A/N Hope everyone has been having a lovely weekend.
Let the seige begin!!
"Let's get this set up over here." Alice directed a few scientists over to one of the tents on the far side of the compound. "We need to keep this main clearing clear, the final group should be coming through any moment."
The scientists began shifting the equipment, Alice jogged back into the main clearing. Lloyd was directing the medical personnel to the temporary infirmary they'd set up. "How we doing?" she approached him.
"Looking good, infirmary is just about set up and we have teams patrolling the gate and the immediate vicinity...just in case." Lloyd looked around as if expecting the Wraith so jump out at any second, Alice could see the lines forming under Lloyd's eyes. The stress the team had been under was starting to take its toll, they had been working non-stop to get everything set everything up. Although Alice was grateful for the chance to be in charge, but she knew that John had really ordered her here to keep her from harm's way.
"Is this everyone now?" Lloyd yawned, shaking Alice out of her thoughts.
"Yep, just the Major, Weir, Ford and Rodney left." Alice looked down at her watch, "They should be coming through any moment now."
"Riles, come in." Alice jumped at John's voice.
"Are you ready to head through sir?" Alice popped her hip, raising her finger up to her earpiece.
"Not exactly." Alice and Lloyd exchanged a confused look. "I need you to gather all military personnel and any civilians willing to assist in damage control."
Alice was perplexed, "sir?"
"Reinforcements from the SGC have arrived. We're going to be fighting for the city after all." John's voice was reluctant; Alice wasn't going to think twice about defending the city though.
Lloyd grinned widely, "yes sir, give us 10 minutes."
Alice spun around and leapt onto one of the larger storage boxes, clicking on her radio as she did. "Attention all personnel, reinforcements have arrived and we will be returning to Atlantis to defend our home. All military personnel please report to the gate, and any civilians if you wish to help, then meet us there." Jumping down, she grabbed extra P90 rounds from the ammo box and headed towards the gate side by side with Lloyd.
Alice gazed around in awe as she stepped through the event horizon into the gateroom, it felt just like the first time she'd seen it. Her chest filled with anxiety and excitement.
The gateroom was teeming with activity, large black boxes were being moved from the edge of the platform down into the corridors.
Alice moved up the stairs, turning back to look at everyone stepping through the gate "clear the gate area and report to your designated team leaders."
She ran up the steps towards the control room, she froze mid-step as she saw a broad shouldered, brown haired soldier standing next to John. She couldn't believe her eyes, but she'd never forget those features. "Evan?" she blinked a few times, as the soldier slowly turned around.
He grinned broadly as his eyes landed on her face, she could feel tears welling in her eyes. "Hey Aly-cat!" his voice was music to her ears, she broke out into a run tightly wrapping her arms around his neck. She felt Evan chuckle and his arms grip her in a tight embrace, "it's good to see you too."
"I can't believe you're here" she whispered in his ear, she felt a tear run down her face.
Someone cleared their throat and Alice let go of Evan, jumping away from him to look at John. Her face flushed slightly and she quickly wiped her face.
John was tense, his jaw was clenched and he was holding himself incredibly rigid. Another man stepped out next to John, Alice immediately stood at attention and brought her right hand up into a salute, "Colonel."
He returned her salute, "At ease, you must be Captain Riley." The Colonel looked between Alice and Evan, "I see you know my second-in-command." Alice dropped her head slightly embarrassed. "Please go with Major Lorne and Sheppard, I need you to assist in the placement of the mines."
Alice nodded and followed Evan out of the control room and up to the Jumper bay. John followed closely behind them, "Lorne" John spoke harshly, "Do you have the gene?" Evan nodded, Alice frowned at John's tone "right, Riles you take the Major and give him a crash course. Then both of you get up there and start laying the mines." John readjusted his jacket, "I'll start training the rookies."
"Yes sir." Alice didn't miss Evan raising his eyebrows when John said his nickname for her. John gave Alice a small glance before walking towards a small group of marines, who were examining the outside of the Jumper.
