The Inheritors

Chapter Twenty-two Grace

Lorne felt the pressure ease, most of the cloud of Darts drawn now to the Hammond, and he let his awareness expand from its tight focus on flying the Pride. The shields were dropping, all around 40 percent, but there was no serious damage beyond the gun they'd lost earlier. In the back of his mind, he could hear Dahlia Radim and Dr. Campbell directing technicians to shore up systems here and there, but the Pride could manage without them. He could hear the 302s' line chatter, too, voices sharp and high with stress — they'd be running out of fuel soon, he told the ship, be ready to tractor them aboard –

Something struck the rear shield, a heavy blow but not an energy weapon. Dart? he wondered, and the Pride answered instantly: 302. A 302 spinning uncontrolled, pilot dead or unconscious –

Tractor, he said, and felt the ship respond, faster than the technician at the console could ever answer. The beam leaped out, caught the spinning ship; he felt the Pride shudder under the inertial stress, and then the technicians took over, reeling the 302 back from the brink. He took in the pattern of ships and Darts, the volume of fire directed at the Hammond, and thought she'd hold just a moment longer.

"Open the port bay door," he said aloud. "Get that 302 on board fast as you can. Don't worry about damaging the bay, just don't smash up the pilot."

He heard the acknowledgement, his attention already elsewhere. Any other 302s in trouble? Not obviously, but the fuel shortage –

"Pride, I am out of fuel." A man's voice, no one he knew. "Can you take me?"

Yes, the ship said. The bay was clear, the first 302 in and secured.

"Come on aboard," Lorne said. "Blue Flight, Gold Flight, this is the Pride of the Genii. I can take two more, repeat, two more."

"Blue Four coming in," a voice answered, thick with relief.

Lorne steadied the Pride, making himself an easy target. The Darts were distracted for the moment, swarming on the Hammond; in the tactical display, he could see a 302 wobbling as it tried to line up on the bay.

"Teal'c, how's your fuel?" That was Mitchell, cool as ever.

"Adequate for now, Colonel."

"Ok, Linney, you're next."

"Negative. Negative, I am out of fuel. I'm not going to make it."

"Major Lorne," Mitchell said. "I've got a man down, can you grab him?:"

The third 302 was on its line, engine stuttering. As long as the Pride held her course, he'd be ok. Lorne turned his attention outward, looking for the other 302, Linney. Yes, there it was, engines dead, on a flat course to nowhere, except that a Dart was bound to see it first and finish it off. Tractors? he asked and the Pride answered instantly.

Too far. Just out of range.

But not for long. Lorne checked the bay — there was the third 302, too high, scraping through the opening to come in hard against the inner barriers — and the calculations presented themselves. Yes, there, just a touch of acceleration to close the gap, roll left to put the Pride between the mess of Darts and the drifting ship, and tractor on, to catch her, slow her down….

Tractor is secure. Bringing the craft on board.

"Darts," Radim said, and in the same moment the Pride's sensors screamed the alert. The Pride had been on the same course too long, the Wraith flight commander had been bound to notice.

"Take them if you can," Lorne answered. He could see the Darts shrieking toward them, heard Radim calling his shots. A Dart exploded, another sheered clear, nearly wrecking its neighbor, but the Pride shuddered under the force of the attack. The tractor beam dimmed, the Pride shunting power to the shields; the 302 wobbled, and then slid neatly into the bay.

"Close up!" Lorne said, and didn't care whether it was the ship or a technician who obeyed. "We're going back for the Hammond."

Rodney could hear the line chatter from the 302s, the pilots speaking their own gibberish as they spun and dodged, engaged with the darts and the cruisers. Occasionally Sam's voice cut across, warning of some threat. Was that Cameron Mitchell, he wondered, distracted a moment from the jumper's systems by surprise. What was he doing here?

The cloaked jumper sounded a warning — they were directly on course, too close to the system's sun.

"Acknowledged," Rodney said, turning it off. He knew precisely where they were — threading a course around the edges of the battle, staying between the tangle of ships and the sun. The jumper warned that the Hammond's shields were almost down, one of her thrusters responding awkwardly.

"Not looking good," Rodney said grimly. Sam couldn't see him. Nobody could. And it had to stay that way until the very end.

Collision alarms sounded and Rodney jerked the jumper around, a powered dive beneath a hive ship that had come out of hyperspace almost on top of him. It couldn't see him, of course, but he almost squeezed his eyes shut as he slid beneath it, point blank range for its guns.

