Chapter 17, part 2.
"No."
"Colonel, really, it's safe, I swear. It's easy, I could do it in my sleep."
"No. Every time we dabbled with these things, they screwed us over."
"Not every time, FRAN did exactly what it was supposed to do and helped you get rid of the Asurans."
Sheppard exhaled with exasperation. Alice was back on Atlantis, trying to persuade Sheppard and Woolsey to allow her to work on her idea.
"They are dangerous and unpredictable," he insisted.
"Only when they're a full AI. This wouldn't be that," she explained again. "Yes, we would need to use machine learning to some extent, but most of their software would be simple programming. Our algorithms."
"Knowing what these nanites had done to Doctor Weir and Mrs. Miller, how can you be sure that this is safe?" Woolsey asked. He had been pretty appalled when Alice had first suggested using nanotechnology, but at least he was asking questions and not refusing outright like Sheppard.
Because I know what I am doing, she wanted to say, but thought better of it. "Mr. Woolsey, do you really think I'd do it to my own brother if I didn't think it was completely safe? In both cases that you mentioned the nanites were using alien AI programming, and were meant to find out what's wrong within the organism and fix it. What I am suggesting is a simple task: locate synapses with specific structure, deposit a protein marker, get out from the brain into the bloodstream and deactivate. It's very straight-forward in terms of coding, sir. Nanites can be useful when you're taking precautions and don't trust the AI too much. I've read a report about a race of people called the Orbanians that the SG-1 had encountered years ago—they were the ones who had given us the Naquadah reactor technology. They used nanites to transfer knowledge for years and never had any adverse medical effect."
Woolsey sighed. "I don't know if it's worth the risk. You said that the affected people would get back to normal eventually?"
"Yes—but it would take years. Sir, these are our people. Not just my brother, but Major Lorne and Sergeant Utkin, and their teams, and Doctor Cooper, and Sergeant Karim—if we find him, that is. Can you really justify not doing anything when there is a way? If it works, we'll have them back in a matter of few weeks, most probably."
"What does McKay say about this?" Woolsey asked Sheppard.
The colonel rolled his eyes. "He agrees with Boyd. They still have the improved code that they developed after what happened to his sister, he says if we strip it down and adjust the programming, it should work as she says."
"How long to do this?"
"With ample amount of testing, no more than five days if I work alone. Two tops if Doctor McKay or Doctor Zelenka help me along the way." Alice smiled tentatively, sensing a win.
"I don't like this," Sheppard murmured defiantly.
"Me neither, but Captain Boyd is right. We should at least try to bring our people back."
With Woolsey's blessing, Alice scampered to the lab where the nanite creation machine was stored. She was promptly joined by both McKay and Zelenka there, and all three of them worked around the clock for nearly three days—Sheppard insisted on additional review and testing of the code in simulation. Finally he pronounced himself satisfied—though he looked anything but—and they could begin their real-life test.
Once again, Alice volunteered Jake as the guinea pig, knowing that he'd want to do it, but this time she was overruled by Sheppard, and so the first to receive the nanites was Sergeant Utkin. They were injected into his system with a syringe and monitored on a scanner which showed clearly as they traveled up his aortas and through the blood-brain barrier into the central nervous system. It only took a few minutes for these tiny robots to do their job and then travel back into the bloodstream, where they became inactive and would, in time, be flushed from the body.
"Did it work?" Sheppard asked. They were observing the procedure through a window a level higher than the room where Utkin was lying, surrounded by a throng of medical staff.
"We won't know for a few days, maybe weeks," Alice replied, moving her head about and stretching. For the past half an hour she had been so tense that all her body stiffened up. But they did it. She knew they did—all the readings professed so. And nothing bad happened, she counted that as a separate success.
On the third day after getting the nanite shot, Utkin closed his eyes and fell into a deep sleep. This was not unusual—all those who had been affected by Jareth's mind-bending slept a lot—but when he didn't wake up after several hours, Doctor Keller became concerned that he might have fallen into a coma. However, an EEG showed that he was just sleeping deeply.
