Note: This chapter is dedicated to Nath – whose birthday was Saturday. Nath, I tried to get this chapter finished on your day, but this will have to be close enough. As you are a guest reviewer on the site, I can't reply to your reviews personally, but thank you so much for your support. Happy Birthday.
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Chapter 36 – The Dying Wish
The corridor ahead was a fuzzy outline, shifting in and out of focus as Oneakka looked down its length.
The glow of Hive's emergency lighting shone faintly from one wall, barely there, but it was enough for him to make out the lumps and bumps along the walls ahead.
Any one of them could be a console.
A potential piece of tech he could use.
Anything to help him find a way to warn Halling.
He focused back around him. A dead Wraith lay to one side – he'd found a few of them as he'd dragged his way down the corridor – but none of them had held any useful tech. Nothing he could manipulate to send a simple signal out beyond the hull.
If he could just send out a basic signal...
He lifted his left hand from the corridor floor, the emergency lighting glowing weakly over the bloodied handprint he left behind, and he set it down ahead of him. His knees had given out after the climb, but he had been able to drag himself forward on his hands and pushing with his toes.
His body felt on fire, but still somehow cold at the same time. He was aware that there were bits of him he couldn't feel, and parts of him that filled everything with pain.
He just had to find something to send a signal...
Then he could stop.
Then he could give into the threatening flames of memory...of the place he should have died long ago. The place always waiting for a chance to consume him.
Perhaps the Queen's last breaths had cursed him, and her ghost had been waiting all these years to claim him.
He shook away the stupid distracting thoughts.
He needed to save Halling.
He lifted his right hand to follow his left, but his left arm shook with the pressure of holding him up. Grunting with the effort, he slapped his right wet hand to the floor, but his weakening wrist gave out and he fell forward onto his elbows. His chin clipped against his own forearm and sent his already swimming head spinning.
He panted as he waited for the nausea to pass, waited for the shaking, fuzzy corridor to still again.
He couldn't give up yet.
He couldn't stop yet.
He worked to lift his shoulders up, looking ahead again.
Just one piece of powered tech.
Just one.
Breathing hard, he gritted his teeth and slid his left forearm forward.
The blood pooling under him helped him move his arm along the floor at least, but he couldn't seem to find the power to move the right elbow.
The shakes in his shoulders were getting too much.
He was going to fail Halling!
Halling could already be dead!
Tears filled Oneakka's eyes, blurring the corridor even more than before.
He dropped his head and blinked down at the dark Wraith floor under his chest.
All his people.
He'd failed to save any of them, despite their faith in him.
He'd promised Halling he would save him. That he'd do anything to save him.
But he didn't have it in him anymore.
He couldn't even more his arms!
The flames danced around the edges of his tears, the escaped base moving in around him.
A fevered, dying hallucination, that was all it was.
A scream sounded somewhere, his own voice bouncing off the melting base walls around him. His flesh burning away.
He'd actually welcomed it.
He remembered wanting to add his bones to the those of his world, though he'd never told anyone that. Maybe he'd even forgotten that.
It would be so easy...
Just lie still...
Let the flames take him...
It was where he was meant to die anyway...in a corridor on that base.
They'd bury him on Ugun...the others had promised they would in place of the usual Elite cremation. His bones would finally join his people.
They'd burn Halling though...
Like the flames that licked around him now, the melting walls; the remembered screams of dying Wraith and his own imagined horrors of his people's last moments. His own family... His mother and his father. Had they died in pain? Had they suffered?
His sisters...
His brothers...
Halling.
"No!" He shouted through the misting thoughts and flames. "NO!"
His voice loud in his ears, he snapped his eyes open to the tear-filled view again.
He had lost too much blood; that was why his mind was failing him. He wasn't in that base.
He couldn't hear their screams.
He still had time to save Halling.
His shoulders down on his hands, his arms pinned under his chest, Oneakka panted, building the will he needed, and pushed his right forearm along the floor.
It was only a few inches, but it was forward.
He wedged the toes of his boots against the floor and pushed forward with them both at once, his left elbow sliding with him.
He could do this.
The pain didn't matter.
He just needed one console.
One piece of tech...
Just one before the flames finally took him.
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Ladon felt his mouth hanging open as he watched Kolya walking into the office, a gun in each hand.
Kolya was here...on the homeworld?!
How could he be here?
When had he gotten here?
"Kolya?!" Cowen exclaimed, clearly just as shocked as Ladon.
