He just hoped she meant to keep them alive.
Chapter seven
Ronon knew the others were dead when he heard Sheppard shout, "Wraith!"
The radio went to static and Zelenka slammed his hand on the console, shouting, "Rodney! Colonel, Teyla!" Kusanagi gasped in horror.
They stared at the useless screens while time crawled. Then the three life signs winked out like candles.
Kusanagi made a noise in her throat, pressing her hands over her face. Zelenka pushed out of his seat and stumbled out of the cockpit into the rear cabin; Ronon heard him retching.
Ronon just turned away. He stared blindly at the jumper's curved wall, his fists knotting. He should be used to this. He had seen so many people taken by the Wraith that it had all blurred into a haze of rage and pain and loss. He shouldn't feel it like this anymore. He didn't want to feel it like this anymore.
Zelenka stepped back into the cockpit, wiping his face with a cloth. "We must do something." He steadied himself on the back of the co-pilot's seat, dropping into it and studying the screens again. He said hesitantly, "Did it sound like… Did they have the chance to damage pulse generator, do you think?"
Kusanagi shook her head. "I don't think Dr. McKay would have had time-" She pressed her hand over her mouth and shuddered, then took a sharp breath. She managed to finish, "Time to get into the device. And there has been no discharge. It must still be operating."
"I can do it," Ronon said. Zelenka and Kusanagi turned to stare up at him blankly, and he explained, "Go up to the roof, see how far they got. You can tell me what to do to it over the radio."
Startled, Zelenka frowned at him, then looked at Kusanagi. She said softly, "It may be the only way." Ronon saw she had tears running down her cheeks, though she seemed unaware of them. "We can't leave the Mirror to the Wraith. If they can use it to get this superior technology-"
"Yes. Yes, we have to do this." Zelenka looked up uncertainly. "Perhaps I should go with you-"
"No." Ronon shook his head. He could see the little man was terrified of the prospect. And he had sworn to Sheppard that he would protect these two. He had also sworn that he wouldn't leave them, but he thought this was more important. "I'll move faster alone."
Zelenka hesitated, then nodded, his mouth set in a rueful line. Kusanagi turned back to the control board, awkwardly wiping the tears off her face. "You'll have to wait until they leave the area." She frowned at the life signs screen. The lighted dots were still moving around that section of the roof. Ronon allowed himself a grim smile. The Wraith were searching, trying to figure out what the three humans had been up to. That meant nobody had broken. Kusanagi said, "If the Wraith realize we were trying to sabotage the pulse generator-"
Zelenka studied the screen worriedly. "Surely they won't leave it unguarded."
Ronon bared his teeth. He was looking forward to the chance to deliver some payback. "Good."
John's first conscious thought was relief that he could draw a full breath. His second thought was that his face hurt. A lot. And his head. And pretty much his entire body. He heard Rodney say worriedly, "Shake him again. Careful, he might have brain damage."
John blinked, wincing. "How will that help if I have-" It hurt to talk. "Ow."
He managed to get his eyes open all the way when someone touched his shoulder. It was Teyla looking anxiously down at him, her hair in a disordered tumble and a darkening bruise on her cheek. "Are you all right?" she asked.
"Yeah, are you okay? What-" Wraith, John remembered. Gritting his teeth, he shoved himself upright. Rodney lay a short distance away, one arm flung over his eyes. He looked like he felt like hell, but otherwise he seemed unhurt. John looked down at himself, his shirt was torn where the Wraith had grabbed him, but there was no feeding mark. What do you know about that? They were all three alive and they hadn't been fed on, and John really hadn't been expecting that.
Their prison was an empty cabin, the walls and floor the same dark rubbery substance they had seen in Trishen's base ship. This place had the same smell too, earthy and a little acrid. There was an oval hatchway looking out into another compartment, but John could see the faint shimmer in the air of a force shield blocking it. He said, "We're in Trishen's ship?"
"We believe so." Teyla looked around the room, her expression grim. "Apparently she beamed us up, away from the other Wraith."
"Who stunned me twice, and yes, I have a migraine, thank you for asking," Rodney added, his voice tight. "We're in her shuttle, but I think it's docked with the base ship now."
"Great." John spotted something on the floor, a round blue thing, a foot or so inside the hatchway. He squinted at it suspiciously. "What's that?"
Teyla's lips thinned. "It contains water, and some items that may be packaged rations."
John grimaced in disgust. The caretaker on the first hiveship they had encountered had liked to feed her human prey before she fed on them; Trishen must have the same taste. John rolled to his knees, and Teyla grabbed his arm to steady him. After a moment of dizziness, he managed to shove himself to his feet. Glancing up, he froze. "What the hell?"
The ceiling arched up into a circular dome, and in the center was a bulbous mottled purple thing, covered by a chased silver metal web. It looked organic and alien and possibly about to do something to them. Teyla looked up with a worried wince. "I do not know."
From the floor, Rodney said, "It's not a death ray, it's the rematerialization mechanism for the beaming device." He lowered his arm to peer suspiciously at it, and amended, "It's probably not a death ray."
"Okay." Probably not a death ray was likely as good as the situation was going to get. John looked around the cabin again, as Teyla stepped away to make a circuit of the walls. John didn't see anything that looked like an obvious surveillance camera, but the ship was too alien to really tell. And the beaming device thing worried him. He said, "So she could beam us out of here any time she wants." Into the thin atmosphere, with no breathing units. "Or beam something in here with us."
Rodney pulled his arm down again to give John an acid glare. "Yes, please continue to come up with as many horrible death scenarios as possible; really, it's helping my headache."
"You seem to enjoy it when you do it." John made it to the force-shielded hatchway, peering out into the next compartment.
"Yes, but when I-" Rodney gave in grudgingly. "All right, fine."
From what John could see, the outer compartment wasn't much larger than this cabin, empty except for open storage units set into the walls. The only visible exit was in the opposite wall, another oval doorway, with a sealed hatch. He stretched out a cautious hand, flinching back when the field zapped him. Wincing, he tucked his hand under his arm.
Teyla had crouched down, testing the field to make sure it went all the way to the floor. "I do not see any way we can get through this."
John nodded, looking down at her. "No equipment, no breathing gear, no weapons…" He lifted his brows.
She flicked him a rueful look and tapped her ankle, the gesture telling him that the Wraith hadn't found the knife she kept strapped to her calf. Right. It was better than nothing. He looked at the outer compartment again, and said, "Maybe she wasn't lying about wanting to fix the Mirror. Or maybe she just wants dinner."
Still on the floor nursing his headache, Rodney said, "The fact that this is the Pegasus Galaxy and the worstcase scenario is always a statistically likely probability notwithstanding, I don't think she's allied with the Wraith that arrived in the scout ship. They tried to question me about her ship, called it `alien,' as if finding it here was as big a surprise to them as it was to us. And I don't think she's like the Wraith of our reality."