"Here, let's go in this one." Alice opened the rear door and led the way up to the cockpit,
"so, uh... Riles is it?" Alice closed her eyes and wrinkled her nose. She couldn't afford to let Evan know about hers and John's relationship.
"Shut up." Alice blushed slightly, she quickly sat down in the pilot's seat and powered up the main controls.
Evan chuckled and put his hand on her back, "it's really good to see you Aly. I..uh... also got your message."
Alice turned her head to look at him, slightly wary, "you have to know how so-"
"Aly, don't" Evan gave her a warm smile, rubbing his thumb over her back. "No matter how much of a pain in the ass you are, you're always going to be my best friend."
Alice put her hand on top of his and rested her head there too, smiling. "Riles, you ready... oh um, sorry." She could hear the screech of John's boots as he quickly stopped and had started to turn away.
"Major!" Alice called out, but he'd already walked out of sight. She quickly took her hand off Evan's, she wanted to run out of the Jumper and explain to John.
But there was too much else at stake at the moment, she coughed awkwardly she could see him smirking as he took a seat opposite her "right, so these are the main controls."
Alice jumped out of her chair, and opened the door. "Great flying!" She smiled widely as Evan stepped out of his Jumper.
"I had a great teacher." Evan grinned and nudged her shoulder as they both started walking towards the control room.
"Hopefully that will, at the very least, make them hesitate." Alice felt giddy, she was starting to feel the dread and anxiety fade away. They might actually be able to pull this off, not to mention the burst of energy seeing Evan had given her.
Behind them she heard another Jumper setting down, she could see John's tense face through the windshield. "I'll catch up to you." She didn't wait to see if Evan had heard her, and ran over to the opening rear ramp. Her eyes darted left and right, no one was close enough to hear them if she kept their voices low.
John was stood in the rear compartment, his eyes trained on the floor. He hadn't been expecting to see her, "John." She said seriously. "can I speak to you for a minute?"
He looked uncomfortably at her, "we really need to get to the control room." He moved to her right to step around her, but Alice blocked his path.
"John. I wanted to talk about Major Lorne."
John's face hardened, "You don't need to say anything. I understand." He tried to step around her again.
Alice slammed her palm into his chest, causing him to step backwards to regain his balance. "No, you don't" she quickly rose onto her tip toes and pecked him on the lips. "Evan is a very good friend of mine." She looked at John's confused face. "That's all."
"Are you sure 'Aly-cat'?" John's hazel eyes looked piercingly down at her.
"You don't trust me?" She pushed back from him and crossed her arms over her chest.
John stepped back and ran his hand through his hair, messing it up even more than it already was. "Of course I do Riles, but i can't just ignore how you look at him."
"What are you talking about?" Alice narrowed her eyes.
John laughed sarcastically, "he's more than just a friend" he pointed out where she'd left Evan, "you've never looked at me the way you looked at him."
Alice swallowed, anger rose up in her chest. "I'm resigning so that i can be with you, and you're worried about an old boyfriend." She scoffed and stormed out of the jumper. Ignoring him calling her name.
Alice took the last step down to the control room and saw Rodney standing next to Elizabeth, Evan and Everett. His mouth was pulled tight, before Alice could ask what was happening an alarm activated.
Elizabeth whipped around to the technicians sat in front of the control panels, "What is it?"
"It's the city's short range sensors!" Alice dived for the nearest seat and pulled up the system to the main screen.
"We have incoming. I don't know where they came from -- they just appeared all of a sudden." the technician's voice trembled.
John ran in down the last few stairs, "What's going on?"
"We just detected a wave of objects approaching the planet." Elizabeth crossed her arms and didn't take her eyes off the screen.
"How many?" The Colonel demanded.
Alice looked down at her screen, "Over a hundred, sir."
"How come they weren't detected by the long range sensors?" John placed his hand at the back of Alice's chair staring down at the screen. All thoughts of their argument vanished, as she watched in horror as the asteroids approached their mines.
Rodney was gazing up at the main display, "Because they're rocks, asteroids!" He turned his face showing fear and shock, "The Wraith must have harvested them from the system's asteroid belt and accelerated them towards us from a safe distance. The mainframe's taken this long to determine that they were a threat."