Kolya's sharp predatory smile focused on Cowen as he stopped in the middle of the office. "I would say it is good to see you, Cowen, but we both know that isn't true."
"What the hell are you doing here?" Cowen demanded loudly.
It was a good question, and one that sent Ladon's mind turning, sending everything he'd thought he'd known into instant uncertainty.
His eyes strayed to the closed office doors, obviously shut and barred by those outside who had known Kolya was here and about to face Cowen. Ladon couldn't hear any commotion, no shouting or fighting out there, which meant that perhaps they were all part of Kolya's plan.
A plan that Ladon, and the rest of the conspiracy, hadn't known about.
"I'm here to take my rightful place as leader of our people," Kolya replied to Cowen's question with that sharp and intelligent calm that Ladon remembered all too well.
It had been years since he'd last seen Kolya in person, not since the night Kolya had been forced to escape the homeworld to save himself from Cowen's spiteful vengeance. Ladon had helped that night, had altered camera feeds and turned off the facial recognition systems by the Portal.
Had Kolya come through the Portal today? How had he gotten past those checks? There were Enforcement staff at the Portal, especially now with the Alliance-wide high alert.
Surely Kolya's reach couldn't be that far?
Or had he snuck back into Alliance territory on a ship? And if so, that meant that he had to have been on his way here for at least a day, if not more.
There had been no part of the plan that involved Kolya coming back here and risking himself being spotted by Cowen's loyalists. It was a ridiculous risk that Ladon hadn't even considered.
"Guards!" Cowen bellowed.
"They're not coming, Cowen," Kolya informed him. "They work for me now."
That threw Cowen for a second, his mind perhaps finally registering the danger he was in.
Ladon shifted backwards a fraction, moving well away from the space between the two men, the tension of potential violence escalating.
"This is treason!" Cowen threatened as he pointed his left index finger at Kolya.
Kolya actually chuckled at that. "So it is," he smiled.
Ladon saw Cowen's right hand lowering, his left still pointed at Kolya threateningly, his face red and furious. But the right hand was lowering to his hip, towards his sidearm.
Ladon shifted back again, feeling the adrenaline hitting his bloodstream.
Cowen had to know he couldn't draw his weapon fast enough. Kolya held the complete advantage.
"You damn bastard!" Cowen shouted and then abruptly moved to his right, towards the prospective cover of his large desk, while his right hand closed around the handle of his sidearm.
He didn't even make a single step.
Kolya fire twice, the explosive sounds ear-shatteringly loud in the office, and Ladon saw the bullets hit Cowen in his middle.
Cowen fell forward with a loud cry, one knee hitting the plush carpet and then the other. From his knees, he looked up towards Kolya, the shock pale across his face as two large bloodstains started swelling across the front of his uniform.
"You won't get away with this," Cowen gasped, his voice already sounding raspy with death, as he stared up at Kolya.
"I already have," Kolya stated. "You have failed our people, Cowen, and this is their message."
Kolya fired another round, the bullet piercing right through the centre of Cowen's forehead, killing him instantly.
Ladon gasped at the abrupt execution and the spray of blood and brain-matter that burst out from the back of Cowen's head.
He watched as Cowen fell backwards in almost slow-motion, his body landing on the soft carpet to bounce up slightly and then settle heavily.
And, just like that, Cowen's rule was over.
After all the long years of careful planning, of caution and manipulation to work towards this day, not to mention making the explosive device and smuggling it off-world, and Kolya had simply fired three bullets in Cowen's office to end it all?
Ladon pulled his stare from Cowen's dead open eyes and watched as Kolya dropped the weapon of execution to the carpet beside the body.
Ladon hadn't expected to see Cowen's death firsthand, and had never intended to be present when it had happened. It was supposed to have been off-world...
The device.
"The device isn't here," Ladon realised the obvious now.
"Of course not," Kolya replied as he crouched down and pulled Cowen's unused sidearm out of its holster. "Did you really believe I would use such a destructive weapon on our own people, Ladon?"
Ladon frowned. "Then why have me make it for you?" He didn't understand. Had this been a very recent change of plans? Had something new happened outside the border? Had Atlantis almost found Kolya?
"The original plan might have worked, but the situation in the Alliance and with Atlantis changed things," Kolya explained as he stood up. "It was necessary to adapt the plan."
So something had changed, but to take such as risk as to come onto the homeworld and to end it this way?
Ladon frowned at him. "So you just snuck in and shot him in the head?" If Kolya had people in Cowen's personal security working for him, why not have one of them kill Cowen in his sleep? Why all this?