Nothing happened. He was out the other side, the hive ship behind him, streaking unseen through the dark.

"Ma'am, we have another hive ship coming out of hyperspace."

Sam clutched the back of the helmsman's chair as the Hammond shook with another blow, Chandler trying to turn on a dime to present the ventral shield to the fire.

"Forward shield at 10 %," Franklin said. Beads of sweat stood out on his brow. "Ma'am?"

The new hive rotated, positioning guns to bear. It was smaller than most of the others, and even from here Sam could see that some of its guns weren't operative, but another hive ship was the last thing she needed right now.

"Try to put the cruiser between us," Sam said. Firefighting foam made the deck slippery beneath her feet. "We can't take a full forward barrage." The hive ship's guns were powering up, four of them at least.

Oh, not good, she thought. Their luck had run out.

The forward guns of Promised Return were charging, nearly ready to fire. Thorn stood at Waterlight's elbow, disapproving but silent, always at her back whether he disagreed or not, ready to guard her.

Bronze looked back from the weapons console, his face all keen elation.

Waterlight lifted her chin, visuals from her ship playing before her eyes with the touch of her fingers on the interfaces — the faltering vessel of She Who Carries Many Things locked in a fatal dance with Queen Death's ship and one of her cruisers, the swarm of Darts and other ships around.

"You may fire as you wish," Waterlight said.

Sam caught her breath, a sound stopped in her throat. The hive ship's main batteries discharged, graceful arcs of blue fire streaking toward Queen Death's ship.

"They're firing on the other hive!" Franklin said. "Oh, God!"

Sensors registered hits, the hive lurching under the unexpected fire. It spun slowly, retargeting.

"Who is it?" Franklin said.

"Teyla's work," Sam said. Whether Teyla was actually aboard that ship or not, it was her work. "Consider them an ally."

Queen Death's ship came about, returning fire from the other hive, momentarily distracted from the Hammond.

"Look for a gap," Sam said, scooting over behind the gunner's chair. "Look for a gap for the rail guns." She put her hand on the bulkhead steadyingly. Come on, baby, she thought, one good shot, and hoped the Hammond heard her.

The jumper shook, lights darkening, inertial dampeners blinking for a moment, and Rodney was thrown from his chair, plastered against the ceiling for one long moment as the gravity failed. Seven or eight G forces pressed against him, and then the Ancient systems righted themselves. Down became down again, and he fell forward, knees against the back of the pilot's chair and his head plunging toward the floor. He had the presence of mind to throw his arms up, catching his full weight on his left wrist.

And then for a moment he blanked out too, the world a screaming dark pain as bones snapped audibly.

The lights flickered, stabilized, and Rodney rolled over, his eyes watering and his heart racing. "Oh no oh no oh no." The nerves in his arm screeched when he tried to move the fingers of his left hand, but he could move them. It was the wrist. It had to be.

Okay, Rodney thought as the jumper rocked again, white carpet beneath him pristine and perfect, though his hand was on fire. I broke my wrist. Okay. That's all. I broke my wrist and it hurts like hell but it's not going to kill me. And Carson or Jennifer will fix it up. The worst thing will be that I have to have surgery on it and a couple of months in a cast, which will be very inconvenient because I have to use the keyboard, but it's a broken wrist. I can live with that. It just hurts. A lot. But if this jumper gets blown up, it will be a lot worse.

Slowly, Rodney hauled himself to his feet. The board was blinking yellow, systems shouting for his attention. "What happened?" he muttered. Surely the hive ship hadn't hit him. He'd been sure he was clear of its shot. And he couldn't have collided…. And yet sensors were showing external physical damage, the shield generator damaged, the drone launching systems destroyed, as though….

Rodney swore. The Hammond had clipped the cloaked jumper with its rail guns. Rail guns fired a solid projectile. The jumper's shields had absorbed most of the kinetic energy, or his molecules would be spread across the solar system, but it couldn't make the solid projectile disappear into thin air.

Did he still have the cloak? Rodney's hands flew over the board. Yes, at least temporarily. The cloak was holding. None of the hive ships had seen him. The jumper's shields were at 40 % and steady, but one of the two generators was out of commission. And the launching systems were completely destroyed….

Rodney went cold.