"Can they do much damage?" Elizabeth questioned.
"Oh yeah." Rodney scoffed, "Admittedly most of them'll burn off in the atmosphere but ... that's not why they're doing."
"They're headed toward the mines." Everett stated, pointing at the screen.
"Well, can't they be deactivated?" John's voice was incredibly tense.
"No!" Everett said bluntly.
They all watched quietly in despair as the asteroids activated the mines and they disappeared from the screen. Rodney shrunk back into the chair behind him. The cold dread feeling was returning to Alice, she couldn't take her eyes off the screen. Her eyes could still make out where the small blips of lights that signified the mines were.
"Well -- that's that." Rodney broke the silence. "Your mines make one hell of a bang, Colonel -- I'm sure the Wraiths' ears are ringing."
Ignoring Rodney's tone, John tapped Alice's shoulder, "What's the status of the hive ships?"
Alice shook her head softly, "there's no way to know."
Rodney tapped on his keyboard, and sighed "The mine detonation must have overloaded the sensors."
The Colonel stepped up towards control panel, "How long until they're back up?"
"Hours." Alice murmured softly.
"Yeah, well, they're still out there -- and we just lost our primary line of defense." John stood up and gave them a despairing look.
Alice stared at the screen a moment longer, "Captain, Major Lorne. Please check on the status of the railguns. We're going to need them all operational as soon as possible."
They both nodded instinctively. Neither one of them could process what just happened or what that meant for them now.
Alice rolled her chair backward and mindlessly stood up to follow Evan. John's hand was still on the back of her chair, as she stood up and he stuck out his finger allowing it to stroke up her arm as she rose. Her eyes darted to his and saw her panic and fear reflected in them.
"I'll check in on the defense and damage control teams." John looked at Everett, awaiting his approval.
Everett pondered it a moment before gruffly tilting his head and John followed Alice out of the room.
"Evan, you go to positions one to five. I'll check on the others." Evan looked between her and John, the look he gave her she knew meant she'd have some explaining to do later. But he just nodded and headed towards the first position.
Alice waited until she was sure he couldn't see them, and then grabbed John's hand and dragged him into the nearest room. Luckily, it was empty with only the emergency lighting active. "How are we supposed to win this..."
John tightened his grip on her hand and pulled her into his chest. "I don't know..."
Alice closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around John's waist, "please just stay safe." She whispered, her throat feeling dry and scratchy. Their last argument was forgotten as the threat of the impending Wraith attack loomed over them.
John pulled back and looked down at her with a lopsided grin, "Isn't that supposed to be my line?"
Alice laughed wiping her eyes, "just…don't do anything stupid." She went up onto her tiptoes and placed a light kiss on his lips.
John cupped her face before she could pull away and brought her into a more passionate kiss. "This isn't goodbye, no matter what you stay alive okay?" John eyes bored holes into hers, he raised his eyebrows expectantly at her.
She tensed, she knew this was a promise she might not be able to keep, but she would do her best. "Okay" his eyes brightened slightly and he kissed once more softly before pulling away all together.
"Keep in touch." Alice nodded and walked out the room, throwing her head over her shoulder to take a final look at John.
Alice was underneath one of the railguns, she had reviewed the specs and was now helping the teams to tighten up any loose bolts. Her face was covered in oil and grit from the new machines.
She gripped the shelf above her and pulled herself out from underneath. "Right, that should do it!" She yelled up at the marine. She quickly scooted out of the way as he got in the seat and powered up. The gun performing perfectly. Alice sighed, "fantastic" she held up a thumbs up to Captain Radner.
"You all done here?" Evan grabbed her wrist and pulled her up from the ground.
"Yep, looks like it." She looked around and nodded, going through any final checks in her head. "Looks like we may be able to just rela-"
Warning alarms blasted in her ears, she clamped her hands over her ears. She ran forward to the balcony, squinting trying to see in the darkness.
