Previously: And you thought lunch today was going to be boring? Surprise! Have an alien invasion.
Ready? FIGHT!
(To make up for the short tease that was Chapter 1, I proudly give you the longest chapter in the entire story!)
The power in the control room stutters and the gate room lights flicker. A technician, hunched behind her console, yells that more power conduits have been severed. Another reports that the gate is offline. Lorne briefly glances to his left to where he can see Sheppard firing out the back door of the control room while Ronon covers the stairwells and bridge to Woolsey's office.
Ronon's position also gives him a good angle to the far side of the gate room, and occasionally he turns to fire off in that direction whenever an enemy soldier makes it past the security team covering that side of the room. Lorne's position only gives him a clear line of sight to the doorways closest to the gate, but his job is to hold the main stairs to prevent anyone from getting up into the control room from the gate room floor. The far doorways are clear for the moment, so Lorne turns his attention back to Sheppard in the control room for a status update.
He's just in time to see a flashing, round object fly through the railing near the bridge. It bounces between Sheppard and Ronon and rolls underneath the first row of consoles. Lorne's gut turns to ice. It's a grenade. He yells as much at them. The console technicians scatter. Ronon takes two massive strides forward, grabs Chuck, and swings him towards Sheppard near the back of the room. There's a crackle of energy and a flash of bright white light.
There's nothing more he can do than the warning he has already given, so Lorne ducks down and looks away as the flash expands, followed by a loud bang and a mild concussive wave laced with more crackling electricity.
When the flash and noise subside, Lorne first checks the area he's covering to make sure no enemy forces have tried to move in during the distraction. It's clear, and he turns his attention back to the control room behind him, popping up from where he had taken cover behind the pillar next to the last two steps leading up to the control room.
The energy pulse grenade, as Lorne immediately names it, has wreaked havoc in the control room but far less than he had expected. A normal grenade in that proximity would have ripped the entire room and its occupants to shreds, but it's mostly intact. Mostly. The technicians who scrambled away appear to just be stunned, on par with a rather vicious flashbang. His eyes sweep over them, relieved to see them moving and not bleeding. The back row of consoles are structurally intact but are offline. Lorne shifts his attention further into the room, to the cloud of smoke surrounding the two primary consoles which appear to have been most severely damaged by the blast. Chuck's console is a barely recognisable shattered mess of crystals and wiring.
As the smoke from the gate control console dissipates it becomes clear that Ronon is down. He's lying on his right side just short of the bridge, impaled by what appears to be an ancient console control crystal sticking out of his left hip, and a long shard of metallic debris from the console protruding from his left thigh. The alien grenade has had a physical casualty after all, besides the equipment.
Beyond him, Sheppard is hauling himself and Chuck back to their feet. They're both a little singed but seem to be okay. Sheppard has multiple small cuts and abrasions, having caught and covered Chuck when the console blew. Chuck appears to be a little stunned but unharmed. Movement in the periphery of Lorne's vision catches his attention, and he swings back to his sector just in time to see the culprit of the grenade toss striding up to the landing on the main staircase.
He's holding an entire belt of the spherical energy pulse grenades in one hand. Lorne drops to one knee, braces on the low wall, and releases a targeted spray of P90 fire at the figure's faceplate which is conveniently located right in front of him. The figure, clearly not expecting Lorne to be there, or perhaps not up and moving, jerks its head up and stops short in surprise at the hail of bullets. This close up Lorne can see that the suit has a flexible neck section, and, without even thinking about it he directs his second burst of fire right at it, emptying his P90 mag. Lorne is rewarded when, under the targeted onslaught, the neck panels give way, and his bullets rip into the suit's occupant.
The armoured figure reels backwards as their neck is shredded by the P90 fire, flailing wildly as they tumble down the stairs. The gun and grenade belt follow the dying suit down. Lorne is rarely surprised, but the unexpected success takes a few seconds to process as he watches his enemy go down.
It's dead by the time it stops rolling.
Lorne eyes the dead alien suit for a few more seconds while he reloads by feel alone. You can never be too sure that something is actually dead in the Pegasus galaxy. The pool of blood that has seeped out by the time he's done is reassuring, so Lorne tunes himself back into the firefight that has resumed around him.
~o~o~o~
At some point during Lorne's encounter, Ronon had come to, grabbed his pulse magnum and, undeterred by the shards of Ancient infrastructure sticking out of his body, dragged himself closer to the nearest column before resuming fire at the intruders. From his prone position near the railing of the control room level, he manages to land a few good hits on targets across the room. His gun is able to punch through their armour better than standard projectile weapons do, and it only takes three to four repeat hits to puncture through and take them down. Some of the marines down in the room had switched to stunners in an attempt at better results, but the energy waves seem to just dissipate over their armour. It takes 8 to 10 direct full hits before one of them even wavers.
