"I can't access anything!" Rodney snivelled. "You must disable the protections that prevent me from accessing the system."

His captor looked him up and down and turned to the wraith console Todd had been using before.

"I will do it. Guide me."

Rodney grimaced, hopelessly glancing at the room.

"I... I can't."

"Oh? Why not?" Sarcasm was dripping from the wraith voice.

"It's very complicated, you know, and I doubt you could unders..."

The wraith interrupted him with a vicious hiss.

"Silence, human! I'm beginning to think you are actually playing for time." He came up to McKay and whispered: "Perhaps you'll more cooperative if you contemplate your own doom."

As he was raising his feeding hand, a combination of energy blast and bullets hit him with extreme prejudice, terrifying Rodney at the same time. Once the silence filled the room again, the scientist straightened up and smiled at his friends in relief.

"Not a minute too soon! I've never been so happy to see you again."

John cautiously turned the dead wraith's body over with his foot, then examined the unconscious Todd:

"Is he dead?"

"I'm fine, thanks for asking." Rodney retorted, then looked at Todd: "No, he's not dead. I just... inadvertently stunned him."

Sheppard silently raised an eyebrow.

"It was an accident!" McKay defended himself. "I was trying to hit the other wraith."

"All right, bring him round."

"What, me?!"

"Well, you're the one who stunned him, aren't you?"

"That's exactly the point! What if he holds it against me?"

"Just give him your most charming smile."

"Very funny." Rodney moaned.

He touched reluctantly the unconscious wraith's shoulder once, then twice. Suddenly Todd sat down with a furious snarl. McKay shrieked and leaped backward, but the wraith calmed down rapidly as he recognised the humans.

"What happened?"

"Errr... You were stunned?"

Todd stood and looked around, seeing only a dead wraith and his human allies.

"A second attacker? Did he manage to flee?"

"Err, well, it's not exactly how it went." Rodney answered while rubbing his hands in uneasiness. "I... err, I did it."

Todd looked at him with an obvious incomprehension.

"Look, I didn't do it on purpose, OK? I was trying to help and, err... I missed my target. Hey, don't look at me like that, it almost got me killed, you know!"

The wraith grumbled in dismay before turning to John.

"My virus will activate in four hours. I designed it to release deadly radiations besides erasing all data."

"Sounds good."

"Also I disabled the automated cannons and the jamming codes."

"And as I've cancelled the shielding," Rodney added, "the Daedalus will be able to beam us out."

"Great." John approved. "Let's find the ZPMs and get out of here."

Todd took his data storage device back and grabbed the stunner, attracting a frown from Sheppard. Ronon sent his friend an interrogative look, smiling unpleasantly, but John merely shook his head and shrugged.

"This way." The wraith said as he led them through the corridors.

Dazzling flashes of light erupted around the Daedalus, which rocked in the shock wave; a maelstrom of sharp rocks sprang out from all directions to smash to pieces the frail darts; damaged engine hurled some of them against the moon's surface, leading to more explosions and even more deadly meteors.

Caldwell watched the screens with a stony face while his crew was trying to contain fires that appeared here and there. Then, gradually, calm came back outside.

"Sir, I think all darts have been destroyed." the second-in-command said with a flat voice. "But the sensors are blind and we have lost contact with the 302s."

"What's the shield status?"

"Not good, I'm afraid. Just under 16%."

The Colonel nodded slowly.

"Divert maximum power to the shields. We must destroy the cruisers as soon as possible."

Todd was leading the way, Ronon hot on his heels, John and Rodney a few meters behind them, and Lorne and his men bringing up the rear.

"They're about to intercept us!" Sheppard put out while watching his life signs detector.

Todd slowed for one instant, then turned off towards a door. He raced into a small closet — obviously a transporter similar to those in Atlantis, — paused just long enough to show the humans where he was going to, and, still followed by his chaperon, he touched the screen. The doors closed on the two of them.

John was opening the doors to follow them when a blue energy blast hit him from behind. Rodney shrieked and turned around, just in time to be hit too. P-90 fire resonated in the air but it was of no use: One after the other, Lorne and the marines collapsed in turn. Wraith approached with a sneer of satisfaction.