The launching systems that were supposed to deploy the weapon, to launch it into the sun. Without them he had no way to complete his mission. Decloak, broadcast what he was trying to do so that Todd could see it, and launch the weapon into the sun. Without the launching systems, he had no way to destroy the weapon, to get it from the jumper into the sun. If he just opened the back tailgate and let it float out, it might take days before the sun's gravitational field drew it in enough to destroy it. It needed propulsion. It needed to be sent into the sun at speed.

Rodney's hands stilled, looking ahead at the bright glow of the sun filling half the front window.

Of course there was one way left, one means of propulsion — the jumper's systems. He could send the jumper into the sun with the weapon aboard.

The Hammond was behind, closely engaged. The Pride of the Genii was halfway across the system, protecting Atlantis and engaged too. No one was in range to beam someone out.

He could fly the jumper into the sun with the weapon aboard.

Rodney's wrist throbbed as he moved his hand. There was no one else. There was no alternative, no more than there had been for Peter Grodin when the first Wraith fleet bore down on Atlantis, stuck on the weapons satellite to fire one critical shot.

Okay, Rodney thought. That's how it goes. He pushed the jumper's engines as far as they would go, course set for the sun.

"One good shot," Sam said. And then they had it, the right angle, the right instant.

The rail guns fired, superheated metal streaking through the vacuum, cooling to black in absolute zero, and then plunging through the hiveship's hull at full speed.

"Yes!" Franklin said, punching his fist in the air.

The hiveship reeled, turning to present its intact side to the Hammond, guns bearing full against the new interloper. Blue energy fire streaked out. It was a long way from finished.

"We're losing the forward shield," Franklin said. "Ma'am?"

"Pull back," Sam said. "Reroute power to get a patch on it." They couldn't keep punching that way, and the new ship had at least bought them time to regroup. "Hocken, what's your status?"

"Colonel Hocken's ship has been destroyed," Teal'c said solemnly. "We have ten 302s in service."

Ten out of twenty. Crap. But at least two of those had landed to refuel, and one had skated in badly damaged. Another was trying to line up on the bay now, signaling an emergency landing, one thruster flamed out from fuel starvation. As she watched the other flamed out, an unpowered landing without even the dregs of fuel for maneuvering thrusters. Mitchell.

"Hold us as steady as you can," Sam said, leaning over Chandler's shoulder. At the moment they could actually stop bobbing and weaving, probably the reason he'd waited so long.

The 302 lined up on the bay, sliding in with several feet to spare below, hitting the emergency webbing at bone-jarring speed. That had to hurt, but there were worse landings. Any one you can walk away from….

Pride of the Genii was still after the hive ship, following up with energy weapons. Lorne must be out of drones, Sam thought.

"How's that shield?" she asked.

"Forward shield back at 12 %," Franklin said. "It's not much."

"Well, let's get in there," Sam said. The Pride couldn't do it alone, and neither could their new ally.

This is how it ends, Rodney thought, just like it had in that alternate world Elizabeth had avoided so long ago, in which he'd drowned at his post, staying to the last to save the city. That was what Rodney McKay's fate always had been. It was just that in this world it had taken five years longer. This was the story of how Rodney did what needed to be done and in the end he died for it, the jumper on course for the sun and the battle behind him. He was going to die to save Atlantis, and that had been the name of the game from the moment he'd stunned John in the jumper bay. It wasn't John's turn, not this time. He had way too much to live for.

Time to decloak. The radiation monitors were climbing, but not yet at critical levels. With the shields damaged he didn't know how much time he had. Rodney turned the cloak off and the transmitter on.

"This is Rodney McKay," he said clearly, and his voice found strength as he went on, the hard, decisive voice of a hero. They might play this back as his memorial, a hundred times better than those recordings he'd made during the siege, the real deal. "I have Hyperion's weapon. And I'm going to destroy it. It's on board this jumper and it's going into the sun."

He could hear the replies, distinct and indistinct, Lorne saying something far away on his ship, hold on or something else irrelevant, as if he could wait that long!

Sam was closer. "Rodney, you don't have to do this."

"Yes, I do." The Hammond was way behind, still snarled with the hive ship, one thruster entirely offline. "It has to go in the sun or Todd won't engage and we're out of time." He cut the comm. There was no point listening, not now.

The sun filled the entire forward screen, radiation warnings creeping into scarlet. How many minutes of this could he stand before they breached the jumper's shields for the last time?