"Attention, we have a wave of darts incoming. Commencing blackout." The sudden change in light blinded her for a moment, but she with her other senses working in overdrive to compensate she could just make out the whir of the darts engine.
Captain Radner was running up and down the gun positions, "Remember -- short steady bursts."
The railguns were swinging around and into position. Marines all around Alice were aiming their weapons into the sky as the sound of approaching Darts grew louder. "Give me that!" Alice tore a gun out of one of the marine's hands, Evan moved down and retrieved another one.
They stood shoulder to shoulder gripping their weapons. Despite the cool ocean air, Alice could feel sweat starting to build up on her forehead. Her finger trembled slightly over the trigger. "Here they come!" She yelled as loud as she could and began firing.
Flares flew up igniting the sky, then chaos broke loose. Alice couldn't hear anything apart from the sound of her gun and the railguns opening fire. She could see parts of the city being lit up with explosions from the crashing darts.
She cursed, the dart pilots were deliberately crashing into the city. "Radner!" She took her eyes off the darts for a second, whipping her head around to the Captain. He nodded, grabbing his radio and taking a few paces back to yell into it. Alice kept firing until her gun clicked.
She looked around desperately, "here!" Evan held up a black cartridge to her. She took it gratefully and slammed it into her gun, locking a bullet into the chamber and aiming back into the sky. Another dart flew past them, crashing into the building just next to them. Alice squinted as the light flashed, she kept her eyes on the darts.
They should have had the drones up by now, she wasn't sure how much longer they could keep this up.
Alice clipped one of the darts wings and watched it careen straight into the ocean. She smiled, but then was completely taken off her feet as a massive weight barreled into her, "look out!" Another dart came screaming past their position, activating its beam as it soared past. Luckily missing Evan and her by mere feet.
Alice looked at Evan on top of her, "th-thanks" she stuttered. She can't believe how close they'd been to being taken.
"Don't thank me yet Aly-cat." He gripped her forearm and dragged her up.
Alice reloaded her gun, she stared out at the warzone in front of her. Fires were burning all through the city and it didn't look like they'd made any impact at all. Just as she was beginning to feel hopeless, a flurry of bright lights shot up from the ground.
Alice's face broke into a smile and she started laughing, "yes!" Evan looked at her like she'd gone slightly crazy but smiled in any case.
The drones were taking the darts down one by one, they finally seemed to be gaining the upper hand. Alice and Evan continued to fire at the last dart, as it was being pursued by a drone.
Finally, it blew up, Alice lifted her arm to protect her face from the reign of debris that rained down on their position. Alice jumped up and down, grabbing Evan's shoulders and bringing him into a tight embrace. "Okay, okay, okay" he chuckled. "Come on, lets check in with the other positions."
Alice nodded, slightly out of breath. "Captain, we're going to check in. Get the guns reloaded and ready for another assault."
"Colonel, this is Captain Riley, come in." Alice tapped her earpiece.
"Go ahead Captain." Everett's gruff voice said.
"We've managed to get most of the fires under control. Though it looks like we've lost power throughout the city. Railguns are locked and loaded for another wave." Alice lent on the railing, resting her head on her hands.
"Good work Captain. It looks like some of the Wraith may have beamed into the city, would you be able to lead a patrol in your area?"
Alice stood bolt upright, her hand instinctively reaching for her rifle. "Yes sir, I'll have Major Lorne-"
"I want Major Lorne left in charge of the railguns, Captain. I'm sending you a team now to meet at your current position."
"Yes sir." Alice bit down on her lip, tingles ran up and down her spine. She felt vulnerable and like she was suddenly surrounded.
She was stood outside the main transporter on her level, awaiting her Wraith killing team. Just as she was pacing back and forth, the door opened revealing a few heavily armed marines.
"Right, lets go hunting." Alice raised her gun and headed for the outskirts of the city.
Alice gestured to her team, they were slinking through the corridors. Closing and securing off labs and doors as they went. The last thing they needed was a Wraith getting up behind them. She had a life signs detector held out in front of her, so far they'd not come across anything, but the longer they went without an engagement the tenser she was becoming.
