You never get used to that smell, John reflected as he stepped out of the jumper, leading Ronon, Teyla, and McKay into the belly of the beast. Wraith ships always seemed to have the same sickly-sweet scent of rot and decay. He supposed that was because of the organic nature of wraith technology, unless it was just the smell of their preferred incense. Who knew with these guys?
Creeping along cautiously, Sheppard paused at the open arch leading out from the small hole in the bay wall they had parked in. Looking back to double-check the ship's cloak was engaged and fully-functioning, John waved McKay closer.
"Got an idea of which direction we need to go in?" the pilot asked.
McKay rolled his eyes. "Of course. We need to go to the nearest access terminal so I can download schematics on the off chance this ship isn't standard-issue. We'll navigate from there."
"So left or right?" Sheppard said, resisting an eye-roll of his own. McKay sure had a tendency to miss the obvious.
"Oh, left."
Silently, Sheppard led his team, guided by Rodney's basic hand signals. When they reached the first terminal, he, Ronon, and Teyla automatically spread out to cover the room while McKay plugged his tablet into the Hive's systems.
"All right, let's see what we've got here," the physicist said under his breath. He read through several readouts with a slight frown on his face, then input a query. When the device gave a negative beep, the frown deepened. "What?" Rodney muttered, clearly unhappy at the ship's response.
"McKay, do we have a problem?" Sheppard asked in an undertone.
"No," Rodney hesitated, "well maybe. It might be nothing. This way to the hyperdrive."
Sheppard caught Ronon's flat expression of annoyance, and smothered his own irritation. Heading out again, letting Rodney play GPS, Sheppard and his team continued to creep through the dark purple hallways. The low fog curled around their feet, their path leaving a brief, disturbed trail. Their P90's mounted flashlights' beams glinted in the silver-white webs that adorned the walls and ceiling. The webbing always made John's skin crawl; it looked near identical to the web of the iratus bug.
Shaking his head to fight the instinctual fear those memories brought up, Sheppard caught a sympathetic glance from Teyla. He knew his team were aware how uncomfortable he felt when he was immersed in wraith decor, but they never actually talked about it. They never would. And they would never need to. John could feel their unspoken support, warm like a reassuring hand on his shoulder. He'd be lost in so many ways without McKay, Ronon, and Teyla, always having his back.
Peering around the corner, John threw a fist up, halting his team. Turning in place, he signed out the wraith patrol marching down the next corridor. Rodney shook his head and gestured forward sharply, and John got the message; no way around them. The heavy steps of the warriors' booted feet grew louder while he, Ronon, Teyla, and McKay took up position, sheltering behind the wide corridor's buttresses.
When the wraith patrol turned the corridor, AR-1 opened fire, taking the lead wraith by surprise, but it was only a matter of seconds before the warriors behind the first returned fire. The sound of the P90's ear-splitting clatter was amplified by the closed-in space, and the electronic blasts of the wraith stunners were a subtle undertone. Then the screeching, vaguely insectoid alarm was activated, cutting short the time John and his team had to complete their mission.
Even though he knew it couldn't be helped, Sheppard cursed.
Firing at the snarling wraith until they dropped for good, John pressed on, leading the team into a steady jog, abandoning stealth for speed. They ran into another patrol, cut them down, and blundered right in to the next one.
Ronon reacted first, drawing his sword and slicing down at the nearest wraith in one elegant move. The wraith were next to respond, the one closest to Sheppard throwing a wild punch while the others attempted to orient their stunners against the Lantean intruders.
Sheppard slapped away the punch with his left hand, then used his P90 to backhand his assailant, and swept down and low, striking out with his right leg to trip up the wraith. As he did so, Rodney and Teyla opened fire from behind him. Rolling to the side, Sheppard stood back to his full height, clear of their line of fire. One wraith moved against Ronon, who seemed oblivious, wielding his sword like a force of nature while the wraith snuck behind the Specialist. Practiced, fluid, Sheppard drew his knife, hurling it left-handed at the threat, sinking the blade into the creature's spine, severing the spinal cord. The wraith dropped like a stone, collapsing face-down at the Satedan's heels.
Letting off a quick succession of rapid-fire bursts, Sheppard cut down a few more targets, and the hallway was clear again. "You're losing your edge, Ronon," he joked as he reclaimed his knife.
Ronon shrugged. "I knew you had my back."
