Someone stepped on Ronon's arm, causing him to lose his grip on his weapon. The gun slid free and was quickly lost from sight in the anarchy of pounding feet. When the soldier rolled to his knees and swung his sword in Dantir's direction, Ronon reacted on instinct and drew one of his knives. He flung it upward, catching the soldier in the neck, just above his protective vest.
As the soldier crashed to the ground, Teyla stunned a group of nearby fighters and used the brief lull to duck low and search the immediate area. At last she came up with the lost gun and tossed it to Ronon.
"Thanks," he said, catching his breath. Dantir looked at him, glassy-eyed, and he tugged the whip from the boy's slack hand. "I told you not to use this!"
"We have drawn too much attention," Teyla warned, pointing to their left. Ronon followed her gaze and noticed the tight knot of warriors carving a path through the crowd with their whips. Where everyone else appeared to be adhering to a basic north-south range of movement, this squad looked to be focused on a specific area-the one occupied by the off-worlders in their midst.
Thinking quickly, Ronon shoved Dantir toward Teyla. "Take him and head for the rear. I'll go a different way. They'll have to split up or choose one of us to follow."
Surely Teyla knew that he would be the easier one to track, standing so much taller than the Nistra. Although her indecision showed in her expression, she replied with a sharp, decisive nod. "Good luck."
Then she was gone, vanishing into the crowd with Dantir. She wouldn't be able to stun anyone now without giving away her position, but Ronon had faith that she would find other advantages if needed.
He stooped low and moved through the fighting, trying to evade the relentless warriors. But they gained ground faster than he could, narrowing the gap until he finally was forced to take the offensive.
Only two warriors fell under his spray of stun blasts before an unpowered whip snaked out to rip the gun from his hands. Another coiled around his wrists, instantly binding them. A rough jerk on the whip pitched him forward, and he landed hard on his knees.
"I would not struggle if I were you," said a cold, familiar voice. "All I need do is tighten my grip. Your hands will be severed, your arms withered and useless."
Ronon had been planning to knock over the person in front of him and tear loose the handle of the whip that ensnared him, but that warning made him reconsider. When he looked up, Cestan's chief warrior stood over him.
"This is a grave disappointment," Kellec continued, his weathered features stony. "Now we see what our trust is worth to your people." He turned to his associates. "We will bring him. The governor needs to know the true nature of these so-called friends."
"We're not trying to take sides." It was a weak statement, particularly now, but Ronon didn't have much else to offer. "All I wanted to do was protect one kid until someone could make you people see reason and stop this pointless battle."
"I can't say I admire your method of maintaining neutrality." Kellec pulled on the whip, and Ronon staggered to his feet to avoid falling face-first in the dirt. "You have spilled Falnori blood, which makes you either a common enemy or a traitor. Which label you receive matters only in the sense that it may influence the likelihood of your execution."
Chapter sixteen
"Excuse me?" Rodney's voice jumped into a distinct alto range. "What do you mean, it won't disengage?"
"I mean, I'm giving the jumper every possible version of a `let go' command, and nothing's happening." John scanned his readouts, feeling suddenly blind. Jumpers didn't do this kind of thing. They didn't make you run checklists to chase glitches the way Earth aircraft did-they helpfully told you what was wrong and what to do about it. Just not today, for some reason. "Everything looks to be working. I don't get it."
"Running a diagnostic." Rodney scowled at the instrument panel as if it had done him a personal injustice. "You're right. No malfunctions."
"Then it must be the station," Radek deduced, rising to stand between the two forward chairs. "The dock is holding us in place."
"Why the hell would it do that?" The drifting Wraith cruiser filled the windscreen completely now, close enough that John could see charred pockmarks scattered all over its hull. He wondered vaguely if the missing third segment of the station had contained weapons.
"Power, or the lack thereof." Rodney bent over the sensor console. "When we docked, the station tried to follow some type of arrival protocol and turn itself on for us."
"And we popped the circuit-breaker because there wasn't enough juice. I remember." It had only been a couple of hours ago, after all. "So the docking clamps were on that circuit?"
"So to speak. I'm reading zero power in the docking and airlock systems." Although Rodney's voice wavered a little, he seemed to have gotten his fear firmly under control. If they had time later, John would be happy to talk him through a full-blown freak-out. `Later' being the operative word. "The clamps must lock by default when power is lost. Probably to avoid jettisoning an open, unsuspecting craft by accident."
John gritted his teeth. The best-laid damn plans… "That's a very nice emergency procedure for any situation except this one."
"The Lagrange Point satellite didn't do that," Radek pointed out, brow furrowing.
It took John a moment to identify the reference. Seemingly half a lifetime had passed since the Wraith siege on Atlantis in the first year of the expedition. Fortunately, Rodney's memory was nothing if not comprehensive. "The Lagrange Point satellite didn't have any power at all when we arrived, so it had no means to enact any emergency procedures. To borrow a phrase, it's the difference between `dead' and `mostly dead."'
"We'll need to transfer power to the dock from here," Radek advised. "Rapidly."
"You don't say," muttered Rodney, already manipulating the HUD to display a schematic of the jumper's power distribution system. Radek immediately pointed to an area around the engine pods and mumbled something under his breath in Czech.
As much as John disliked sounding stupid, he had to ask. "Can we do that?"
Neither scientist looked up from his work. Rodney answered curtly, "Ask us again in a few minutes."
That left John with nothing to do but watch their slow, steady progress toward the cruiser, reinforcing the knowledge that they didn't have a few minutes. Rodney's estimates of time were typically overblown when it came to must-have breakthroughs, though. Barely ninety seconds later, Radek ducked behind the pilot's seat. The spacesuit restricted John from pivoting to watch him, but it sounded like he was removing an access panel. "Guys, you want to give me some play-by-play while you're working?"
"The engine pods draw the majority of the jumper's power," Rodney replied absently. "They're also conveniently located near the docking clamps. We're going to send a surge through the pods, just enough to reinitialize the docking system and make it think it's got sufficient power to drop out of emergency lockdown mode."
That made some sense, except for one detail. "The engine pods are retracted right now. Won't we just be zapping ourselves?"
Rodney looked a little startled to hear him make that connection, but he quickly couched his surprise in sarcasm. "Yes, Colonel, A-plus for observation skills. The power surge likely won't transmit through the hull of the jumper-it's shielded to disperse electrical energy. We'll have to extend the pods just a fraction in order to break the hull seal, initiate the surge, then immediately retract the pods again and use the maneuvering thrusters to break free from the dock."
And then take some very fast evasive action to avoid flying smack into the cruiser. John repeated the order of operations in his head. "I'm guessing all this will have to be accomplished in a matter of seconds?"