“Yes, Mr. President,” Jack said. It was how they’d always done things, but maybe that hadn’t always worked as well as it might have. And Daniel ought to love this.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Steelflower
Teyla stood by the Stargate. Above, the duty crew on control were trying to not stare at her. She did look impressive, in a very Wraith way. And yet perhaps Teyla would not take the stares for anything so friendly.
Radek put his hands in the pockets of his rumpled pants and shrugged. “It is just that it is another mission,” he said. He gave her a sideways glance, a twist of humor to his mouth. “And perhaps that you are hot.”
She laughed as he had hoped she would, turning about, her boot heels loud on the polished floor.
“We will see you soon,” Radek said seriously. “We will get Rodney back, and then I can get out of the field.”
“Yes,” she said.
“Believe me,” said Radek. “No one is more motivated than I to get out of the field.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Though if it does not go as planned and John…” He broke off and shook his head. “I do not know what will happen. If Rodney…”
Teyla regarded him with a Wraith’s golden eyes. “If it comes to that, John will do what he needs to do.” Teyla raised her chin, her voice low. “Though it will not come to that, Radek.”
“You do not know that,” Radek said.
“If it is necessary, I will do it,” Teyla said evenly, her eyes on his face. “He will forgive me when he will not forgive himself.”
Radek swallowed. He wasn’t sure he trusted himself to speak. And so he squeezed her shoulder instead, black silk slick as water under his hand.
Woolsey came down the stairs, rubbing his palms against his pants legs. “It’s time,” he said.
Blue fire kindled and the gate quickened, the honor guard standing well back of its opening. The surface rippled and a small figure stepped through, her black skirts billowing above tight-laced ankle boots.
Sable, Commander of the Honor Guard, went to one knee, his head bent. “My Queen,” he said, a frisson running through him as he felt her mind sweep over him, clear and bright as a beacon beam turning through the night sky, calling the darts home to their cradles.
*Sable,* Queen Steelflower said, her eyes passing over those assembled. *Yarrow and Swiftripen, Elude and Gamester, clevermen and blades all. The best men.*
He rose at her touch, the perfume of her skirts brushing his face. “Your shuttlecraft is ready, My Queen.”
“I have walked a strange road, my men,” she said aloud, her eyes touching each in turn, bright as stars. “And you shall walk a stranger one still with me, perhaps. If any among you dare it.”
“We are all your daring men,” Swiftripen said eagerly. “And it is our honor to follow where our queen bids us.”
Her eyes rested upon him like a caress upon his face. “I believe you are daring,” Steelflower said, “and true as well. Sit with me on the shuttle, and we will speak further.”
Gamester rolled his eyes behind Swiftripen’s back, and Sable grimaced. How like Swift to manage to gather the queen’s attention first! And now he would sit with her on the shuttle, a signal honor. Perhaps he would even be her first concubine.
“If you will come this way, My Queen,” he said, bending low again.
“Of course.”
Surrounded by her blades, Queen Steelflower went aboard her shuttlecraft, a fragile seeming figure among two tens of men.
The Consort was in the dart bay, of course. He went to one knee stiffly, but then Guide was not young enough for grace. “My Queen,” he said, and his voice was warm.
“My dear Guide,” she said, and the caress in her voice was enough to send shivers down Sable’s spine. All was as it should be. They were not queenless men, renegades with no hope for tomorrow. They served Steelflower and in her bright orbit were made whole.
“The ship is primed,” Guide said, “and all the company is at your disposal. Will you walk its paths with me?”
“With great good will,” Steelflower said, and put her hand to his wrist, her fingers resting lightly on his flesh. Sable thought that she spoke to him alone, some private words of tenderness perhaps, for Guide smiled and bent his head.
“This way, My Queen,” he said.
The hive ship hummed through hyperspace on its way to a deadly rendezvous. And yet it did so with a sense of deep satisfaction shared with every man aboard. It had healed much since Guide returned, but now it was better still. Their queen was there as she should be, her mind a steady presence in its dreaming sleep. Even when she was not lost in shiptrance she was there, her mind on the edge of its consciousness.
Every man had seen her, every cleverman, and every drone. Every last one of the ship’s company to the youngest fledgling barely out of the chrysalis had seen Steelflower, had felt her touch. It steadied them all. Some who had doubted she existed were now reassured while others were the butt of good humored jokes. There was no doubt she was real. There was no doubt she was a great queen. Even those who had seen Death were impressed.
*As they should be* Guide said as the doors to the Queen’s chambers irised open before them.
Her forehead rose, but her mental voice was amused. *You have much more confidence in me than formerly,* she said.
*Does that surprise you? Given what you have done?*
*With Waterlight?* she asked.
Guide snorted. *Among other things* he said.
The Queen’s Chamber was wreathed in fragrant mist, welcoming and cool, to soothe the skin and the senses alike. Cunning alcoves revealed strange compartments, boxes that might have been treasures or more utilitarian things, branching off one another so that first one charming vista and then another presented itself through half-walls of woven bone, grown that way as much for pleasure as use. Her bed was suspended from the ceiling on tendrils that looked like living vine, its covers of green silk piled high, each piece worked in thousands of fine stitches. Tiny lights were woven into the tendrils that might be extinguished at her thought, to light her or leave her in darkness as she preferred.
*It’s very…* she began, and finished aloud. “Pretty.”
Guide laughed, his voice loud in the small chamber. *We are not without aesthetic senses.*
*I did not think that,* she replied.
*Did you not?*
She did not reply, only walked over to the edge of the bed, the set of her shoulders dropping with weariness.
*You should rest,* Guide said more gently. *We have a full turn around of the watch to run before we leave hyperspace. There is no need for you to sit awake so long.*
*Sleep? And make myself vulnerable?* Her voice was skeptical, but she sat down on the edge of the bed.
*I will watch over your sleep as a consort should,* Guide said. *No one will disturb you. I shall be at your side.*
A shadow ran fast across her face, and though she did not speak he caught the sense of it — a swift and brutal fear of his body against hers, of relaxing in sleep only to awaken pinned beneath him.
Guide could not help but recoil in horror. *What do you think we are,* he asked, *that you imagine such bestial things of us?*
*If you try anything, I will kill you,* she said, and he heard the fear beneath the steel in her voice and did not doubt her.
*What man would do such a thing?* he asked. It was unimaginable. To defile a queen was worse than crime. It was sacrilege, unthinkable. The blade who even contemplated such would have no place in any hive. To take from all something so rare and remarkable…