"No," Kolya replied, looking up from Cowen's sidearm in his hand. "You did."
Ladon blinked.
A cold fearful chill passed over him.
"I was planning for it to look like a suicide in your lab, where you would run to after you assassinated Cowen," Kolya explained with horrendous calm.
Ladon's heart was pounding so hard he could hear it in his ears.
"There's already a full confession sitting on your personal computer, put there by the members of your technical team who failed to return after their rest break today," Kolya added.
"But I've been helping you," Ladon argued in disbelief. "I've been a part of this from day one."
Kolya let out a breath, like a disappointed sigh. "No, Ladon," he said, almost softly. "I am afraid I know everything about your plans. General Maloo has kept me very well informed on your and Hulte's intentions to remove me once I dealt with Cowen."
Ladon froze, his vision tunnelling down so that all he could see was Kolya.
And Cowen's gun in his hand.
He was alone in here with Kolya.
The office's doors were locked.
The door into the escape tunnel was still open though, but it was in the far corner of the office.
Ladon's own sidearm was in its holster at his hip, the clasp closed over the handle.
All he had in his hand was the sensor pad, which was far too light to be useful. Besides, Kolya was too highly trained to be distracted by something like that being thrown at him. There was too much distance between them anyway.
There were no options.
He had been betrayed...
"Maloo?" Ladon found himself asking, registering the fact.
"Yes," Kolya nodded. "Along with most of the other Generals. While you have been conspiring behind my back, planning to put yourself into the role of Supreme Leader, I have been quietly growing my forces here on the homeworld."
If Kolya had the Generals on his side, then slipping through the Portal would have been easy for him. The missing guards at the basement entrance were probably all outside the office doors now, ready in case Cowen had been able to put up more of a fight.
He had been so stupid to have forgotten how manipulative and clever Kolya had always been.
Ladon's breaths trembled through his open mouth as the dark barrel of Cowen's gun lifted up towards him.
"I've known for a long time that you've been intending to stab me in the back," Kolya stated from behind the barrel.
"I only want what is best for our people," Ladon told him truthfully. "It's all I've ever wanted."
"And you believed yourself to be the 'best' option?" Kolya scoffed. "You do not have what it takes, Ladon. I'm sorry, but you should have stayed in your place, stayed focused on your science."
Ladon could see Kolya's gloved finger shift against the trigger.
Raging indignation burst through Ladon, and he snapped his eyes up from the trigger and glared into Kolya's cold gaze.
All his previous worriedly fears and visions of what the Genii people would become with Kolya as their leader all played vividly through his mind's eye now. Kolya didn't care about commerce, science, or the moral centre of their people. He just wanted to be in power himself. He only knew war.
"You're no better than Cowen," Ladon spat at him. "You promised to save our people from oppression, but all you've brought is violence, riots, and Quantum. How are you any better than him?"
He saw Kolya's expression darken. "You're never going to see what I can do for our people," Kolya stated and squeezed the trigger.
Ladon felt the first bullet hit him in the middle of his chest and then another hit higher, under his throat.
The office spun around him before the floor hit him hard in the back. He gasped up towards the ornately decorated ceiling, unable to breathe properly. He could feel warm liquid filling his throat.
His own blood.
Kolya stepped into view, his old, well-worn uniform a sharp dark contrast against the gold and white decoration above him. The barrel of the weapon appeared again.
"I am sorry, Ladon," Kolya's voice swam in his echoing, throbbing ears.
Ladon stared up the gun, and his murderer above it, but the thoughts that passed through his mind were of Dahlia.
Had Kolya gotten to her before Sora and Tyrus? Was she safe?
But he had no breath to ask, no way to find out, and all he heard was the sharp crack of the bullet that ended his life.
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How could he have been so stupid to trust a Wraith?
Todd's hand was a heavy sharp weight against John's chest as he landed on the hard cold floor and the pure agony of being fed upon became completely overwhelming once again.
He tried to fight back, but his arms and legs just wouldn't do what he told them.
He couldn't feel anything but the agony, and he couldn't do anything but scream.
He'd been SO stupid.
Dad had been right – he made impulsive decisions without thinking things through, and now he was finally going to die for it.
He was going to die screaming, lying on some alien floor in another galaxy and it was going to be his own damn fault!
Too many mistakes over too many years.
It really sucked that Dad was going to be proven right too.
But...
He kind of wished that he'd reached out to Dad again, and to Dave, despite all that had happened. He kind of always assumed he'd see them again one day, even after all these years.