"I don't want to try to wake him up just yet," she told Alice when she came by to check on Utkin's condition. "It can be either a very good sign—sleep is conductive to healing, and has particularly good effect on the brain—or a very bad one. I really hope it's the former."
And, indeed, the next day, after almost twenty four hours of deep slumber, Utkin woke up. He was not yet his old self—but he no longer just lay there, looking into space. He blinked a lot and looked around with uncomprehending eyes. A Russian doctor on Keller's staff sat with him and talked to him in his own language, explaining what had happened to him. The next day he started to speak a little, though he seemed unaware of where he was. But every day he felt better, a little more like himself—and his memories were coming back, both of his life before being abducted by the Wraith and after he had been forced to do his bidding.
"At the time, it felt good to follow his orders," he told Alice when she came to visit him as she did every day. "It was natural, never thought about doing anything else. When he was not there, it was like my whole life was put to a halt… Nothing mattered and nothing was real." He shook his head on the pillow. "But I remember you, Captain. I remember the ambush. I was the one who stunned you. And I remember taking you to see him, and just standing there, observing… with not a single thought of my own. It is very weird to remember."
Alice smiled at him warmly. "Put it out of your mind. It wasn't you, not really."
"You resisted him," he noted grimly.
"We're theorizing that it's because the Ancient gene is dominant in me," she told him. "I don't think it has anything to do with strength of will."
"He thought so."
"I don't think he knew himself." She shrugged.
This seemed to satisfy him for the moment.
The next day the doctors (both Keller and a resident psychiatrist named James Borden) pronounced Utkin fully recovered and gave the green light to apply the nanite therapy to the others affected by Jareth's mind-bending.
Each of them responded differently. A few people "woke up" a little quicker than Utkin had, but most took longer—apparently his case was left of the peak of the curve on the Gaussian distribution chart. Which Alice, in her spare time, actually drew for her own amusement, and later laughed at her own geekiness. She could laugh because her heart felt a hundred pounds lighter now that she knew that Jake would be okay. He responded to the treatment much slower than Utkin—it took him almost two weeks to fall into that first deep, restorative sleep—but he was on the mend.
Alice spent at least a couple of hours at his bedside each day, talking to him—even before he "woke up" enough to start replying—and holding his hand, just happy to be there with him. She couldn't sacrifice too much of her time to him, though; she had been finally pronounced fit for duty again by Keller. It took some doing; Alice had gone back to her regular workouts as soon as she got off the crutch. She had to start slow, gradually extending her routine until finally she reached the same length and intensity as before the injury. Keller was initially not very happy about Alice exerting herself so, but she had to admit that the exercise was good for Alice after her blood panel results began showing steady improvement. It also increased her appetite, which further helped to speed her recovery.
With Cooper on the mend after receiving the nanite treatment and Karim missing, the AR-4 was still incomplete, so Alice, too, was temporarily assigned to another unit—the Seventh Atlantis Reconnaissance Team, headed by Captain Edison. They were part of the initial group who had looked for Utkin's team after that first radio signal, and now his team was tasked with searching for intelligence regarding Jareth's whereabouts. It wasn't the only one, either; Woolsey and Sheppard both agreed that Jareth, with his freak abilities, Ancient gene, and knowledge of Atlantis he had gained from those he had captured, was high on the biggest threats list. And yet he was not at the very top. The looming danger was a new Wraith alliance that had emerged from all the infighting. It was unclear how many Hives have joined up, but they were systematically eliminating all the unallied ones. That was only good news if one didn't take under consideration that the chaos of the civil war was stopping the Wraith from an organized attack on Atlantis. They didn't know where it was—or at least that's what the Atlantians hoped—but with Jareth out there (who had received all the information he wanted from the people he bent), this could change any moment. Atlantis teams dedicated to the war effort, with the support of the BC-304s, were dashing from place to place all over the galaxy, trying to target Wraith Hives and outposts and deliver Keller's gene therapy that rendered them essentially harmless—able to coexist with humans, as it removed the need to feed on them and allowed Wraith to process normal food. It wasn't easy, though. The Wraith were able to jam Earth ships' beaming technology, and so the only alternative was to take a cloaked jumper or a captured Dart and make one's way on foot to deposit the aerosol that delivered the gene therapy where it could make the most impact. In fact, such attempts cost Atlantis the lives of two units already, and caused more to need rescuing.
