surprise from the Koan.

There were distant clunks as the grenades hit, then a reverberation, muffled by the bay doors. John counted six seconds, gave Bates the signal, and ducked around the corner. The door slid open for him, and they moved into the bay, spreading out.

The big space was dark and would have been quiet except for the piercingly loud roar of the ATA in John’s head. A chemical haze and an acrid scent from the grenades hung heavily in the air. Koan sprawled around the edges of the retracted floor, some moaning in pain, others lying limply. The jumpers were stacked unharmed in their vertical launch racks, all still powered-down. John couldn’t see Dorane or hear his shield, but it might be blending in with the ATA’s din.

Jumper Five was in a rack on the second level, innocuous and inert like the others, and John started toward it. Three Koan suddenly popped up from behind a jumper across the bay, firing wildly. Bates and the others went for cover, returning fire, but John was closer to Five, and he was pretty sure the Koan’s aim was lousy.

He ducked behind Jumper Two and climbed up the steps to the narrow walkway. Five’s rear hatch was down and he bolted for it, slamming himself inside. He hit the floor, covering the interior with the P-90.

It was dark and John was still wearing the sunglasses, but he could just make out Dorane sitting on the floor in the cockpit doorway. He was holding a small black box. There was something different about the shape of his head, something odd about the way he was hunched there, but John could see the dim aquamarine glow of the personal shield on his chest, and hear his breathing.

There was still firing outside, but John’s radio crackled and Bates’ voice said, “Major, did you get it?”

“Negative, stay back,” John ordered sharply. “He’s in here with it.”

He heard Bates cursing and McKay telling someone, “That’s it, we’re dead.”

Dorane still hadn’t said anything, hadn’t moved, and that was making every nerve in John’s body twitch in individual alarm. He flicked off the sunglasses.

Dorane just watched him, eyes gleaming faintly in the dimness. He had long silver spines threaded through his gray hair now, running all down the sides of his face and neck. The hand that rested on the little box had large hooked silver claws, twisted and useless.

John managed to say evenly, “Wow. You’re a little different.”

Dorane tilted his head. “The transformation occurs whenever I leave my athenaeum for more than a few hours. It’s inhibited by the field I use to activate my version of the Ancient gene. It prevents me from staying in this city, from traveling to any other world.” His voice was different, deeper, a little raspy. “I told you, all my people were affected by our biological weapons.”

“Yeah, you told me,” John agreed. Dorane’s physical changes were so exaggerated he looked like a caricature of the other Koan. “But I wasn’t listening to that part.” He hasn’t set that thing off yet. Because he wanted to bargain? Or because it was a timed release? “What’s in the box?”

Dorane’s claws tightened on the black container. “It’s a very small explosive, only meant to release a substance into the air.”

And McKay’s right again; we’re dead. But John was getting more sensitive to the ATA by the minute; maybe it was getting more sensitive to him. And if he could get this jumper out of the bay and through the Stargate…

Automated launch sequence, John thought at the jumper. Through the port above Dorane’s head, he saw Jumper One’s interior lights flash as it powered up. No, no, not you, this one. Five. Next to One, Three shuddered a little, as if its drive might have tried to activate and failed. Oh, crap. Keep talking. “That’s disappointing, because I really didn’t want you to have the satisfaction of killing me. But you already did, didn’t you? Did you think I didn’t know that?”

“I suspected it.” Dorane had his back to the port and couldn’t see what was happening in the jumper racks. “I didn’t expect you to be able to function this well in spite of it. But it means nothing. You claim a Lantian heritage, but even with the gene, you’re all just cattle for the Wraith.”

“Thanks, but we already knew that.” The firing outside had stopped, and through his headset John could hear Bates breathing heavily and McKay having a tense and mostly unintelligible conversation with Grodin. “Why don’t you just head for the Stargate? You can probably make it.” Launch, you little bastard, he thought, trying to focus on Five’s unresponsive console. The ATA was just one omnipresent roar, and he couldn’t sort out any individual signal from the jumpers. Across the bay, Three’s interior lights flashed as it powered up. Damn it. He flew One and Three the most; Five had been Boerne’s jumper. It made sense that the little ships would attune themselves to a regular pilot.

“I fear I have lingered here too long already,” Dorane said. He sounded serene, as if the prospect of destroying Atlantis and its inhabitants had put him into a weird state of peaceful satisfaction. “Once my condition is triggered by leaving the athenaeum, it advances swiftly. I am dying, even as you are.”

“You know, I really wish the Ancients had done a better job of getting rid of you.” John didn’t think Five was responding to him at all; the low ambient light in the jumper seemed to be getting even dimmer. Maybe he could get One to launch a drone, to blow Five up. It would probably take out this wall of the operations tower, but surely the heat would be enough to destroy whatever was in the box. He hoped. Into the radio, he said, “Bates, fall back to the corridor and close the blast door.”