And Teyla...
The image of this morning ran through his screaming brain, of her sat cross-legged in the line of early morning sunlight.
He should have kissed her.
Should have told her he loved her.
One damn time he should have been impulsive and he'd held back, and now he was going to die without that.
He'd made far too many mistakes like that, like this too. And now it had doomed him to going out in this stupid way.
Trusting a Wraith!
His view of the growling Todd over him started to fog around the edges. Everything was dimming somehow and yet the gouging horrific pain in his chest was getting worse.
He couldn't see much now, only a white fuzziness that was tunnelling inwards until all he could actually see was the sunlight around Todd's shockingly white hair.
Todd's growls started fading too, becoming a tinny distant sense of noise.
And then, the exhausting pain started to mist into something new. Like the gentle creeping shift of falling into a deep peaceful sleep, the edges of his awareness softened and soothed into a warm blissfulness.
The soft curve of her neck returned, the soft sunshine shining in across her bare shoulder and her hair lying against the Athosian pillowcase. He shifted forward and pressed his cheek in against her warm skin, drinking in the feel of her.
He was faintly aware of sounds somewhere in the distance from his and Teyla's bed, of growling, weapons fire, and shouting, but it didn't matter here.
He just let it all be unimportant and simply drifted, unconcerned, in this soft, beautiful place.
She felt like home.
This was the only place he felt truly happy.
"Teyla," he whispered to her, a promise, a calling...
Only, a shadow shifted over them, cutting off some of the sunlight coming in from her bedroom window.
John opened his eyes and looked up from her, up into the head-shaped shadow forming, growing closer.
Todd's slit alien eyes came into focus, staring down at him, and the beautiful dream of Teyla dissipated away like nothing.
John stared up as Todd's lips pulled back from his sharp teeth, hovering over him, growing closer...
This was the real end then.
He tried to lift his head, to form words to say something defiant in this last moment.
"Step away! Break the lock!" A voice cut through John's attempt to formulate some good final last words – someone else was shouting. Was it him?
There was no time to work it out though, because the sensation of Todd's feeding hand was back and John felt the sharp disgusting edges lock against his upper chest again.
The pain rushed back, full, shocking, and unforgettable.
This time he could recognise his own voice, and he screamed his last sounds, putting all the anger he could into it. If all he could do was die screaming into Todd's face, then he was going to put every last bit of him into it.
He'd done so many dumb things, acted when he should have been careful, held back when he should have thrown himself in.
He should have kissed her this morning.
Just one last time...
Except, he realised abruptly, the pain was different now. Instead of the deep sense of digging and draining, there was a pressure building, overwhelmingly intense now that his anger turned into gasps of panic and something else.
Something...good.
The pressure was spreading, filling him from the inside out, pouring what felt like hot pleasure through his veins, through his middle and down his arms and legs. He felt as if he was being electrocuted or something. It sparked and washed through him, pushing up through his throat and up to the very top of his skull.
And it felt...wonderful.
Todd's hand lifted away and the wash of pressure stopped, though the last tides of the sensation were still moving through him, reducing, drifting down to little ripples.
He pulled in a deep full breath, the first really good breath he'd taken since he'd gone through that first feeding, and he blinked up at Todd.
Todd's lips pulled back into a...smile? The Wraith let out a deep rumble that sounded like a chuckle or something.
The ripples were settling now and John's body finally started to respond to him again. He flattened his hands to the floor, acutely aware of the sensation of the cold stone against his fingertips and palms.
Everything seemed bright, loud, and shiny above him.
"Major Sheppard?" A voice registered and it kind of felt like John had been hearing it for awhile. He frowned with some recognition – he knew that voice. He realised he could also hear clanging, like someone was hitting something metal repeatedly.
Todd shifted back and away, standing up.
John lifted his arms, his hands coming into view and he turned them over in amazement. They were back to normal – no wrinkles of aged looking skin and his fingers were a warm flushed colour again. He reached up to his face and, fearing deep sunken cheeks of a corpse, he instead felt his normal warm cheeks.
He realised what had happened.
Todd had given it back.
He stared up at Todd in absolute amazement. He didn't even know Wraith could do that!
"Major Sheppard?" That voice repeated again and this time John was certain he knew who it was.
"Vaky?" John frowned at the voice. What was Vakalis doing here?
"Yes, Major Sheppard," Vaky replied, sounding like he was really relieved.
John levered himself up onto his backside and looked down the length of the room to see that first mesh door was in some sort of tangled mess and there was a fed upon dead Genii lying to one side.
