Behind them streaked the sudden whine of engines and he turned. Another Dart was diving in, its oily surface a patch of black against the night sky. It was hunting them. "Get down!" Sheppard yelled, as a broad white beam sliced toward them. He flung himself to the right, hitting the ground and jolting the air from his lungs. Gasping, he watched the light sweep past him as the ship banked hard, screaming up into the sky.
Pushing himself to his feet, he looked around frantically. "Teyla?" But she was gone. Not dead, just gone. They'd taken her. The bastards had taken her.
"Sir?" Stackhouse's voice came over the radio. He sounded shaken. "The Colonel's been taken!"
Damn it! Damn it to hell. Acknowledging the report, Sheppard started jogging toward the settlement. This was bad. Very bad, and getting worse. With Sumner gone, he was the ranking military officer. Which meant he needed a plan. He needed to find them a way out of this mess, but with Atlantis sinking where the hell were they supposed to go?
Before he could think of a single option, his radio squawked again. "Sir!" It was Ford. "The gate just came on again. Two enemy ships are approaching."
Going home with their prize? "Let them go!" he ordered. "There are friendlies on board." And then he had an idea. "Look at the dialing device! Burn those symbols into your mind!"
"Yes sir!" Ford sounded confident, and Sheppard liked that. He was just a kid, but he had potential. He'd remember. If he didn't, the odds of getting Sumner and Teyla back would be virtually nil…
Forcing that thought out of his head, Sheppard kept running, the burning village a beacon in the dark. It was eerily silent now, as if even the forest were holding its breath. Waiting for another attack. But none came. When he reached the edge of the settlement, Sheppard slowed. He was breathing hard, spent. Without much hope he keyed his radio. "Colonel Sumner."
No response.
Still catching his breath, he moved towards the wreck of the Wraith Dart. There wasn't much left of it beyond a scorched furrow in the soft earth and a tangled knot of burning metal. He stopped well clear, instinctively raising his weapon. Even like this, the thing seemed to exude an aura of unadulterated evil. He could feel it like a chill in the air, the stench of death. Nose flaring in disgust, he circled the wreck until he saw a slight movement in the twisted metal. His finger tightened on the trigger and he took a step closer, peering through the gloom until he saw" Son of a…" It was an arm, green-tinted skin with huge, claw-like fingers. And it was moving. What made it particularly gross was the fact that the arm was no longer attached to a body.
Sheppard shivered with revulsion and fired a short burst into the thing. It jerked, shuddered, and eventually lay still. He actually felt sick to his stomach: what the hell were these things?
A sound behind him made him jump, but when he turned he realized it was just the villagers slowly emerging from the forest. They were staring at him and the fallen Dart with bleak eyes; there was no triumph here, only weary resignation. Suddenly he sensed someone watching him and turned to see the kid, Jinto, step out from behind one of the trees. His face was almost white in the starlight, his eyes round and frightened. In a very small voice he said, "I can't find my father."
It was enough to break anyone's heart. Having no answer and refusing to lie to the kid, Sheppard just reached out and ruffled Jinto's hair, pulling him close and wrapping an arm around his skinny shoulders. Everywhere the survivors were spilling from the trees, standing and staring in shock at the remains of their homes. A few clung together, others were crouched in the dirt, silently weeping for the lost.
Now what the hell was he supposed to do?
Atlantis spread out below her, misty through the clear water. And beautiful. Elizabeth Weir thought it was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen, the poignancy of its imminent death only adding to her sense of the city's perfection. They were witnessing the end of days, the passing of a lost greatness they would never be able to retrieve. It was melancholy beyond belief.
At her side, Peter Grodin shifted. She'd found him standing here, staring out the window, on her way to check on the situation in the control room, and she had paused at his side for a moment. He looked as hopeless as she felt. "Here it comes," he said quietly.
"What am I looking for?"
Through the window she suddenly saw a ripple race across the surface of the force shield that was covering a distant spire. A slow rumble followed, shaking the floor beneath her feet, and in the distance she saw air bubbles rise from the windows of the flooding tower.
"There…" Grodin said bleakly. "Another part of the force field just failed." He'd given up. "I don't think we have much time."
It was too easy to give up. Moving away, she began to climb the stairs to the control room. Half way up, she looked back at him. "Maybe," she said quietly, "you should stop looking out of the window."
Grodin started at the gentle reprimand, and she felt a flicker of guilt. She hadn't meant the words for him alone. Softening the comment with a smile, she nodded toward the stairs, inviting him to follow.
"How are we doing?" she asked, the moment she stepped into the control room. McKay was there, buzzing between two monitors, harassed as always. She guessed he had reason. But his answer was a shake of the head. They were fighting a losing battle, and they both knew it. "If we could just buy ourselves another day, maybe-"
"The city is sacrificing parts of itself to sustain these main areas," he snapped. "But catastrophic failure is inevitable."
Inevitable? Unbelievable, more likely. "Not in my wildest dreams," she sighed, "did I hope to find the lost city of the Ancients so completely untouched, so pristine after all this time." Talk about bitter ironies… "And we have no choice but to walk away from it."
"In order to save it," McKay pointed out curtly.
"Save it for whom?" she countered, feeling Peter Grodin's defeatism descending around her again. "We don't even have the power to send a message! As far as Earth is concerned we'll be missing and presumed lost."
McKay's attention was still fixed on the monitors, but he wasn't giving up. "We'll be back," he asserted. "We'll find another power source somewhere in Pegasus."
"We haven't even heard back from Colonel Sumner," she pointed out grimly. "We don't even know what's out there."
McKay stopped his frenetic pacing and looked at her. For a moment he didn't speak, and she found herself impressed by this man's calm. Of them all, he was the only one not letting this defeat him. "We can't wait," he said simply. "It's time to go. Now."
She nodded. He was right, she knew he was right, but it was the very last thing she wanted to do. Gritting her teeth against a cold sense of defeat, she gazed out over the gate room that had been theirs for so short a time and keyed her radio. "Attention all personnel," she began. "This is Weir…"
Suddenly the entire room started to shake. Really shake. And this time it didn't stop. Holding onto the balcony rail for support, she carried on speaking, keeping her voice even despite the oscillating floor. "Stand by for immediate evacuation!" She flung a look at McKay. "Dial the gate."
Without a word, he moved to the Ancient DHD and started punching in the coordinates. The chevrons lit up, and without warning the shield over the gate fizzed into life. For a moment Weir was confused, but then McKay looked up and frowned. "We've got an incoming wormhole," he said.
Sumner!
McKay rushed to another console, tapped a few keys. "I'm reading Lieutenant Ford's identification code."
Yes! At last.
The shield shimmered white as the gate activated behind it. "Let them in," Weir ordered, racing for the stairs. She took them two at a time and slid to a stop in front of the gate as the shield shivered and disappeared. It felt like forever, but at last the puddle rippled and out stepped Major Sheppard. Her relieved greeting was cut short when she realized he had a kid with him. Ford followed next, and after him, in twos and threes, came a ragged, terrified group of people who stared around them in awe. Some were injured, others were weeping, others just looked shell-shocked.