Sheppard glanced back at the Satedan, acknowledging his statement, then signalled for silence. They then continued through the hive, John leading AR-1 steadily towards the hyperdrive. They encountered no further patrols as they closed distance, finding a slew of guards instead.
Sheppard made use of a few flash-bangs, taking the stationed guards by surprise as he and his team charged in, their ticking deadline spurring them to somewhat reckless behaviour. However, the combined firepower of three P90s and Ronon's blaster were sufficient to overcome the guards. Rushing past their fallen bodies, John, Ronon, and Teyla quickly secured the drive room.
It looked about the same as any number of wraith hyperdrive systems they had seen; glowing components partially covered in rubbery webbing, vein-like cables, and a touch-pad terminal reminiscent of skin stretched over a drum. Rodney yanked his data pad back off his vest, connecting directly with the hyperdrive systems.
"Make it quick, McKay," John called over the strident alarms as he and Ronon guarded the door.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm on it," Rodney muttered irritably and input a string of commands on his tablet.
They lapsed into silence as the physicist worked, straining to hear past the hive's alarms for the first sounds of the next patrol. All they managed to hear was a series of angry, negative beeps from McKay's pad.
"Say, friends?" Rodney began, "Remember how I said we might have a problem?"
Cursing internally, Sheppard looked back and prompted the man for more information. "Do we have a problem?"
"I can safely say we most definitely have a problem," he answered. "For any number of possible reasons, this hive has upgraded their system's internal security."
"You're just noticing this now?"
"I actually saw it the moment I connected to check the schematics, but I wasn't sure of the extent of it until now," McKay elaborated. "When I made my first inquiry the ship attempted to upload a virus, but it couldn't get past my pad's firewall. I didn't think too much of it at the time, I mean it was probably installed in response to the Replicators. But, now that I'm trying to mess up the ship's systems, it keeps throwing up walls and containment protocols."
John frowned. "Can you get around it?"
"Not quickly," Rodney said, focusing back on his pad. "Even if I did get around it, from what I'm seeing it looks like the system would be able to manage whatever changes I could make and prevent the hyperdrive from going critical. I've got another idea that might work but it'll take some time."
John exchanged a glance with Ronon. Time was not something they had. "Alright, it's not like we have much choice. Do it, Rodney."
Rodney didn't reply, just unplugged his tablet and began working on whatever his new plan was.
"Sheppard." Ronon's quiet address drew John's attention, and the ex-Runner gestured toward the hall, where the Colonel could now hear the sound of many booted feet approaching.
John lined up his sights as Teyla wordlessly took up position near Rodney, and he, Ronon, and Teyla stilled, focused on the open doorway and the corridor that lay beyond it.
The repetitive clomp of heavy boots grew louder, closer; the wraith patrol turned the corner...
And walked right into a world of hurt.
Ronon, Teyla, and Sheppard opened fire without mercy, fiercely holding down their position against the wraith.
Firing again and again at the oncoming horde of alien vampires, John stressed over their rapidly dwindling ammo supply. The wraith came in a near-constant stream, burying the Lanteans in bodies. Time dragged on and yet seemed to fly, to not exist at all. The only real marker of time was the growing litter of spent bullet casings, the wraith soldiers slumped against the corridor walls.
With a slight toss of his head, Sheppard threw out an empty magazine, loading his last cartridge. Then Rodney called out from behind them.
"Got it! We have to bail out now and I mean now! We've got ten minutes to get clear before we get blasted to oblivion!"
Glancing back over his shoulder, Sheppard briefly saw McKay hustling up behind him before re-focusing on the attacking wraith. "What did you do?"
"You really don't want to stick around to find out first hand, let's go!"
Rodney sounded scared, so John decided to worry about the details later. "Teyla! Ronon! Suppressing fire!"
The Pegasus natives lay into it, forcing the wraith to stop firing their stunners and take cover. Sheppard dashed forward, pinning them down and using up the last of his ammo to put the wraith drones down. "Corridor clear."
As the rest of his team caught up, McKay wordlessly handed Sheppard two of his spare magazines. Accepting them with a nod, John reloaded his P90 again, and together they dashed off.
They were able to hide from the next group of wraith they encountered, who trundled by obliviously, headed for AR-1's previous location. But in the last corridor before they reached the jumper, they got into yet another firefight.
Dropping to one knee, Sheppard opened up on the wraith in between them and their ticket off the doomed hive, Rodney firing from directly overhead. Across the other side of the hallway, Teyla and Ronon mirrored their stances.