Clearly he'd missed some stuff.
He looked off to the left where, through the second mesh door, he could now see Vakalis. And next to him was Shemu, also of his Honour Guard, who was currently smacking the butt of his gun against the outside bolt holding the mesh door shut.
"Your Honour Guard is here," Vakalis explained. "Atlantis has an Ancestral ship on its way now, and your wife is onboard."
Teyla was on her way here?
John pushed himself up off the floor, eyes back on the mangled other door. "The Genii?" He asked of Vakalis and Todd as he stood upright.
Wow, he felt good. His back felt supple and his knees hadn't complained at all on the way up.
"They have all run away," Todd supplied, sounding like he found that fact funny.
"Because of you or because my people turned up, like I said they would?"
"It was a joint effort," Todd replied with a faint shrug.
"Are you alright, Major Sheppard?" Vakalis asked from the other side of the mesh, his eyes clearly shifting to Todd worriedly as, beside him, Shemu again hit hard at what was presumably a lock holding the bolt in place.
"Yeah," John nodded as he looked back up at Todd. "He just undid it all."
Todd nodded faintly, his alien eyes holding John's. "The gift of life is reserved only for our most devout worshippers." John frowned at that description. "And our brothers," Todd finished, his tone softer.
The weirdest sense of respect and gratitude filled John's warm and now entirely healed chest. Todd was a Wraith but...
He nodded back, feeling weird about the respect thing.
Another clang from the door heralded a responding crack and John looked round to see Shemu was now pulling the bolt back from across the outside of the mesh door.
"I suggest that you step away from the Wraith, Major Sheppard," Vakalis said as he lifted his weapon a fraction and stood back as Shemu started to push the door open on creaky hinges.
John realised what was about to happen.
"It's okay," he told them quickly as he stepped forward, moving so he was in front of Todd. "He's with me," he explained quickly. "We escaped together."
The mesh door now open, Vakalis stepped into the room with them, weapon held up close and high.
"It's great to see you guys," he told them honestly as he moved to meet them in the middle of the room, still keeping in front of Todd though. The Honour Guard were supposed to obey his orders, but he couldn't fault them for wanting protect him from Todd.
Vakalis shifted his eyes from Todd as John reached him. "Are you sure you're alright, Major?" He checked again.
"I'm good, Vaky," John reassured him, though he could understand their shock. He was still shocked. If he didn't feel so amazing right now, he'd probably be freaking out at how close to death he'd been only to now have had his life given back to him by a living vampire.
"We have dealt with a small enemy group on the surface," Vaky explained. "But we should leave quickly. This is not a safe place."
John nodded. "Sure," he was more than willing to get out of this hellhole and turned to head through the mesh doorway.
"What about the Wraith?" Shemu asked though.
John turned back to see Todd stood alone in the small room. The Wraith's eyes were moving back and forth from Vakalis and Shemu, who were stood so that they had a good crossfire position on him.
John had made a deal that both he and Todd would get off this rock together, and clearly Todd had taken care of the goons while John had been out. Then he'd given it all back.
As bizarre as it was, John felt he owned the guy.
After all, Todd had been right before, they had both been prisoners of Kolya, and he would never have gotten this far to the surface without him.
And if he left Todd here, Todd would only end up killing the local people as he worked to escape to the local Gate.
"He's coming with us," John ordered his Honour Guard. "We'll drop him off somewhere on the way back."
Vakalis glanced at him in clear disbelief, but neither of them were firing on Todd, so that was a win so far.
"But keep an eye on him," John added to Vaky before looking back at Todd.
Todd chuckled at the warning, and, holding his head high, he walked across the room, moving between the two raised guns of the Honour Guard, and followed John out through the open mesh doorway.
John turned away, not really liking turning his back on a Wraith, but he trusted Vakalis and Shemu would keep a close eye on Todd.
Outside the open mesh door, the narrow stone cut corridor, which had been an unreachable goal earlier, was now simply a short path that was filled with hazy sunlight at the far end. The corridor made a sharp left turn at that point to reveal a narrow steep staircase cut out of the bedrock.
Halfway up them, Neith, of his Honour Guard, smiled down at him.
"Good to see you, Major Sheppard," she nodded.
"Good to be seen," he grinned as he started up the stairs. In the right-hand wall at the top he could see the open door that was letting in the sunlight, and there was a wonderful breeze of fresh air ghosting down over his face.
As he reached the top stair, Neith pausing in the doorway out to check the way out was clear, John drew in a big lungful of freedom.