Edison's unit, augmented with Alice, got to do some rescuing themselves. When Sheppard's team failed to escape a Wraith Hive they were trying to infiltrate which subsequently jumped into hyperspace, Woolsey sent AR-7 and AR-6—Lieutenant Moors' unit, minus Jake—after them on the Daedalus.
As the journey in hyperspace was going to take a while, Alice used the opportunity to talk to Archer and his now-wife Doctor Elisa Lamarr.
"You don't look a day older than when I first met you, you know," Archer told Alice musingly. "But at the same time you look… different. And I don't mean the hair. It's that you're… All grown up."
"Well, finally," Alice quipped and then shook her head. "It's been a long time."
"Since 2004? Yeah, quite." He grinned at her.
"I'm almost jealous that you've known each other so long," Lamarr put in. "But then again I get Chris almost all the time while you meet once a month or so…"
Alice smiled at her. "That's more than we used to, anyway." She then looked at her watch. "I'm gonna get going soon. I need to prepare for the mission."
"How exactly are you planning to go about it?" Archer asked. "How do we even know where the Hive is?"
"Doctor McKay had invented a subspace locator beacon that transmits its coordinates even when everything else is being actively jammed by the Wraith," Alice explained. "It's actually a re-purposed Wraith tech and they haven't yet figured out how to deactivate it, thankfully, so we can track them even when they're in hyperspace. They have to drop out periodically to regenerate, their Hives' hulls are organic and are getting damaged by the radiation. It takes them about fifteen hours to recover, and they'd just dropped out three hours ago. The Daedalus is going to hang around at the edge of their sensors and we'll take a cloaked Jumper and fly the rest of the way on our own. We don't want to tip them off. With a bit of luck, we'll be able to park in their Dart bay, and get to our people on foot."
"What makes you think they're still alive?"
Alice smiled crookedly. "Sheppard and his team have a happy tendency to escape death by the skin of their teeth. We're hoping the Wraith kept them alive—they know who they are, you know, and would love to get information from them. Like where Atlantis is—if Jareth hasn't told them yet, that is."
"If he did, wouldn't the Wraith already attack Atlantis?"
"Not necessarily. The allied Hives might want to finish getting rid of the others first, and only when they're sure of their dominance in the galaxy launch a coordinated attack on Atlantis."
"That's a chilling thought," Archer admitted.
Alice nodded, stood up, and stretched. "It's time. We'll be dropping out soon. Wish me luck."
"Good luck," Archer and his wife said in unison and Alice smiled, turned around and walked away.
There were two people with ATA gene in Edison's team, and Moors himself had it, but they were all happy to give the helm to Alice, as she was the only real pilot among them. Not that the mission required any superior skill—flying up to the Hive, cloaked, and into its Dart bay was an easy task that any of them could accomplish. It was escaping that might get dicey if they were detected at any point.
They were able to enter the Dart bay thanks to another of McKay's inventions—an IFF spoofer. It emitted a signal imitating that of an actual Dart, causing the automatic systems on the Hive Ship to open the bay door—unless someone was looking at that particular screen. It had already happened a couple times that instead of getting on the ship, a Jumper had to turn around and evade a fleet of Darts because the Wraith onboard noticed the anomalous signal. This time, however, it appeared that nobody was looking—probably they didn't expect company since they had already captured Sheppard's team.
Alice flew into the bay and put the Jumper down near an entrance. It was empty at the moment, and so, after a brief pause to check their gear—including two Ancient life signs detectors—the two teams left the invisible Jumper and moved toward the corridor.
Wraith Hives were organic in nature, and often grew in odd ways, meaning that each Hive was different than the others. Memorizing the lay of the land in one of them didn't guarantee that one could find their way in another one. The two Atlantis teams walked together along a corridor for a while, and when they came up to an intersection, they split up. Alice went with Lieutenant Moors' Sixth Team, as they were a man short. It made her smile—they exchanged one Boyd for another—but soon the seriousness and danger of what they were doing superseded such frivolous thoughts.
