“It’s not nearly too much,” he said, circling again. “I can take a lot of punishment.”
“I’m sure you can.” Reversing direction, stalking sunward around him. “But you do not have to.”
“Think I’m going to back down?”
“You could.” Circling, circling. The tips of their sticks touched, just grazing each other in passing, her eyes on his.
“Gonna have to do better than that,” he said, and exploded into motion, a furious feint and lunge toward her bad side. She caught his stick on hers, though the weight behind it nearly pushed her to her knees, arms straining, a foot apart.
“Your fly is unzipped,” Teyla said.
He looked and in that moment she disengaged, slipping under his stick like a whisper, laughing as she went.
John straightened up, a sheepish expression on his face. “I can’t believe I fell for that! I’m wearing sweat pants.”
“You are too easy to distract,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said, his eyes smiling into hers.
“You had better be careful,” she said. “An unscrupulous opponent could take advantage of you.”
“They might,” he said. “Lucky for me, I don’t like playing it safe.”
“Don’t you?” Another feint, and this time she slipped to the left, dodging his riposte neatly. The left stick caught him in the back of the knees and he dropped before her, the right stick going around his throat as she leaned forward, her right knee in his back and his shoulders pulled back against her, the back of his head against her belly.
“Erk,” he said as his knees hit the floor, and he looked up at her, the stick at his throat, taut as a bow in her hands.
“Will you yield to me at last?” Teyla asked quietly, feeling his pulse thrumming in his neck, hammering in time with hers.
His eyes met hers. “Oh yeah,” he said as she bent over him.
“Colonel Sheppard to the gateroom! Colonel Sheppard to the gateroom! We have an incoming transmission from Todd.” Amelia Banks switched the radio back out of transmit and looked up at Woolsey leaning over her shoulder.
“Put Todd on,” Dick Woolsey said grimly. “Let’s see what he has to say.”
The viewscreen stabilized, a grainy picture that showed nothing but a headshot of Todd. “I only have a moment, and I will only say this once,” he said. “Dr. McKay is being held aboard Queen Death’s hiveship. Most of the time he is in the forward laboratory section. You are fortunate, as that section is less heavily guarded than most of the ship.” He gave what might pass for a Wraith smirk.
“Good information,” Dick said, “But useless without the location of the ship.” He made himself keep his voice light, though he felt a surge of excitement run through his veins.
“Of course,” Todd said. “And what is it worth to you to know the location of the ship?”
“It’s to your advantage to tell us and have us do your dirty work for you,” Woolsey said calmly. “Or not. But you don’t seem to have time for a long discussion about it.”
Todd snarled.
Sheppard came bounding up the stairs from the transport chamber wearing gym clothes and looking distinctly flustered. He crowded in beside Dick at the monitor. “I’m here.”
Todd’s expression changed to something like amusement. “And how is the Young Queen?”
“Huh?”
“The ship’s location,” Dick said patiently.
“In seventeen of your hours Queen Death’s ship will be at the following coordinates. The planet is unimportant and uninhabited except for a small garrison we keep there extracting some precious minerals from the world’s soil. With our biotechnology it is necessary to provide the ship with the proper building blocks for it to use to expand and repair, and indeed to continue in good health.”
“You have to feed your ship?” Sheppard asked keenly.
“From time to time,” Todd said. “Even the largest ships must consume new materials and enter a brief period of digestive dormancy while they assimilate them. During that time a ship is exceedingly vulnerable. It is asleep, for all practical purposes. Its defenses are down, it is not prepared for hull regeneration, and engines and weapons are offline. Queen Death has been using her ship hard. She must bring new material aboard and give it time to consume it.”
“And how long does this take?” Dick asked.
“No more than a few hours, typically,” Todd said. “So it is our practice to go to some remote spot and complete the entire process in less than one of your days. Her ship will be at this location in seventeen hours, and it will stay with certainty no more than four or five, though it may stay as long as eight depending on the amount of new material to digest.” Todd looked down at his hands as though they were moving over a console. “I am sending the coordinates. Now.” There was a brief databurst, and the transmission dissolved into static. An instant behind that the Stargate cut out.
Dick drew himself up. “Whew.”
“I’ve got a set of coordinates,” Banks said. “It’s a planet a little less than an eighth of the way around the galactic rim. There’s a Stargate, but we’ve never used it but once to send a MALP through. There’s nothing there.”
Radek Zelenka looked down from the board above, pushing his glasses up on his nose. “It could be a trap,” he said.
“Todd doesn’t know we have the Hammond,” Sheppard said. “He’s assuming we’ll have to send a jumper through the Stargate.”
“Banks, ask Colonel Carter to meet us in the briefing room at her earliest convenience,” Dick directed. “We need to talk about this. And then call Dr. Keller. Sheppard, get your team together.” He looked at his wristwatch. “Let’s say ten minutes.”
“It’s the only real lead we’ve got,” Sheppard said, settling down into one of the conference room chairs, a cup of coffee in his hand. He hadn’t taken this ten minutes to go get changed, and he still looked disheveled.
“What is?” Dr. Keller asked as she came in, followed by Dr. Zelenka.
“Todd’s tip,” Zelenka said, sitting down opposite her on the near side of Sheppard. “He says Rodney is on Queen Death’s ship and he says it will be parked and dormant at a certain place.” Zelenka put his travel mug down before him and looked around expectantly. “I feel I must play devil’s advocate here and say that it may very well be a trap.”
“It may be,” Dick said. “And that’s one thing we need to discuss. But let’s wait for everyone to get here.”
“What about the Genii?” Keller asked, frowning.
“We haven’t heard from them yet,” Dick said.
Sheppard shifted in his seat, but said nothing. Ladon Radim, for all his promises, had as yet delivered nothing, while unexpectedly the meeting with Todd had borne fruit. Still, Dick thought, the Genii might come up with something of importance down the road. One could not say that their diplomatic overtures were entirely wasted, even if nothing had come of them so far.
Colonel Carter and Major Franklin came in a few moments later, Ronon in animated conversation with Franklin about some sort of target shooting competition, and Teyla slipped in behind them, her hair soaking wet as though she had just come from the shower. She sat down unobtrusively beside Ronon, while Carter took the chair beside Sheppard.
There was a lengthy recapping of the facts, complete with playback of Todd’s message. When it faded everyone sat in silence for a long moment. Carter was looking down the table with the expectant air of someone who thought the facilitator ought to get on with it, but who doesn’t feel like they ought to be the one to go first.
“Colonel Carter,” Dick said. “You look as though you have an idea.” He might as well get it out in the open and get started. Everyone was looking at her anyway.