Watching the Queen narrowly, Teyla said, "They think of nothing but feeding and culling, and hunting our people. It is their entire reason for existence."
The Queen tapped her long-fingered hands on the blue metal of the console. John wondered just how much she could sense from the Wraith, if they could sense anything from her. She said, "I believe you are correct. They seem… curiously unable to visualize anything outside the scope of their own concerns. What has caused that?" She turned to look at Teyla, tilting her head. "Is it genetic?"
Teyla wet her lips, hesitating, as if the idea that she was having an actual conversation with a Hive Queen was weirding her out as much as it was John. "We do not know. They have always been as they are. From what we have learned, even the Ancestors did not entirely understand them."
The Queen nodded, a flicker of something in her expression that was gone too quickly to read. She said, "On the top level there is a maintenance bay with a roof access, large enough for your ship. If they allow us to retrieve it, I will have it brought there." With that, she strode out of the room, sweeping Trishen and several of the males with her.
Kethel lingered behind, saying, "I will take you there when you're ready." He hesitated, then added, "I apologize for injuring you." He moved away to wait with the other Eidolon.
Everybody stared after him. Brow furrowed, watching the Eidolon with deep suspicion, Ronon commented, "That was weird."
John had to agree. Frowning, Rodney said, "Did a Wraith-like being just show remorse over almost knocking you unconscious?" He waved a hand beside his head. "The cognitive dissonance is causing my perception of reality to fade in and out, so I wasn't sure I heard right."
"Yeah." John was almost the same height as the adult Eidolon, and never having smacked a human around before, Kethel must have assumed John was just as strong as he was. And now they know we aren 't. Probably not a good thing. He took his pistol and the P-90 back from Radek and Miko, saying, "Whatever. Let's get up there."
It's working so far Rodney thought. At some frightening point in all this, that had become his mantra. Not that he believed in mantras. He actually hated mantras.
The Eidolon had sent another ship to get the jumper off the Mirror platform, intending to lift it with a tractor beam and ferry it over to the installation. Rodney and the others watched the process via one of the holographic screens in the maintenance bay, a big round room with two triangular hatches forming a square portal in the roof, easily large enough for a craft several times the size of the jumper. Various smaller chambers with work areas opened off several archways in the walls, and there was a raised plat form with some kind of control station toward the back. The Eidolon were occupying it, so Rodney hadn't managed to get a look at what was up there yet. Safe from the Wraith, the Ancients who had fled here hadn't bothered to gut this installation the way they had the original version.
On the display of the Mirror platform, Rodney could see that the eclipse was starting to pass, the warmer light of the system's primary washing out the Mirror's silvery glow. The Eidolon ship stirred up dust on the platform as it moved to hover over the puddle jumper, which was still wedged awkwardly atop the crushed darts. The Wraith hadn't fired on it. Yet. If Rodney survived this, he was definitely coming out of it with another ulcer.
Kusanagi was chewing on her fingernails, Ronon was glowering at the screen, and Sheppard was doing his stoic manly calm act. Cradling her P-90, Teyla shifted uneasily and said, "If the Wraith fire now-"
"We're screwed," Zelenka finished darkly.
"There are degrees of screwed," Rodney said, wanting to disagree with Zelenka just to distract himself. But they had no idea how far the Eidolon's good will would extend, and if this didn't work… Oh yes, ulcer He grimaced. Maybe two. Didn't that cause blood poisoning?
Zelenka began, "If one of those degrees of screwed is very-
Sheppard said, "They aren't firing." The stoic thing didn't quite conceal his relief.
The jumper was lifting off the platform in the Eidolon tractor beam, some debris from the smashed darts drawn up with it, glittering in the sunlight. The display's orientation changed, following the Eidolon ship as it headed up toward the installation roof. Overhead, the triangular hatches groaned and started to slide open. Rodney felt his ulcers unclench a little. He rubbed his hands together briskly. "Right, here we go."
While the jumper was being lowered gently into the bay, Trishen brought them a case of replacement crystals, asking, "Will any of these do?" They were in pristine condition, gleaming faintly in the light from the milky glass overheads. Rodney swallowed hard, controlled the urge to grab the entire case and run away, and managed to ask, "Did you manufacture these?"
"No, we don't know how yet," she said, regarding the case regretfully. "We gather them from sites left behind by the Creators." Looking up at Rodney with sudden hope, she asked, "Do you know how to-"
"No." Glumly, he chose a selection of replacement crystals.
Then he gathered everybody on the jumper's ramp, saying, "Two teams, one works on repairing the power train, the other removes the drones and builds the bomb. Our time is extremely, one might say fatally, limited, so everybody works. Everybody except Ronon; we don't want him touching anything delicate or potentially explosive.
Ronon contemplated Rodney in silence, then said, "I'd rather stand watch."
"It's better if I do crystals," Zelenka said, poking cautiously at his new bandage. Kusanagi had changed the dressing but now that his bruises were starting to turn greenish-black, he looked, if anything, worse. "If I pass out in the middle, nothing will explode. You had better take Miko, and perhaps the Colonel. Teyla can help me."
Rodney sighed in annoyance. "No, actually, the Colonel is the last person we want handling the drones."
Sheppard actually looked offended. "Why not?"
Rodney rolled his eyes, and considered mentioning various reasons, such as Sheppard's belief that all the jumpers were his property, leading him to stand around looking personally violated whenever anyone made absolutely necessary but tricky adjustments to vital systems, not to mention his habit of demanding to know how long it was going to take at ten second intervals. To save argument, Rodney decided to go with the real point of concern. "As we discovered in Antarctica, the drones don't have to be mounted in a launching device in order to activate. Carson, the most incompetent natural gene carrier that we have, managed to fire one with the weapons chair right off Peter's work bench. It may be impossible for you to set them off just by direct physical contact, but I'd rather not make the experiment while I'm sitting next to a pile of C-4. Neither Kusanagi nor I have ever had much luck with the chair, so we should be safe. Fairly safe. Marginally safe."
Sheppard's brow furrowed. "Oh."
They got to work.
The energy drones were only accessible from outside the jumper, tucked into the hull below the drive pods, so Rodney and Kusanagi had to pull the housing, then carefully remove each drone from the launch rack. Detaching connections on one end of the rack, Rodney did a double-take as Kusanagi lifted out a drone. They were bullet-shaped, with trailing tentacle-like filaments; in flight, they looked like glowing squids. He asked tightly, "Did that just…quiver?"
"Urn, no, Dr. McKay. I'm shaking," Kusanagi admitted, gently lowering the drone to the floor.
Rodney relaxed. "Well, stop it. Do you have low blood sugar?" He felt his vest pockets, looking for a power bar.
"No, it's… fear." She winced, pushing her glasses back up on her nose.
"Oh." They stared bleakly at each other for a moment, and he knew it wasn't handling Ancient energy missiles that made her afraid. If she wanted reassurance, he was aware he had limitations in that area; he would have to send her to talk to Sheppard or Teyla. But she didn't ask for it, just smiled wanly. Rodney nodded, letting out his breath. "Yes, well, that's a rational response to the situation."