NOTES: Written for the gatewomen ficathon over on LiveJournal. Sam and Teyla - no waiting! I'd love to see something like this in Atlantis S4. We live in hope.
Possibility And Commonality
The first time she caught Teyla with her head tilted up to the sky, Sam felt dread bloom, grim and grey in her stomach. "Are they looking for us?"
Sunlight filtered through the leaf canopy far above their heads, dappling dark hair as Teyla turned to regard Sam with a calm that was oddly reassuring, even in the middle of their situation. "It is possible."
"It's possible?" Sam glanced up, listening for the whine of Wraith darts overhead, dreading the sound of tearing air as they rent the sky like an atmospheric razor.
She heard nothing.
"There is a hiveship in orbit," said Teyla quietly. "It may be seeking us, it may be here for the same reason that the first dart caught us by surprise."
"But you don't know."
"I do not." There was no apology for the lack of knowledge, just the statement of the limits of her abilities.
--
"Colonel Sheppard will return," said Teyla with a certainty Sam recognised. There was trust there, a belief bound by hard experience.
Still, there was trust and there was being in this situation. "He'd better," Sam murmured, hunkered down against a log of rotting wood as she took a sip from her canteen. "But I'd rather not wait around for rescue."
She'd always hated needing to be rescued, anyway.
Across from her, Teyla tilted her head, eyebrows raised in interest. "You believe we should acquire transport up to the Stargate?"
"If there's a hiveship in orbit, one more dart isn't going to be noticed. You've flown Wraith ships before--"
"A mothership is very different to a dart." But there was a look of reluctant admiration on Teyla's face - hopefully for the audacity of what Sam was suggesting.
Sam shrugged, projecting bravado. "If you've flown one ship, you've flown them all."
--
Playing chicken with a Wraith dart wasn't Sam's idea of fun. If Teyla got taken by the Wraith in the process, then all their plans would be for nothing.
Teyla insisted there wasn't any other way. "I must be as close as possible in order to...touch the mind of the Wraith flying the dart," she said. "It is a risk."
Sam had wanted to say it wasn't an acceptable risk, but she had to trust the other woman knew what she was doing.
The dart's whine was clearly audible in the purple twilight, while Teyla was nothing more than a shadow in the field where they'd decided to stage this capture.
Light flashed, glittered, gleamed across the field. Sam saw the shadow run to the side, out of the deadly sweep of the dematerialiser, even as the wedge-shaped ship faltered and plunged into the ground.
Sam ran for the dart.
--
Whatever the pilot had managed to do before Sam shot him, he'd done it well.
Sam glared at the power readings her computer was showing, then glanced at Teyla, who was still wiping up the remnants of a bloody nose. "You okay?"
"I will be fine." When Teyla stumbled out of the dusk with blood streaked down her upper lip, Sam had feared the worst. But Teyla had dismissed it, more interested in the state of the dart and whether they could use it to escape the planet. "Rodney has managed to re-route the power from one section of a hiveship to another before. Is it possible to do the same with this dart?"
Sam bit back the retort that sprang to her lips - that she wasn't Rodney McKay. Teyla was accustomed to her team-mate, and probably unaware of Sam's issues in that direction.
"I'm looking at it," she promised.
--
Teyla returned just after moonrise, while Sam was swearing softly at the power array. She brought with her some edible greens and something that smelled like cooked meat.
"I believe it is of a similar type to your Earth rabbit," she explained.
In spite of the smell, Sam grimaced at the still-warm carcass of the creature. She'd never been fond of 'eating local', she preferred not to know where her meal had come from. Still, food was food, and she'd need it to pull an all-nighter on this dart. They couldn't wait until morning to get out of here.
"Thanks." She settled back against the inside wall of the dart and shoved her laptop to the side, cupping the leafy bundle Teyla had handed her in her lap. "You know," she said, "Local cuisine, a starry night, a desperate situation..."
"Rodney will be sorry he missed it," said Teyla wryly.
--
Sam adjusted her cap over her head so the moonlight wouldn't gleam on her blonde hair. She envied Teyla her darker skin and hair. Teyla would never be stereotyped as 'a blonde', or forced to darken her skin during night moves. "Will they leave it?"
"I do not know," Teyla murmured back. "But if they do not, we will have to kill them." She sounded cold-blooded about it, but then, she'd been struggling against the Wraith all her life.