“That won’t do any good,” Dorane told him, still eerily calm. He added, “The Lantians didn’t want to get rid of me. They wanted to punish me.”

“Oh yeah, that was so unreasonable of them.” Why hasn’t he opened it yet? John thought. Then he looked at Dorane’s hands again. Those hooked claws were too big to be retractable. “You can’t open that container.”

Dorane smiled, his teeth gleaming in the fading light. “Don’t excite yourself, it’s on a timed release. I really did think of every possibility, including the one that I might be incapable of opening it when the time came.”

It didn’t sound like a lie. The ATA was pressing painfully in on John’s head, and something was changing inside the jumper, but he couldn’t tell what it was. “And I’m guessing I won’t just be able to seal the jumper’s hatch.”

“It will react rapidly with oxygen, becoming corrosive. The ship’s shielding won’t hold it in for long.”

Shielding, John thought. It was still getting darker in here.

Darker because the aquamarine glow of the personal shield device was fading. The shield needed an Ancient gene to work, but Dorane’s genetics were changing as the retrovirus altered his body; the shield must be losing its connection to him. When the shield shut down, the little device would fall off Dorane’s chest. John shifted the P-90 to go for a headshot; he couldn’t afford to hit the explosive.

Dorane blinked suddenly, staring at John. He must have felt the shield giving way or read it off John’s expression. Before the glow faded and the shield device fell, he was moving, moving fast. John managed to fire one burst, then he was slammed back onto the jumper floor, Dorane clawing for his throat.

John grabbed his wrists, barely holding him off, thinking, He’s really fast, and he’s really strong. He knew he had hit Dorane in the chest, but the bullets weren’t even slowing him down. And the explosive still lay on the floor in the jumper’s cockpit. He yelled desperately, “Jumper Five, now would be a good time! Launch!”

This time, responding to his urgency, Five’s interior lights flashed on and the console powered up.

Dorane tried to tear away from him, but John dug in with his own claws and held on. He pushed and rolled, and they tumbled backward out of the hatch.

They hit the ramp, then the walkway, and rolled off, slamming into the bay floor. John landed on top, which probably saved him a broken back, but he was winded and dazed.

Above his head, Five slid out of its rack and glided out to hover over the jumper bay’s launch door, open to the ’gate room directly below. It stopped, and John realized the ramp was still open, that the safeties weren’t going to let the jumper drop into launch position. He shouted, “Ramp close, come on, ramp close!”

Dorane threw him off, pushed to his feet, and bolted for the open ramp. It slid shut, sealing itself for launch with a faint puff of air. Dorane tried to stop on the bare edge of the drop, arms flung up. Then he fell.

John heard the thump and the startled shouts from below. Crap, that might not be enough to kill him. The man wasn’t human anymore. Then, still on automatic, the jumper dropped into the ’gate room to take its launch position.

From below, John heard someone exclaim in horror. Yeah, he thought, that probably did it. The jumper would hover a few feet off the embarkation floor, but the forcefield it was using to support itself… John rolled over and shoved himself up, took a couple of staggering steps to the edge of the opening, leaning out and craning his neck to see. Bates ran up to stand beside him.

Squinting against the glare of the brighter light in the ’gate room, John saw McKay, Peter Grodin, and several others standing on the gallery steps, staring at the jumper floating in front of the ’gate. There was a spreading stain leaking out from under it as it still hovered serenely, waiting for a destination. John fumbled for his headset, but Dorane had torn it off in the fight. He told Bates, “Tell McKay to find a destination — a planet with no atmosphere.”

Bates relayed it, and McKay hurried back to lean over the dialing console. It only took him a few moments to pull an address out of the database, but John was watching the jumper’s port. He saw a bright flash from inside.

Bates swore. “The shielding—”

Watching intently, John shook his head. “He said it was corrosive.” He hadn’t said how fast it was. If they just had a minute for the ’gate to dial… He noticed he and Bates were both dripping blood onto the bay floor, Bates from a bullet wound in the arm, and John from the long scratches Dorane’s claws had left on his shoulders.

Then McKay turned to the dialing console and started to hit the symbols, and John felt like something was squeezing his skull from the inside. For a horrified moment, he thought it was the bioweapon, that it had eaten its way through the jumper. Then he realized it was the ’gate. Uh oh. He thought the automated sequence would take care of it, but just in case, he thought at the jumper, launch. When the wormhole opens, launch.

Then the wormhole initiated with a blast of glassy blue energy, the jumper surged forward, and the world turned to white-hot pain.