Alice's radio clicked, she held up her fist and they all sunk to the floor. "This is Everett. The Wraith just took out one of our generators." Alice cursed, she looked at her scanner. She was no where near the generators.
"Teyla?" Alice felt a rush of relief run through her as she heard John's voice. In all this chaos it was reassuring that he was still unharmed.
"We are already on our way, Major!" Teyla sounded like she was running.
"We'll meet you there." John replied and then the radio went silent.
Alice looked at her scanner, and pointed forward. Her team began moving out.
Alice and her team were still clearing their section. They were currently on their way to the furthest generator station.
She was unloading the almost empty clip from her P90 and replacing it with a new one. "This is Everett. Jumper Four has just informed us the Wraith hive ships are approaching the planet. Defense team to your positions."
Alice looked at her team, they were staring at her waiting for their orders. She grabbed a few extra clips from their jackets, stuffing them into her own vest. "Go back to the railguns, I'll take care of the lasts few stragglers."
"Captain, we can't leave you on your own." One of the marines stepped forward.
"That's an order Sergeant." He hesitated a moment, Alice thought he might try and defy her, but he eventually nodded and handed over another spare clip of ammo. She took it gratefully and just before they could turn Elizabeth's voice came over the tannoy.
"This is Weir. Now I know how tired you all are, and how much we have asked of you these past few days." Alice looked at her team most, if not all, of them looked dead on their feet. "Hopefully the Daedalus will arrive soon, but until that happens our fate is in our own hands." They'd all stopped moving to listen to Elizabeth's speech. "If, during the course of this battle, our mission fails, I will give the order to evacuate. Now, we all hope it won't come to that. But if it does, don't hesitate. That is all."
Another moment went by, everyone absorbing the weight of what they needed to do. Alice moved past her team, placing a hand on their shoulders reassuringly as she went past, offering each one of them a warm smile. It was as much as she could do, if she stopped now to think, she wasn't sure she could do this. They took a final glance at her and headed back towards the center of the city.
Alice held up her scanner, and stepped into a dark corridor. She had only taken a few steps forward, when her scanner seemed to light up like a Christmas tree. Dots started appearing all around her, they were moving fast and closing in on her position.
Alice ran into one of the empty labs, she quickly turned over a piece of old furniture and rested her gun on top. She took low, deep breaths trying to calm her heart rate as her eyes darted back and forth from the door to the scanner. The dots were gathering right outside the door, she moved her finger so it was now lightly gripping her gun's trigger.
As soon as she could hear a snarl, she opened fire.
The room lit up with her tracer rounds and blue bolts of energy. She could hear the Wraith growling as her shots impacted them, but she could barely see in the dark. Her scanner had now fallen on the floor, from the recoil of her rifle shaking her make-shift barricade.
Alice's gun clicked, she ducked down and wrenched a cartridge out of her vest. Tossing the empty one aside and forcefully shoving in the next. The Wraith soldiers had taken advantage of the break in fire and we're now entering the room.
Alice popped her head around the edge of her hiding spot, taking down the Wraith working his way up the left side of the room. Before she could turn around and check the other side, a stunner blast came flying past her face barely missing her.
She aimed and fired, but he managed to bat her gun to the side and his fist connected with the side of her face. Splitting pain erupted in her head as she hit the ground hard. The whole world spun for a second, she could feel herself being lifted off the ground.
Her vision started to clear and her eyes widened in panic as a Wraith raised his hand up. Pulling a knife out of her belt she thrust forward plunging it deep into his neck. Blood sprayed from the wound onto her face. Alice raised her gun and sent a spray of fire out into the room.
Suddenly, she was thrown backwards against the wall. A shriek of pain escaped her lips as something pierced her into her shoulder. However, she couldn't afford to let her guard down for a second, as soon as she slid to the floor she had her gun pointed at the Wraith soldier and yelled as she fired the last of her clip into his chest.
He slowly dropped to the floor. Alice's chest was heaving; panic had caused all her muscles to tighten. Grabbing the scanner off from the floor she turned it over and almost laughed as she was the only dot shown on the screen.