Sam brought her weapon up, training it on the Wraith across the clearing from the dart. The rustle from beside her told her Teyla was doing the same.
They waited as the Wraith conferred at the edge of the clearing. They watched as the moonlight gleamed on long, silver hair.
Then one of the Wraith started for the dart, and Sam caught the creature in her sights and fired.
Silence shattered.
--
"Did you not say this would work?" Teyla sounded calmer than anyone had a right to sound the moment after an attempt to 'hotwire' a Wraith dart had just failed. Teyla's P-90 chattered noisily out the canopy, followed by the noisy whump of a Wraith stunner.
"I said it might work," Sam replied, hoping that she didn't sound as panicked as she felt. She'd been counting on Teyla to keep them alive until they got off the ground; Teyla had been counting on her to get the dart started.
There was another burst from Teyla's P-90 before the other woman squirmed around in her seat and the 'hatch' sealed over their heads.
"There is a dart coming," she reported. "It will fire upon us when it comes within range."
"Trying it again." Sam checked the connections between the power unit and the dart, as Teyla shifted in the 'cockpit'. "Ready?"
--
"I do not suppose Rodney has mentioned that my previous flying skills extend only to straight lines, stopping and starting?" There was a wry note to Teyla's voice as the dart rolled over in an evasive movement Sam could feel in spite of the internal gravity of the ship.
Sam managed a smile in spite of their dire situation and her discomfort, squeezed in behind the pilot's seat. "You seem to be managing." They'd made it into space, although the Wraith were close behind them. "Besides, he can't fly a 'jumper in a straight line, so he can't criticise."
"When has that stopped Rodney?" There was a smile in Teyla's voice to match the one that sprang to Sam's lips. "Dialling the Stargate now."
Alarm spiked as Sam watched power levels drop. "We're losing power. There's not enough to dial the gate and fly through."
Teyla kept dialling. "Then we must hope that I am better at flying in a straight line than Rodney."
--
Teyla was much better at flying in straight lines than Rodney was. However, going ballistic through the Stargate had more to do with the laws of physics than flying ability.
And once on the other side of the Stargate, there were only the laws of physics.
The insides of the dart were disconcertingly organic against Sam's hands as she braced for impact. Fingers slipped and bootsoles slid across the walls as they hit the ground and momentum threw her forward.
Every bump, judder, and skid shuddered through Sam's bones until they came to a jerky halt in the dirt of the planet.
For a few seconds, there was nothing but the silence ringing in her ears. Then her heartbeat began thumping through her veins again, and Teyla's soft, short pants emitted from the pilot's seat.
"You alive, Teyla?"
"I believe I am."
Both women exhaled. Slowly.
"Home to Atlantis?"
"Yep."
--
"Nobody mentioned how organic the darts smell from the inside," Sam commented as she came out of the general showers to find Teyla drying herself off in the 'change room'.
"The hiveships smell much the same," Teyla said as she dressed with neat, unhurried movements. "But after a while, and in the midst of a crisis, it goes unnoticed."
"Another day, another hiveship?" Sam inquired and caught the brief grin. "Well, now you can add 'Wraith dart' to the list of craft you've flown."
Teyla didn't quite wince. "It is not exactly a skill of which one boasts."
As she pulled on her clothes, Sam figured understood Teyla's reticence. She knew what it meant to be 'different' to those around her - to have an connection with the enemy that nobody else shared.
"You know," she said, "we make a good team."
"We do," agreed Teyla with a smile.
--
Surprisingly, after the briefing, Sam found Teyla waiting for her at the door.
Further up the corridor, Sheppard glanced back, his expression piqued. The relief with which he'd greeted their safe return had only been eclipsed by McKay's glee at the crashed Wraith dart.
"Colonel, I do not know how it is with you, but I find that debriefings make me hungry," Teyla said without preamble.
"Teyla, After everything we've been through yesterday and today...I think you can call me 'Sam.'" Sam grinned. "And yes, debriefings make me hungry." She fell into step beside the petite Athosian woman. "I don't suppose the commiss-- mess hall happens to have any blue Jello?"
Dark eyes tilted slightly as the wide mouth curved in a smile. "I believe they do, Colonel. Perhaps we should make certain of this?"
"Works for me."
- fin -