It smelt good.
And then the air stirred, whipping up in that way that could only mean that a Jumper, cloaked no doubt, was landing somewhere nearby.
They'd come to save him.
And Teyla was with them.
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It turned out that being inside a Wraith Hive was even creepier than she could possibly have imagined.
The place was weird. The air smell nasty, there was a humid dampness that hung around her like it was watching her, and the place made weird alien sounds.
Though, maybe that was the bits of Hive wall, ceiling, and floors collapsing throughout the ship.
The Hive was literally falling apart from inside, with holes opening up in the floors, sections of the walls slipping down into wet puddles, and, just to top it all off, the lights barely worked.
Some sections had low level lighting, which were presumably the Wraith equivalent of emergency lighting, not that it was all that helpful in navigating the alien world inside the Hive.
That said, she had started to get a bit used to it, her eyes constantly switching back and forth between the glowing sensor pad in her hand and the spooky melting corridors around her.
At first it had been easy to know where to go, as she'd just followed the carpet of dead Wraith that Oneakka and Halling had left in their wake, but then she'd started to need to make her way down some levels towards where Oneakka's beacon glowed on her screen.
The good news from Inifee was that Oneakka's beacon had started to move, albeit by very little, but he was moving. That meant either that he was fine and would no doubt have plenty of cross words for her at coming in here to track him down, or he was injured.
Or maybe he was still trapped somehow but had managed to get out a little?
Or maybe a Wraith was dragging his dead body down a corridor!
Okay, she wasn't helping herself here. She needed to focus on her mission.
Then get out of here as quickly as possible.
She'd managed to make her way down two levels easily enough thanks to parts of the floors having collapsed in places, providing slopes of broken Hive pieces down into the next level, which were easy enough for her to navigate, aside from almost slipping on the slimy goo coming off some of the walls. There had been more than a few dead Wraith lying under those collapsed sections, and she'd obsessively checked and re-checked the sensor pad to be certain there were no hints of life-readings from the bodies before she had hurried past them.
The lights were flickering weakly in this new section, making the place even more unnerving. She was almost certain she could hear Wraith moving around in the distance, but the pad assured her that there were no life-readings ahead of her. Inifee, a reassuring presence in her ear, had confirmed the same. Still, she edged forward carefully, keeping close to the uneven bumpy corridor walls. There were hollows every now and then, providing helpful hiding places if she needed them.
This really was crazy.
She could have just chosen to go live a quiet life after she'd left Creass' organisation. She could have set up a nice little farm on some non-Alliance planet in a quiet part of the galaxy. She could have lived surrounded by empty hills, open swaying harvests, and been happy. Sure there would have been the likelihood of a Wraith culling every now and then, but she'd lived most of her life with that threat. That was actually normal outside the Alliance. She would have just chosen somewhere with a good local underground cave system to hide in if there was a culling, and otherwise live a simple, peaceful life.
Instead she was here, in a Wraith Hive, by herself.
"I'm completely mad," she whispered to herself as she peered around a curved corner.
"You keep saying that," Inifee said in her ear.
"It's helping," she replied as she leant a little further out from the corner, looking down a long empty hallway. There were more Wraith bodies here, but she could see scorch-marks along one wall – weapons fire.
She pulled back a fraction and consulted the sensor pad.
She was two floors too high still, but she was almost directly above Oneakka's beacon now.
"I just need to get down two more floors," she promised herself and also informing Inifee.
She stepped out from the corner again and peered down the opposite direction from before. It was equally empty that way, and as equally full of dead Wraith. An Elite had definitely been this way.
But it was the partially collapsed section of floor to one side that drew her eye. Checking all directions repeatedly, she quickly crossed the corridor, heading towards the hole.
It was just a slither of space, where the floor and wall were parting company. Bits of the floor were crumbling down onto the level below, but there was enough space for her to squeeze through. She scanned the sensor pad over the floor, but there were no life-signs within immediate range on the next level down.
With one last check up and down the flickering corridor, she put one hand against the slimy wall and dropped down through the gap in one swift pull of gravity. Her plan was that her arrival would probably surprise the hell out of any Wraith within view, and that would hopefully throw them long enough for her to react first.
Yeah, because Wraith were well known for being slow lumbering creatures!
Just as she was falling, her boots heading towards the fast approaching new level's floor, it occurred to her that this floor might be as ready to collapse as the one she'd just jumped through. Fortunately though, her boots met hard floor and she dropped into a crouch, a strange mist swirling around her.