They didn't meet any Wraith, but the dark empty corridors were giving Alice an eerie feeling; there was a sound, a sort of ghostly whisper, that creeped the hell out of her, and the soft glow on the walls was pulsating slowly, reminding her of blood flowing through a vein in the rhythm of a heartbeat of some giant monster. The quiet footfalls of Moors and his two men were of some relief, but even with such backup, Alice walked with bated breath, expecting a Wraith to jump out at them from around every corner, despite the life signs detector in her hand. She wasn't really scared—she could deal with the Wraith—only apprehensive. They needed to avoid bringing attention to themselves; there might be too many Wraith onboard to shoot their way through.
Finally they got to a room with two computer consoles. Alice didn't waste time on talking with Moors; she quickly pulled out her tablet, connected to one of the consoles, and began wafting through the terabytes of data. The marines positioned themselves on either entrances and for a long while the only thing moving in the room was Alice's hand dancing on the little screen. Then she straightened up, detached the tablet, and turned around towards Moors.
"I've downloaded the ship schematics," she said quietly to him. "I can lead us there. But there's another thing—the Wraith are not here just to regenerate. They're waiting for someone—a sister Hive, I think. We need to act quickly."
"Yes, ma'am." Moors nodded towards the door. "Lead the way."
Alice took a moment to repeat what she'd learned over the radio for Edison, and then started off again, now walking a little faster and with more confidence. She didn't really need the schematics on her tablet—she's had a good look at them already, and she remembered them pretty well. They paused before intersections so that Alice could take a look at the life signs detector. A few times, she stopped them for a few moments, waiting for a faint reading at the edge of the scanner's range to disappear, before allowing them to proceed. Soon, though, they got to the central part of the ship, and more and more pulsating dots started appearing on the tiny screen, some just standing there, others moving around, and getting through was becoming more difficult by the minute. They were closing in on their target, though.
And then, as they were passing another intersection, the sound of gunfire split the silence. They all stopped dead and looked into the corridor it was coming from; it was quite far, but unmistakable: P90 fire.
"Edison," Moors muttered, exchanging a look with Alice. She hesitated for a moment.
"Take your team and see if you can help," she told him eventually. "But be careful." And she handed him the life signs detector. He took it, looked at it, then up at her and nodded. Then he gestured at his two men and they were gone, quickly and quietly, like ghosts. Alice turned around and moved through the intersection and along a corridor, slower now, listening intently to the sounds of footsteps running—but they were all going towards the ruckus of the gunfire, and she managed to slip through the last few passages unseen. Finally, she made it to the last corner and peeked around.
Two Wraith drones stood on both sides of a cell door—it looked almost like a spider web, except the individual strings were several inches thick and a sort of half-transparent membrane hang from some of them, obscuring the view. Alice figured if they were guarding it, though, there must be something—or, in this case, someone—to guard. She waited for a moment until a long burst of gunfire came from the corridors far away, and then jumped around the corner, P90 in her hands, and pulled the trigger twice. Both Wraiths dropped like especially hideous sacks of flour, their boney masks shattered into pieces.
Alice ran up to the cell and looked inside.
"Captain!" A familiar voice exclaimed and she smiled at Teyla through the bars.
"Oh, thank god," McKay breathed with relief behind the Athosian. Ronon clapped his hand on the scientist's shoulder, nearly knocking him to the ground.
"See? I told you Woolsey'd send help."
"Where's Colonel Sheppard?" Alice asked, removing a knife from its sheath on her tactical vest and stepping to the wall next to the cell door to find a way to open it.
"They took him to the Queen," Teyla answered. "He's been there for a long while. We're worried."
Alice nodded, but didn't respond for a moment, focusing on the task at hand; thirty seconds later, she heard a whoosh and the door opened.
"Let's go get him, then," Alice said, putting her knife back. She then removed her Beretta and handed it to Teyla. "It's better than nothing, though we should definitely try to find your gear before we tackle the Queen."
