“I did not know you had that,” Quicksilver said. Weapons were the province of blades. Clevermen did not generally use them.
“It is for emergencies only,” Dust said with a joyless smile. “And this is an emergency, my brother. This is the worst kind of emergency.”
They were trapped in the laboratory, no way out except through the door, and no one with them, no blades or drones to defend them. He felt this had happened before, and though the fear clawed at him, it could not hold him.
“We will have to resist them as long as we may,” Quicksilver said.
Dust looked at him with surprise. “You are brave.”
“Not really,” Quicksilver said. “Unless I have to be. This is also for emergencies only.” He squared his shoulders as the door blew in.
Two humans burst into the room, their black clothing dark against the wreathing white smoke. Their weapons were held high, and their lights cast a fitful and piercing brightness, almost searing to look at. A third remained in the hall, his hulking back slightly visible behind them as he covered the corridor outside.
Quicksilver froze, his pulse hammering in his head.
The taller of the two humans swept his weapon around. “Rodney?”
“Hurry!” the one outside shouted. “I’m not going to be able to hold them long, Sheppard!”
“Rodney?” the smaller of the two called. “Rodney, are you here?”
Dust gave him a sideways look, a swift half-smile that Quicksilver knew he would keep in his memory forever. And then he darted out from the end of the table, firing his stunner at the intruders, narrowly missing the smallest one.
The other swung around, the beam of light from his weapon catching Dust just as he opened fire. Blood blossomed, and he jerked in the rain of hard things, six, eight catching him full in the body, tearing through velvet and cloth and flesh and muscle and bone, shaking him like a rag caught in a tornado, flinging him useless and broken to the floor, one final spark of pain flaring in his eyes before they fixed.
“No!” Quicksilver was hardly aware of himself, unconscious of any fear at all, rising up from behind the table and leaping for the stunner thrown from Dust’s opened hand. “No!” He dropped to the floor, across his brother’s blood, and his fingers closed around it. Once, twice, three bright bursts erupting at the dark figure who had slain Dust.
Quicksilver rolled, getting out of the way of return fire, and squeezed off another shot and another, pumping blast after blast into the human where he lay, just as he had torn Dust, grim determination in his face and bile in his throat. The smaller human dove behind a piece of equipment, and he threw shot after shot at her, pinning her and the one in the doorway both. His shots could not penetrate the metal of the equipment nor the frame of the door, but he could keep them thus, keep them until blades came.
The smaller one was screaming something, calling out to him or to her fallen packmate, he did not know. That one lay insensible, blood seeping from his ears, stunned again and again, his head lolling back. Quicksilver blasted him again for good measure. This is for Dust, he thought. This. Above, the ship’s alarms began to shriek in a high voice, overhead lights slowly warming.
Bright Venture was waking up.
Chapter Thirty-four: Endgame
The George Hammond swept wide, rail guns blazing as she burned a streak down the hive ship’s lateral surface, rotating on her own axis as she spun off the end, flipping around to come about for a dorsal pass. A cloud of Darts parted before her, reforming behind her and peppering her aft shields with flowers of fire.
Sam knew better than to direct her helmsman. The reason Lt. Chandler was a helmsman was because he was a hot pilot, hotter than she’d ever been. And so, other than the imperceptible tightening of her hands on the arms of the chair, she did not react as they rolled through a flashing waterfall of fire, diving behind the hive ship’s bulk.
Depressurization alarms must be hooting all over the hive ship, inner compartments sealing. Their sensors read massive damage. If they could just refrain from depressurizing sections where they had people aboard…
“Sheppard?” she said into her radio. “Status report, please.” There was no answer.
“Ma’am, aft shield at 40 per cent,” Major Franklin said from the station behind her. “We are rerouting power, but it appears that the starboard ventral emitter has taken physical damage.”
Trouble, but by far not a mortal wound.
“Sheppard? Status report.”
The Hammond dove, rotating 280 degrees as she evaded another flight of Darts.
“The hive ship is powering up!” Franklin said, his voice cracking as he bent over his display. “All systems are coming online!”
That was their cue. Once the hive ship’s defenses were active, their team would be trapped.
The Hammond shook, shuddering from bow to stern.
Sam snapped about as a shower of sparks flew behind her. “What was that?”
“The damaged starboard ventral emitter blew, ma’am,” Franklin called. “We’ve lost the entire rear shield!”
For a moment Sam wished she were the type who swore under pressure. Power reroutes they could do. External physical damage was beyond their repair capability in the middle of a battle, and depending on the damage possibly more than they could do without significant down time at a base.
“Cut the power to the damaged sections,” Sam directed. “So we don’t have anymore surprises back there.” She cupped her headset. “Sheppard? We’re out of time.”
Ronon’s voice came through loud and clear, blasts and the sound of gunfire behind him. “Sheppard’s down.”
Ronon fired and fired again, and Wraith after Wraith fell, but they kept coming, their stunner fire spitting down the corridor toward him. He flattened himself against the wall as best he could. No way to get past so many of them, and they would be pouring down the corridor from the other direction now, cutting off their escape.
“I can’t give you any more time,” Carter said over the radio. “We’re about to open a hyperspace window. I can beam you out now, or you’re going to have to find your own way home.”
No more holding them off. He crouched and dived in the door of the room, rolling as he came up, taking in a series of images — Sheppard down, unmoving, Teyla swiveling her P90 toward him, startled by the sudden movement — and then he saw Rodney, firing off blast after blast from the Wraith stunner in his hand.
It was Rodney, and at the same time he had the ridged markings of a Wraith’s face beneath bone-white hair, and the hand clenched around the stunner had claws. It was Rodney, firing again and again at Teyla as if he was afraid to stop. The table she was sheltering behind crawled with stunner fire.
For a moment Ronon froze. It was like something out of a nightmare, and for a moment he thought this can’t be real. Then he knew it was, and even as he rolled to one knee, raising his pistol, he remembered watching a Wraith writhe in restraints in the isolation room, watching its face become human as their engineered virus worked its destruction through its body.
“Our hyperspace window is open,” Carter said in his ear, her voice level like the seasoned soldier she was. “You’ve got about ten seconds before we jump to hyperspace.”
“Rodney!” Teyla cried. “It is us, we are here to help you — ”
Rodney threw himself behind a piece of equipment, and Ronon’s shot stung harmlessly against the metal. He was crouching to dive over the tables, preparing to roll wildly out of the way of the stunner blasts when he got close enough.