Ronon dodged around corners, checking ahead with a speed that Radek did not understand. How could he tell so quickly if the corridor ahead were full of Wraith or not?
Fortunately, it was not far to the steam room. The big set piece trap of the maze, it was near the end, with only a few corridors leading on from there, providing a last opportunity for any teams that had beaten the steam room to betray one another. No doubt this was very entertaining for the Wraith. It seemed the sort of game they would enjoy.
Ronon barreled ahead of Radek into the steam room. “Wraith! They’re on the way!”
Sheppard looked around with an expression of utter amazement. “Ronon?” Then he saw Radek and boggled again. “Zelenka?”
“We gotta get out of here,” Ronon said. “The cameras were still live when the steam went off. The Wraith will be coming.”
Teyla looked at Radek with a gratifying expression of thanks, putting two and two together quickly. “You turned the steam off?”
“I did,” Radek said modestly. “We are quite a good team, Ronon and I.”
To his surprise, Ronon nodded solemnly. “That’s true.”
Sheppard looked from one to the other, questions like ‘how’ and ‘why’ dancing in the air over his head, then apparently decided that all explanations could wait until later. “We’re glad to see you,” he said. “Are those spare stunners?”
“Yeah. One for you and one for Teyla.”
Radek passed them over gratefully. Better nearly anyone else than him.
The elderly woman Radek had seen on the monitors came over, standing beside Sheppard. “Is there a moment for me to see to Teyla’s shoulder? She will be in much less pain and better able to fight if I do it first.”
Radek looked at Teyla, only now aware of the drawn expression on her face. The drape of her jacket mostly hid the shape of her left arm, but now that he looked something wasn’t quite right.
“I can go on,” Teyla said, her words sharply enunciated.
Sheppard looked from her to the older woman and back. “Do it,” he said. He forestalled Teyla’s protest with a hand on her sleeve. “It only takes a minute, and you’ll feel a lot better if you let her pop it back in.”
She gave him a hard look. “If you think we have a minute.”
Carson Beckett came around for another pass at the roof he had selected, a broad expanse only a block or so from the courtyard where the Wraith ship was parked. It looked like it was part of the palaces. Below it, a hillside dropped sharply away, though a road meandered along it. Halfway down there was a courtyard ornamented with bright, waving flags, as though for some sort of festival. There were people in the streets, a busy market set up.
However, the palace roof itself seemed safe enough, quiet and deserted. There were no guards on the roof, which made sense as there was really no way for anyone to get up there from the ground. Clearly the Wraith were not expecting any kind of assault from the air.
Major Lorne looked over the Marines in the back. Cadman was adjusting the chin strap on her helmet. “Everybody ready?”
“Ready, sir,” Cadman said.
Rodney checked his P90 for the millionth time, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach. This was so not going to be fun. In fact, experience had taught him exactly how not fun it could be. This was one of those occasions where ignorance was indeed bliss.
“You stay back, doc,” Lorne began quietly, then broke off as Carson started swearing under his breath, his head going up like a hunting dog’s. “What is it?”
Carson put the ship over again lifting to circle around rather than set down. “The Wraith cruiser just started powering up.”
Rodney snapped around. “Why?”
“I don’t know, do I?” Carson said grimly. “But it’s not good news.”
Her shoulder did indeed feel better, Teyla thought, letting John help her put her jacket back on and taking up the Wraith stunner in her right hand. There was no question the muscles were torn, however. If and when they got back to Atlantis she no doubt had several weeks of anti-inflammatories and physical therapy ahead of her. When, not if, she corrected herself. Surely it would be possible. Surely, if Radek and Ronon had found them, with all of a strange world between them, anything might now be possible!
“Get down!” Ronon yelled from by the door, and Teyla flung herself behind one of the ornamental stalagmites that littered the floor of the steam room, Radek to her left and John to her right.
John was crouching on the grate of a big steam vent. He looked down doubtfully. “They can’t turn this back on, can they?” he said to Radek.
“Not a chance.” Radek shook his head. “We did a very thorough job, Ronon and I.”
A blue Wraith stun beam cut the air above the stone he sheltered behind, heralding the arrival of the Wraith. Beside the door, Ronon’s energy pistol spoke loud. Ronon was flattened against the wall beside the door, and ducked out to get off one shot. He pulled his head back in time before a barrage of blue fire answered.
“Four to six,” Teyla guessed aloud. “Based on the concentration of fire.”
John nodded, and she saw that he’d come to the same conclusion himself.
“There will be more,” Radek said. He looked decidedly scared. Teyla thought Radek was not used to being pinned down by enemy fire. It had not happened on the few occasions he had been offworld before.
She looked at John. “Is there a plan?”
He nodded sharply, his eyes on Ronon, waiting for a move that would cover him to get off a few shots. “We take the cruiser.”
Radek swore in Czech. “How do you think we will fly this Wraith cruiser?” he asked.
John glanced back and forth between them, Teyla with her Gift that allowed her to interface with Wraith technology, Radek with his knowledge of systems and the beginning of a reading knowledge of Wraith. Surely with their help he could figure out how to fly it. He believed he could fly anything. Unfortunately, she was uncertain whether or not that was true.
“We’ll manage between us,” John said. “Now let’s get out of here. Radek, stay back with Jitrine and the kids until we’ve cleared them out. Teyla, go left.”
“You do not have to tell me twice to stay,” Radek said fervently.
She waited until Ronon fired again, and then in the moment when the Wraith would assuredly have their heads down, dashed left and closer, to the shelter of a boulder nearer the door. As she dove behind it, she got off two sharp shots into the doorway. It was impossible to see what she might be shooting at, or if she’d hit anything, but at least fire from a different direction might confuse them.
One second, and John was moving, right and forward, to a new position. The stalagmites that had afforded the Wraith such pleasure as obstacles to the humans were now providing them with cover. Turn about was fair play. Not that Teyla ever cared much about playing fair.
Ronon glanced back, then with John covering him ducked out again. The stun beams narrowly missed him. They would have hit, if he had ducked out at full height, rather than with his head two feet lower than normal. He got off several shots before he got back.
The volume of fire had decreased markedly. One or perhaps two shooters were firing now. Teyla pegged another three shots through the doorway, but whether or not she hit anything was impossible to tell.