Lorne, noticing that Ronon is back in the game, yells the news about the weak spot in the neck joint in his general direction as he takes up firing. Sheppard overhears, and climbs on the comms immediately, ordering all units to shoot for the neck and or, if the neck was not possible, for the knees; a quick glance at a nearby alien had revealed the knee joints were also flexible to ensure suit mobility. Once the target was down, they were to move in close and confirm the kill if possible. The marines immediately toss their wraith stunners and switch back to regular projectile weapons.
With Ronon joining the fray and the Lanteans targeting their fire, the Lantean forces begin to inflict serious damage; the enemy invaders incur heavy losses. In less than two minutes there are bodies littering the gate room floor and into the corridors beyond. Sheppard manages to seal the rear door to the control room to cut off that access point. Lorne shifts up and backwards, to the doorway of the balcony from where he can still cover the main staircase if necessary but can also cover the control room bridge and stairs, as well as check on his guys out on the balcony.
Sheppard sees him move up, and slings his weapon over his shoulder, trusting Lorne to warn him if anybody comes their way. The remaining members of the security teams down in the gate room begin to push outwards, and Lorne signals the two guys on the conference room balcony to move down for backup when the expanding units report success at repelling the enemy forces. Sheppard directs them to pursue with caution and turns back to the mess that is the control room, helping the technicians back to their feet and assessing the systems. He's on the radio constantly, giving orders and receiving status updates.
Chuck has just taken a seat at the secondary console and is attempting to power it up again when the security teams begin to report that the few remaining enemy forces in the tower have begun to retreat back to the transporters. In a matter of moments, the fight for the control room is over.
Lorne takes a deep breath and lowers his weapon, trying to calm the adrenaline racing through his system, but jerks it up again when one of the two marines stationed on the balcony to his right yells triumphantly. They're still taking potshots at the circling fighters and have managed to take one down. He hollers at them to keep firing, and the rat-tat-tat of their weapons resumes immediately.
The control room is momentarily silent as everyone takes a few breaths and pulls themselves together, but it doesn't last long. They've barely had a chance to regroup when Dr Kusanagi radios in from the physics lab in a panic. Dr McKay had been taken, stunned and dragged off down a corridor by one of the intruders almost immediately after the attack had begun. Her radio had been at her workstation across the room when she had taken cover, hence the delay in reporting the news. At her radio call the channel springs to life with reports from multiple labs; a whole slew of scientist had been grabbed and dragged off. The rest had hidden away.
The response teams throughout the city react quickly to Sheppard's commands when they realise that their geeks are being kidnapped.
It's a violation of Atlantis' first rule: Protect the Geeks.
In short order, the reports come through that several of the scientists have been rescued from their captors using sheer force and overwhelming numbers, combined now with targeted firing information. A lot of knees have been blown out in the process of forcing the invaders to drop their precious cargo without shooting said cargo. The last few invaders are retreating with haste, trying to leave; They're attempting to make a run with whatever they've managed to get. Sheppard demands confirmation over the radio of scientists still being held by the enemy and initiates an immediate headcount of all Atlantis personnel across the citywide channels. It's a standard drill, one that Sheppard makes everyone in the city practice at least once a week.
It's a quick investigation; people check themselves and those around them in via PDAs, tablets and desktop computers, while the rest are count by the teams on the ground. The census number shoots up, then crawls as the last few strays check-in. Eventually, it stops; they've managed to retrieve all but three scientists. The exfil is still being pursued. First one, then another scientist are retrieved by the marines. The second was simply abandoned by the enemy in their desperate attempt to escape alive. Sheppard and Chuck are still trying to get some of the control room systems back up. One of the technicians is attending to Ronon, or at least attempting to. Another is retrieving undamaged crystals from the floor and handing them off to a third who is retasking a secondary console for primary systems.
Lorne keeps one eye on his guys on the balcony, still firing at the drones, and the other on the entrances to the gate room. He's the only one on watch for the entire area, so he can't do anything else right now. Sheppard has the situation well in hand, so Lorne waits and watches.
The radio crackles, and a breathless and frustrated voice informs them that the last of the invaders had managed to make it back to their ship and had sealed off the entryways. The marines can't get through. There are strange noises and unusual vibrations coming through the closed hatches. It doesn't take a genius to do the mental math.
They still have one of the scientists.
They still have McKay.