The lights were steadier down here, the glow constant through the humid mist as she looked ahead and then back over her shoulder.
No Wraith.
"You alright?" Inifee asked.
"Why you see something coming this way?" She asked quickly, looking back and forth again.
"No, you're just breathing really heavily," Inifee replied.
"I just jumped through a melted hole in the floor of a Wraith Hive," she replied as she rose up from her crouch and consulted her pad again.
Oneakka was one floor below her and ahead by a few metres.
She headed that way, wondering if she should just try to cut a hole in the floor. Yes, because that would help him – the ceiling coming down on him.
She looked around her, but there was just one single corridor ahead of her, with no indications of how she could get down a floor. "I need to go down another floor, but I'm not sure which way to go to find a way down there."
"Try going the other way," Inifee supplied. "There may be a transport chamber in that area; you could try and cut through the floor there."
"Transport chamber?" Seeal whispered as she reversed direction and quickly followed the corridor in a slow curve to the right. "What's sounds like something tha- Whoa!"
Fortunately she had been watching where she was going because the corridor had suddenly simply stopped ahead of her.
"What?! What is it?" Inifee asked, clearly worried.
"There's a giant hole in the Hive," she replied as she moved up to the torn edge of the corridor, looking across a gap at least six metres wide. On the far side, she could see the continuation of this corridor, but it wasn't just this level.
She tested the floor under her right boot, but it felt stable, so she leant further forward and looked up and around the giant gapping space.
"It's got to be down through four or more floors above here," she reported quietly. "And another floor or so down," she peered down into the dark uneven base of the hole, though there was a faint light was shining in across it from just below her.
The next floor down.
"Guess I've found my way down," she muttered as she reached for the strap that secured the sensor pad around her left hand, and started pulling it further up her arm. "I can see the next level below, I think I can climb down there," she reported to Inifee.
"You sure that's safe?" Inifee asked as she settled the strap up above her elbow and then turned the pad so it was facing away from the back of her arm – she didn't need to be damaging it against the walls of the hole as she climbed down. The sensor pad was all that was going to help her find Oneakka, and then find their way back out of here.
She wished she had a rope or something, but as she leant out into the dark hole, the lights glowing in from the partial corridors around it highlighted the ends of girders and what looked like bone or something. The Wraith grew their tech didn't they – did that mean the Hive had a skeleton?
She reached out to the side of the corridor's torn wall and found a strong handhold as she crouched down at the floor's end. A faint updraft danced her hair around her face as she hung one leg out and found a good foot-sized ledge further down.
"I am completely mad," she muttered as she let her weight settle on the foothold, which held, and then let her body move out into the hole.
She got an immediate face-up view of the uneven and broken edges of the torn Hive and she grabbed a girder like thing and stuck her boot into another available slot of space.
Actually, there was plenty to hold onto and she easily found new handholds, moving downwards quite quickly.
Sneaking into Wraith ships wasn't her thing, but climbing, well, here at least she was in her element.
She quickly leant that some of the protrusions were not as stable as they looked as she tested them with her boots, holding her weight steady and moving methodically. A purple like protrusion just crumbled, so she picked somewhere else.
It was faster going than she'd expected, and in quick time she was reaching level with the ceiling of the floor below.
Her breathing cool against her skin, she peered down towards the next level corridor. There was a clear girder lining the top of the ceiling. She climbed down a little further until she could reach down for it. She got a good grip. It felt strong.
It was probably going to be easier than climbing down that giant tall rope in the Facility's gym.
She went for it, letting go of her other handhold and letting herself fall down from the wall, while pulling hard on her good hold on the girder, swinging herself down and into the corridor below.
Her boot slipped on the floor as she landed though and she was forced to fall forward and perform a slightly nerve-wracking stumble down to the floor as she arrived.
She'd done it though. She was on the right level. Only her eyes were drawn to the large dark stain across the floor under her boots.
Blood.
She froze.
Was there a dying Wraith nearby?
Or was that Human blood?
She was almost certain Wraith blood was darker wasn't it? But then there was only the weak-ass emergency lighting down here.
She looked to the left, following the drying pool of blood – her own boot print obvious in the middle of it. The blood started at the edge of the floor and had obvious smears that told a clear story.
He'd climbed up.
She looked back the other way, her heart dropping.
The blood continued in a long smeared line down the centre of the corridor ahead.
Please be a Wraith.
She raced forward, lifting her arm, grabbing at her pad, swinging it back down and round as she ran.
There were handprints alongside the smear – large, surely Human handprints?
