*Quicksilver?*
Ember’s voice brought him back to himself, and he shook his head, hard, scowling.
*Are you all right?*
*If he is — unwell,* Wakeful began, in the same moment, and Quicksilver shook himself. The queen was depending on him. They would never reach the Milky Way without more power, and this was the greatest source of power available to them.
*I’m fine,* he said, and willed it to be true. *Let’s go.*
Radek made himself take two slow deep breaths before he looked at the young lieutenant in command of the ZPM room team. He was all too aware of how badly young lieutenants had fared on Atlantis, hoped this wouldn’t be another one. “You heard?”
“Yes.”
Radek squinted at his name badge — Sabine — and recognized the sergeant behind him with relief. Hector had been on Atlantis from the beginning, knew how to fight the Wraith.
“Permission to take a team and secure the transport chamber?” Hector asked, and the lieutenant nodded.
“Go.”
They left in a flurry of purposeful movement, and Radek looked around the chamber, automatically checking the displays. “I am to pull the ZPM,” he said. “We think that is what they want — ”
Sabine nodded, waving his men into position. “Do it quick, doc. There’s only one way out.”
“Yes, yes, I am well aware of that.” Radek moved to the first console, touched keys to begin transferring the crucial systems over to the naquadah generators. That was supposed to happen automatically if the ZPM went off-line, but he didn’t trust those subroutines, not with Rodney’s programs loose in the system. The shield was out of his control, shut down as though there was no power for it; he spared it a single glance and typed a second set of commands, watching as the city’s subsystems switched reluctantly to the new power source. The process usually seemed almost ridiculously fast, but today —
He brushed that thought aside, and shoved his glasses into a better position as he turned to the board the controlled the ZPMs. Only one of the three slots was filled, the one at the closest point of the triangular console. He entered the password that unlocked the system, and froze as P90s fired in the hallway.
“We’ve got company,” Sabine said, over his shoulder, and held out a P90. “Can you use this, doc?”
“Yes,” Radek said. He’d fired one four or five times in practice, Ronon had made sure of that since he’d been assigned to the gate team. He took it — it felt heavier — but focused on the controls a moment more, just long enough to erase his password and back out of the access screens. Sabine ducked out to join the others, keeping low.
Then there were shouts from the hall, machine gun fire and the heavy snap of the Wraith stunners, and he tucked the P90 awkwardly into firing position. He would have been better with the pistol, maybe, though he’d never really expected to have to use either one —
“Fall back!” That was Hector, he thought, and instinctively Radek stepped backward, into the shelter of one of the elaborate sculptures that protruded from the wall behind the control consoles. They’d argued, he and Rodney, about whether they were decorative or functional in some as-yet-unidentified but probably dangerous way, and he hoped he wasn’t about to have that question answered the hard way.
A body tumbled in the door, one of the Marines, and the sound of the P90s ceased abruptly. A stunner fired again, and Radek flattened himself into the shadows, wondering what the hell he was supposed to do now. He could hear footsteps, but didn’t dare look: two people, he thought, and then one set of footsteps retreated. Only one of them, he told himself, and eased carefully forward.
A figure in black was bent over the controls, familiar and not familiar, Rodney and not Rodney, the familiar high forehead and bony nose, the same set shoulders and the same quick hands, but all that made literally alien, snow-white hair and green-toned skin, deep sensor pits carved into his cheeks, the clever hands that moved so deftly on the controls now tipped with heavy black claws. He bared sharp teeth at some recalcitrant piece of code.
And that was not so very different from Rodney at the best of times, Radek thought, and lifted the P90. “Rodney,” he said. “Step away from the console.”
The white head whipped up, too fast, too sure, and the lips parted in a snarl.
“Keep quiet,” Radek said. “Quiet, or I will shoot.” Whether he would or not, he didn’t know, prayed he wouldn’t find out.
Rodney snarled again. “Are you completely stupid?” His voice was the same and different, the inflection, the pitch the same as it had always been, the timbre Wraith.
“Step back,” Radek said. “There are enough bullets in this clip that you will not regenerate.” If in fact he could. If he was truly Wraith. There was so much they didn’t know.
“And then the rest of my men will hear the shots, and come and kill you,” Rodney said. “That’s a brilliant plan!”
Nonetheless, he stepped away from the controls, moving away from the door. Radek took a step forward himself, not wanting to risk missing him even at this range. He was no longer completely in cover, had his back half to the door, but it didn’t seem to matter.
“Jesus, Rodney,” he said, and stumbled to a stop. What was there to say to this Wraith that looked like Rodney, that gave him Rodney’s furious glare from slitted pupils? “If you come with me — we can help you. Dr. Keller — Jennifer — she will take care of you — ”
“Please,” Rodney said. “This is a waste of time. I’ve been taken care of here before. Put the gun down, and I’m prepared to see that you’re not harmed.”
“And you are criticizing my tactics?” Radek snapped. Maybe he could make Rodney come with him, though that was being optimistic about the hordes of Wraith outside — but maybe he could use Rodney as a hostage? He saw Rodney’s eyes shift, turned a second too late, to take the stunner’s bolt full in the chest.
Quicksilver flinched as the stunner’s blast knocked the human backward, the weapon clattering from his hands.
*That was close,* Ember said, and slipped the stunner back into its holster.
*Yes, too close,* Quicksilver snapped. *You should have checked better in here.*
*And how was I to do that when you rushed in first?* Ember asked. *We hold the hall for now, and the transport chamber, but some of this group got away, and Greyblood reports that the Lanteans are regrouping.*
Ember’s eyes fixed on the body sprawled at the base of the sculpture. There were holes in the arm of his coat and across one hip, and he reached greedily for the human, dragging him into a more accessible position. A jolt of something remarkably like panic shot through Quicksilver.
*No — *
Ember glanced over his shoulder, frowning slightly. *I must feed*
*There’s no time,* Quicksilver said. *I need your help.*
Ember gave the human a last hungry look, but came obediently to his feet. *What must I do?*
*Watch this,* Quicksilver said, and waved at a screen. *Watch if it spikes — if it goes over this line. Why they didn’t give me a master of sciences physical — *
*Because none would agree to it,* Ember said. *And what do I do if it does?*
*Just tell me,* Quicksilver said. He frowned at the board, remembering the pattern: here, and here, and a code, and then here again, and another password —
With a soft click, the ZPM rose from its socket, glowing orange, wound with veins as dark as his own, shot here and there with shades of red and rusty green. He smiled, and stepped around the console, lifted it carefully from its socket. The light faded and died, and he felt a twinge of inappropriate sorrow. *All right. Where’s the case?*