"Six minutes!" Rodney yelled.
Completely spent of P90 magazines, Sheppard tossed the rifle aside, the clatter lost in the noise of the skirmish, and swiftly drew his side arm. "Are you sure they can't undo whatever you did?"
"They won't have the time to figure it out!" Rodney answered. "This is possibly my finest sabotage work so far, and I'd hate for it to be my last!"
"I'll just ask the wraith to let us by then!"
Rodney didn't reply. Sheppard heard his soft grunt as the physicist took a hit from a stunner, collapsing in a heap on the ground.
"Ronon!" John yelled.
"Got him!" Ronon dashed across the narrow space, firing as he went to heft up McKay. With Rodney draped over one shoulder, Ronon kept his right arm unburdened, still shooting defiantly at the wraith.
Teyla took down the last of the wraith, and she, Sheppard, and Ronon surged along the corridor with Rodney in tow. Ronon pulled McKay through to the niche the Puddlejumper was parked in, Teyla following close behind while John covered their six.
Hurriedly taking the controls, John powered up the jumper while Ronon and Teyla got Rodney settled in the rear section. Immediately, Sheppard got on radio to hail their forces outside the Hive, even as he prepared to blast the dart bay doors from the inside.
"Jumper Five to all Atlantis and Protegan forces, pull out immediately!" Two drones from the jumper made short work of the doors. "Repeat, all forces pull out immediately! I'm not sure what Rodney's done but the hive is going in two minutes," John advised as he sent the jumper careening out of the bay. "Everyone get to the minimum safe zone now!"
As he followed his own advice, John was relieved to see all fighters disengage, powering away from the wraith ships at maximum thrust ahead of the jumper.
"Sheppard, the hive is powering their hyperdrive," Colonel Caldwell responded. "Should we take out their engines?"
John's eyes flicked to a still-unconscious McKay, and pursed his lips. His gut said 'no', but letting the hive escape was a huge risk... Still, Rodney had seemed confident in his fear... "No," he decided.
Sheppard had less than a second to pray he had made the right call. Suddenly, the jumper sensors screamed a warning, there was a sub-sonic thud, followed by an unidentified shockwave that caused the small ship to slew about wildly, spinning to face the wraith hive and cruisers. John pulled at the controls as they drifted, trying to bring the jumper back under control when the hive opened a hyperspace window... right in the middle of the ship.
Feeling his jaw drop slightly open, John watched in amazement as the hyperspace window glitched, disintegrating with a strange particle-like effect, and the hive bowed at the middle, its now separate front and back halves slowly drifting apart from one another. Where the two pieces of the hive had previously been connected, there was nothing but a cauterised wound, spitting sparks and small explosions.
"Holy crap," John breathed.
The spectacle of destruction was not done yet. Having been packed in close to one another to hide behind what was left of the planet's moon, the wraith cruisers could not manoeuvre away from the destroyed hive, two being taken out in a collision with one half. Realising the danger to his team had not yet passed either, though all fighters had gotten clear ahead of the initial shockwave, John tried to get the jumper headed back in the right direction, but the controls appeared to have short circuited. Sheppard barely had enough time to think that this could be very, very bad before a third cruiser got collected by the wrecked hive, and exploded with a fury.
The shockwave of that explosion took out the fourth cruiser, while the fifth managed to get clear, but the jumper had no such luck.
Tossed by sudden, extreme turbulence, Sheppard and Ronon were almost thrown from their seats in the forward section, while Teyla and Rodney were dropped on the floor of the rear compartment. Sheppard took one look at the read out on the HUD before staggering into the rear with Ronon. Working together, Sheppard, Teyla, and Ronon managed to get McKay into co-pilot seat, mildly more secure than the benches in the back, before they flung themselves into their own seats.
"Brace yourselves!" John yelled as he fought with the controls, trying in vain to make Jumper Five respond before-
The tail of the jumper smacked into a smaller asteroid, equivalent in size to the small ship, breaking off one of the drive pods. The jumper screeched in protest.
"That's your fault!" John snapped at the ship, as the impact changed their trajectory, sending them spinning into the upper atmosphere. The jumper continued to blare strident warnings as Protegat's gravity pulled them inexorably faster, closer to the ground. Somehow, part of the HUD still managed to show it when the last cruiser jumped through a hyperspace window, escaping the carnage, but John had a far more pressing issue to deal with.
They were going down. Hard.