The corridor turned a curve to the left, the smear disappearing around it.
Her heart thumped in her chest.
She could be about to run into a dying Wraith that was going to all too pleased to find a Human arriving to save it...but, actually, that was the preferred option here.
His beacon blazed on the pad's screen, just off to the left ahead of her.
She raced around the corner and saw him up ahead.
He was on his front, his head and shoulders higher and he was still working to drag himself forward.
There was so much blood!
"Oneakka!" She shouted to him as she raced towards him. "Oneakka!"
She was faintly aware of Inifee's voice in her ear, but she couldn't hear him over the desperate panic pounding in her ears.
Oneakka's head turned, hearing her hopefully.
He had a long jagged gash along the top left side of his head, from his hairline backwards, and there was blood all over his armour.
"No, no, no, no, no" she chanted as she dropped to her knees next to him.
"Raven?" He asked, almost as if he doubted she was here.
"I'm here," she assured him as she reached for his shoulder. His skin felt cold – far too cold.
"Raven!" He almost shouted.
"I'm here," she repeated as she registered all the scratches on his arms, the dried path of blood down his unbelievably pale forehead. Even for him, he was too pale.
All his blood was on the floor. How was he even still alive!?
There was a blood soaked bandage around his middle, below a clearly broken base of his body armour at the back. Had he been stabbed? That would explain the amount of blood he was losing.
She moved to look at his back, but he abruptly grabbed at her arm.
"Raven!" He gasped. "Halling. You have to warn Halling!"
Shocked at his abrupt grab, she met Oneakka's wide eyes and saw nothing but panic in them.
She'd never seen him look like that.
If she hadn't already been scared out of her wits at being here and finding him like this, then his expression alone would have done it.
"He's fine," she assured him quickly. "He's several floors below, killing Wraith."
"No, the Queen!" Oneakka tightened his dark stained hand around her arm.
"He's going after her."
"No! You have to stop him."
"He double-clicked," she instantly repeated Inifee's protocol.
Oneakka blinked and frowned, clearly understanding the limitation of the clicking. But his wide eyes fixed back on hers. "Then you have to go after him. You have to save him!"
"No, I've got to help you," she argued.
"The Queen will kill him!"
Seeal tried to think clearly around her pumping adrenaline, tried to tear her eyes away from Oneakka's wide, desperate stare. His hold on her arm was getting heavy as he clearly couldn't hold himself upright, but he wasn't loosening his grip on her.
He had lost tons of blood, hit his head, he wasn't thinking straight.
"I need to get you help, Oneakka," she tried to explain.
"No, Raven!" Oneakka gasped, his expression twisting into untold new levels of desperate panic. "He doesn't know what he's facing. She's not a real Queen. Not a Wraith, she's something else. Something far worse."
Seeal froze, staring into his eyes. "What?"
"She's going to kill him. Please, you have to save him for me!" He begged. "Please! Raven!"
Everything inside her didn't want to leave him, but his voice as he begged her to help him do what he couldn't...
She instantly agreed, the urgency somehow flooding into her from him.
"Okay," she promised him, his heavy hand now pushing at her arm, pushing her to go.
To leave him here.
"Just," she got up, letting his weak push fall away from her. "Don't go anywhere," she ordered him, and she didn't mean just physically.
"Hurry!" Oneakka begged.
She rushed forward, heading down the corridor he'd been dragging himself down. Trying to get to Halling.
She looked back at Oneakka as she ran, seeing his head dropping between his shoulders.
Oneakka!
She turned away, hating herself for what she was doing, but his panic, somehow it was hers now.
She lifted her pad, aware that one corner of it had blood on it, and tried to focus on the dots on the screen.
The quicker she got to Halling, the quicker she could get back to Oneakka. Get him medical care... Inifee!
"Inifee?" she shouted as she ran, belatedly remembering that the link was open.
"I heard," Inifee replied, his voice tight.
"Oneakka needs urgent medical care," she shouted at him, uncaring about her voice carrying now.
"I'm already on it," Inifee replied. "But the Fleet have just reported that the Wraith Cruisers from the border raids have just jumped out of hyperspace to help the Hive. They're engaging them now."
"You have to get a medical team in here to him now or he's not going to make it," Seeal desperately explained.
"I'll get help here, Seeal. I promise."
Seeal didn't have the words to say anything back. Help was coming in for Oneakka, but she had to do what he'd begged her to first.
Had to do what he couldn't.
And perhaps fulfil his dying wish for him.
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TBC