The others…. He could see their endings now with painful clarity. Sheppard would turn into the old guy who knows it all, the Pegasus expert who went native a long time ago, our man in Pegasus with his kids and his wife and his friends, the opinionated go-to guy who could get it done. Teyla would be the diplomat, the one who knit people together, human and Wraith alike. And Ronon would be a leader despite himself, part of a new Sateda rising from the ashes, an ally and a friend. Jennifer would go home and maybe she'd remember him sometimes. Yeah, that would be how it was. He'd be the tragic thing that happened in her past, the thing that changed her.

For him, there were no choices left to make.

The jumper was on course to its ultimate rendezvous.

It was curiously peaceful. He, Rodney McKay, was going to die and he really didn't mind at all.

Somebody had to, and it was his turn.

"Rodney?"

He jumped at the voice behind him, knowing that the jumper was empty, knowing that it had to be. There was no way anyone else could be here. No way.

And yet he twisted around in his chair.

She stood between the two rear seats, her hand on the backrest of one, in her old red Atlantis shirt, her hair pulled back from her face, and his mouth opened and closed. "You can't be here," Rodney said.

"I'm not supposed to be," Elizabeth Weir said. With quick, sharp movements she came forward and sat down in the seat beside him.

"You're dead." It wasn't the most brilliant line ever, but it did spring to mind.

"Ascended," Elizabeth said, glancing over the tactical controls.

"Aren't Ascended people not supposed to mingle with mere mortals?"

That did win a smile from her, a little sideways smile like the ones he remembered and had always liked and never said so. "Yes," she said briskly. "And if I get in trouble I'll pay the price. But you need me to do this if you're going to get through it in one piece. So I'm here." Elizabeth raised her head. "Let's do this, Rodney."

"Dr. McKay, if you'll hang on for a minute…." Sam heard Lorne's voice over the line chatter from the 302s, and she knew whatever he had to say was pointless. The Pride of the Genii was too far away, much further than the Hammond. Even if they'd managed to get beaming technology operational, Lorne could never get in range.

Nor could she. Chandler weaved and bobbed, shots telling home against the hive ship, but their batteries were still working. The Hammond was taking heavy fire. To turn tail and run would doom the ship, and even if they made for the jumper at maximum speed, the Hammond's Asgard beams were short range. Rodney was at eight to ten times the Hammond's maximum reach.

"Rodney, you don't have to do this," Sam said, but there was no answer. And of course there wouldn't be. He was right. It had to be done and nobody else could do it. But it was worth a try. "Ikram, can you get a lock on Dr. McKay?"

"No, ma'am," Ikram said quickly. "It's too far."

Franklin looked around, asking with his eyes whether they were breaking off. Three Darts screamed toward the Hammond, concentrating fire on the weakened forward shield, and Chandler dived, presenting the dorsal shield instead. A pair of 302s rose straight up the Hammond's bow, guns flaring as they skimmed over the surface just shy of a shield collision. One Dart incandesced, and the others streaked by, the 302s passing just short of the aft rail gun.

"Nice job, guys," Sam said.

"It is a pleasure, Colonel Carter," Teal'c replied with his customary aplomb.

The jumper was too far, the friendly hive ship closing on Death's ship.

"Ma'am?" Franklin asked.

Sam glanced at the screen. Already the radiation was spiking above what any human being could bear, the jumper beginning to glow. Its comm was silent. Goodbye, Rodney, she whispered to herself. Goodbye.

You can't, John started to say. On the city's sensors the jumper was so close and so distant at once, but he already had. The jumper didn't explode. It simply dissolved. The heat and radiation melted through the skin. One moment it was there and the next it was a dispersing cloud of complex atoms.

"Was someone aboard that jumper?" Woolsey asked over the comm.

"Rodney," John said. His voice sounded odd and even, not his own. "I guess he wasn't working for Queen Death, huh?" And then anger overtook him, anger at himself and Woolsey and Todd and the entire rest of the universe.

"We couldn't know," Woolsey began.

"He took my mission," John said. "My mission," and Woolsey fell silent before the fury in his voice. He opened the comm. "Todd? You see that? Todd! That was Rodney destroying your precious weapon and getting killed doing it. Now get your skinny Wraith ass into the battle! You hear me? Get your ass into the battle!"

Woolsey broke in. "We've fulfilled our part of the deal. Now fulfill yours."

The city's sensors reported movement, the ships of Todd's alliance powering weapons, the flagship beginning to move.

"We are engaging," Alabaster said over the comm, her voice tranquil. "All ships, fire as you have targets. Your cleverman's sacrifice shall not be in vain. All ahead full, please."

With a distant surge of energy, Guide's alliance opened fire.