Sitting back, she propped the scanner on her legs so she could keep an eye on it.
Groaning, she pulled her vest across so she could reach her radio. She cursed, her radio had been smashed and the plastic now lodged in her shoulder she assumed was from it.
She could hear alarms sounding in the distance, the power still seemed to be off in this section. Stuffing the scanner into her vest she braced herself against the wall, slowly drawing herself up.
She almost doubled over as pain shot through her chest, she tried to take in a deep breath but that made it worse. She knew it was most likely from a cracked or broken rib.
She harshly placed her hand over the source of the pain and stood up straight, biting her lip to stop from screaming out loud. Her head swam as she finally managed to gwt to her feet.
Stumbling forward, she managed to grab the edge of her barricade before she could drop down onto the floor. The world started swimming around her until all she could see was darkness.
Alice slowly opened her eyes, her head felt like it was being split open.
Cautiously, she dragged herself up until she was resting on her elbows, with her head hanging down towards the floor. She tried closing her eyes to regain some stability, but it only made it worse. She blinked trying to find something stationary to focus on. Her stomach heaved and she was sick on the floor beneath her. She pushed up and rolled her body away from the pool of sick, groaning in pain as she did.
She noticed a flicker of light and kicked her legs out, shuffling towards it. It turned out to be her lifesigns detector, the casing was partially cracked, but otherwise seemed to work fine. Alice took in a deep breath and tried to focus her mind, "get it together Alice" she grunted to herself. "Remember your training, check your surroundings, assess the danger, then if you can go for help." She repeated this to herself like a mantra.
She picked up the scanner and stared at it, she could only see one dot on the screen. At least that meant she was safe, for now. She shuffled herself up against the wall, the cold was soothing on her back and neck. She had no idea how long she'd been out for, but it couldn't have been too long.
She could barely see anything in the room around her, and the pain in her skull was making it difficult to focus. Her eyelids kept drooping, but she knew she needed to stay alert and get out of this section.
She allowed herself another few moments to rest, then wrapped her arm around her chest protectively. Taking in a deep breath, she braced herself and slid her hand up the wall slowly bringing her feet up beneath her.
Keeping one arm around her chest, and the other against the wall she began slowly shuffling towards the door. She'd only taken a few steps when she had to stop, her P90 kept swinging around her waist and hitting against her chest. Propping herself up she tried to unzip her vest, but the Wraith who had grabbed her before had torn through most of the material leaving it hanging by a few threads. She tugged and it gave way falling onto the ground.
Straightening up, feeling slightly better without the weight on her shoulders, she resumed shuffling against the wall. Alice managed to make it out and down the corridor, moving slowly and quietly.
Her progress was painfully slow, every step was causing her agony. Every once in a while she had to stop to wretch, though there was almost nothing left in her stomach to throw up. Keeping her head held up was starting to feel like too much effort, but as soon as she tilted it down her vision blurry and her head spun.
She stopped moving, reaching up to grab the scanner she'd shoved in her vest. "shit…" she grasped at the material of her shirt, she'd accidentally left the scanner with her discarded vest. Every muscle in her body was screaming at her, and it felt like there was a small voice in her head whispering to her to give in and close her eyes.
Tears burned down the sides of her face, her chest felt tight and her throat was dry. If Wraith didn't kill her, the concussion she had just might. She wasn't about to give up, just yet though. "Move…" she screamed at her body, tightening her grip around her chest so that a spark of pain shot up her spine. The pain caused her mind to clear for a moment, long enough to get her feet moving again.
Alice stumbled over her feet, she was definitely lost now. Throwing her hand out hard she bashed the wall in frustration. Allowing herself to turn and rest against the wall, taking in deep breaths. She knew this area of the city could still be crawling with Wraith, and without her scanner or P90 she was a sitting duck. She either needed to get back to the city or find somewhere to hide. The pain in her head was definitely getting worse.
"Keep moving." She ordered her body. Pushing off the wall she continued to walk blindly down the corridors.