"Eva! Get ready to leave!" Radek dragged himself upright, the floor wobbling again, and turned back to Ember's body. He stripped off his jacket, wrapped it around his hands to drag at the smoking conduit — thick cable, heavy but not impossible to move. The heat seared his palms, and he swore loudly, but the cable moved.
"They've knocked us loose from the hive," Eva called. "We have to go now."
Radek swore again. Ember's coat was shredded, the skin beneath it green with blood, and there were half a dozen finger-sized pieces of metal embedded in his back around the knobs of his spine. But he wasn't dead. A hand moved, and then his head, and Radek grabbed him by the arms and heaved, dragging him up the tailgate and into the jumper. He slapped the door controls, saw the tailgate begin to lift. "Ok, go!"
The puddlejumper lifted, hovering a meter or so above the deck. "I can't get the door to open," Eva said.
"Try a drone!"
"Oh. Yes, of course."
Radek saw her shoulders hunch, and a moment later a drone flashed into view, exploding against the cruiser's inner hull. The bay door blew out, debris pelting the jumper's hull, and outside the stars pinwheeled past. There was no sign of any other Wraith ships, but…. "We're tumbling," he said.
"Yeah." Eva's voice was tight. "There's a gravity field holding us steady relative to the cruiser, right?"
"Yes."
"What happens when we leave it?"
"The jumper should compensate," Radek said. "Go!"
"I really hope you're right."
The jumper lurched into motion, arrowing for the center of the bay door. Radek braced himself against the rear seats, one arm across Ember's body in what he suspected would be a futile attempt to keep him still, and abruptly the cruiser seemed to spin around them.
"The gravity field's down!"
Eva didn't answer, all her attention on the controls as she fought to keep the jumper steady. They were falling sideways, heading for the edge of the bay door. Radek ducked his head, closing his eyes, and felt rather than saw the jumper scrape hard along the jagged metal where the drone had hit. It staggered, metal keening, and then they were free.
"We're all right!" Eva said. "We're okay…."
Her voice trailed off, and Radek looked up quickly. "Except for?"
"One of the engines is out, and the jumper — either I can't fly it without it or it won't fly without it, but we're out of power."
Radek pulled himself up to the copilot's seat, scanning the navigation console. "We're okay," he said. "We're not going to run into anything immediately, and we're not going to hit atmosphere any time soon. We're okay." He suspected his voice was shakier than his words.
"Yeah." Eva nodded slowly. "Yeah, I guess we are. So we just wait?"
"We wait till they stop fighting," Radek said. "And then we ask nicely for someone to come pick us up."
There were voices that echoed through Teyla's head, not through her ringing ears but through her mind itself.
“I am Waterlight of the line of Osprey.”
“You are nothing but a child!”
Waterlight. And Queen Death. Teyla opened her eyes, blinking as her vision swam. She had only been unconscious for a few moments. She lay half behind one of the seats in Death's zenana. Before her Waterlight stood with her back to Teyla, facing the other queen.
Death stood just inside the doorway, alone, but no less menacing for that, her long black hair caught up in combs of bone, her voice filled with fury and triumph. She had no eyes for anyone but Waterlight, and Teyla understood. Death had not seen Steelflower either. She had seen only a worshipper, a grunt at Waterlight's back, no more to be regarded than Bronze, stunned and forgotten on the floor.
“I am not a child,” Waterlight said. “And you will not kill me like one, craven and begging for my life.”
“So be it,” Death said. “Queen to queen.” She took a step forward, and though her hands did not rise, Teyla felt it like a physical blow, the force of her mind pressing, just as Coldamber's had in the drilling station beneath the sea. Inexorable. Heavy as weight, strong as gravity, pressing her down. Teyla had fallen beneath Coldamber's first onslaught, unexpected and relentless. She had only won later because Coldamber was befuddled with drugs. She knew she could not have stood against her.
But that was three years ago. That was before Guide's tutelage, before she had used her mind as she could, back when she still feared what she was. These things went through Teyla's mind in the moment that she saw Waterlight sway, the moment before Waterlight crumpled to the ground, a small, sad pale heap on the floor.
And Teyla Emmagan stood up. Her hip was bruised again and her leg shook beneath her, but there was the back of the seat to hand. "Look at me, Death," she said aloud.
Death raised her head from where Waterlight lay, no doubt seeing a human guard prepared to die to give her queen one more chance.
“Look at me again,” Teyla said softly, her mind like polished iron, like flowers wrought of steel.
“You will die as surely as your overlady,” Death said, but there was a flicker of uncertainty.
“I will not,” Teyla said. “This is not my day to die. It is yours. Unless you surrender and leave off this war.” An odd serenity gripped her. This was no different from a knife fight, no different from the bantos sticks, mind to mind, though anyone watching would have seen nothing of the maneuver and block, of the clash of one stick against the other.
“You….”
“I am Steelflower,” Teyla said. “And I will give you one more chance. Surrender and we shall make terms, you and I. Otherwise, I will kill you.”
“You cannot be!” Death said. “You aren't.”
“I am.” Block and parry and advance, though they stood still as statues. “The world is not what you think. I exist, part human and part Wraith. We are not so different. Now come. Let us put aside the past and look to the future together. Lay aside the burden of old wrongs.”
Pushing, so very strong, but with no discipline, no sorrow beneath it. For all her bravado, Death was very young. She was not so much older than Waterlight, and filled with anger untempered, ancient pains turned outward, every desire fanned as something that she deserved.
Teyla held, as a fighter holds her opponent at bay with both hands on the stick, holding off the pressure at arms' length, elbows locked. “Put it aside,” she said. “Whatever you have been told, whatever of the First Mothers you remember, whatever injustice you are heir to. Put it aside. You will destroy your people and all others too. What shall your blades and clevermen eat when you have made the galaxy a wasteland, killing that which you cannot consume? How shall the Returned survive when you have narrowed all bloodlines to your own? Do you not understand that you will doom your own people as well as all the other children of the Ancients?”
And there in Death's mind was the Old One — Ashes, Teyla realized with a shiver of recognition. His was the voice that whispered in Death's ear, his the promises of sweet revenge.
“Put him aside,” Teyla said, and still she held, defending but not striking. “Let it go, my sister.”
“I am not your sister!” Death said, and shoved with all her mental strength, crushing and dark as a wave, consuming all within its depths.
The surface of the water broke, and from it rose the white bird. Spray flew from its wings as they extended.
“You cannot defeat me,” Teyla said, and in that moment she knew it was true. The greater strength was hers, born of experience and life, of compassion and love, of all she had overcome to stand there. “But I can defeat you. And I shall if you will not yield.”
“I will never yield to you.” Attack again, all strength extended, a fire that rose to consume–