"Hear, hear," Ronon added appreciatively and Alice smirked. He was known for caring a great deal about his gun.
They set off immediately; Alice didn't think it was a good idea to loiter in one place. She walked at the front with Teyla, then McKay, and Ronon brought up the rear. The faraway gunfire was dying away. Alice touched her mike a few times, without saying anything—just sending a signal, enquiring for status, in case they couldn't speak. Silence answered her at first, but after a few minutes, a voice spoke up on the radio.
"We're alright, though it got pretty dicey there for a moment." Edison sounded out of breath. "If Moors didn't show up at just the right moment, we'd be gone. Thanks for sending them, Alice."
"No problem, Jeremy." They used their first names as they were of the same rank. "I got Teyla, Doctor McKay and Ronon out, but Colonel Sheppard is still unaccounted for. Last we know, he was taken to see the Queen, so that's where we're headed right now."
"Do you need backup? We can go around."
"Negative. Stay out of the way for now. We may need a diversion later."
"Aye, aye."
Silence followed. They were slipping through the corridors as fast as they could without compromising their safety, checking before each corner and intersection if it was empty ahead. A few times they had to return and take a different way to avoid Wraith, but their caution was rewarded: they made it to the central chamber without being detected. It had two levels; they climbed the stairs that led to the upper one, which formed a balcony overlooking the large room. The barrier was made of thick bars, so they could look down between them while lying on the floor. Teyla and Alice both inched forward, while McKay hung back with Ronon, covering their six.
A big, throne-like chair stood at one side of the room; a Wraith Queen sat in it, arms spread on the armrests royally. Her long hair was a startlingly clear, light blue, almost white. A broad table occupied the middle of the room, and there, leaning heavily to his side, sat Colonel Sheppard, looking flustered but unharmed. A row of Wraith—workers and warriors alike—lined the wall opposite their balcony, and Alice had to assume the same would be true of the one beneath them. It was not a good tactical situation.
At the moment, nothing was happening; the Queen was glancing around as if she was bored, and Sheppard kept quiet. They looked as if they were waiting for something.
Alice gestured at Teyla and they backed away gingerly, careful not to make a sound. At the foot of the stairs, they stopped and Alice, after making sure they were still quite alone, waved at the other three to come closer so a soft whisper would be enough to communicate.
"We can't take on all of them," she said matter-of-factly.
Teyla nodded assent. "What are they waiting for?" She wondered.
"Another Hive is supposed to join them," Alice explained. "Though what their intent is with regards to Colonel Sheppard, I don't know."
"How do we get him out?" Ronon asked, voicing the question they all had in mind.
"We could sabotage the ship, but it still leaves us with dozens Wraith going after us." McKay looked around nervously.
"Or… we could finish your original mission," Alice mused. "The gene therapy is harmless to humans, isn't it?"
"Well… yeah." McKay's brow furrowed. "But how do we do that? They took the canisters…"
"They have to be somewhere on the Hive," Teyla put in. "We just need to find them."
"Oh, yeah, sure," McKay sneered. "We'll just go room to room! Do you have any idea how big this thing is?!"
Alice looked up at the ceiling, her mind churning. After a moment of silence, she looked back down at them and sighed. "I don't see any other option. This is what we'll do: we'll get Moors to create a diversion on the other side of the Hive. Edison and his team will start the search from where they are and come towards us. You three will go from here towards Edison. Here—" she handed McKay her tablet "—it has the ship schematics on it. I'll stay here and make sure the Wraith don't hurt Colonel Sheppard in the meantime."
"But… what if they try? You can't possibly take them all alone!" McKay protested, taking the tablet.
Alice patted her P90. "That's what I have this for. At the very least I'll give Sheppard a chance to escape." She looked at Teyla expectantly.
"Alright, Captain. That's your call."
Alice smiled. "Alright. Be careful, but be quick, too, won't you?"
"We'll do our best."
"Good luck."
Alice observed as they walked away quickly, Teyla in the lead with the Beretta, then McKay, peeking at the tablet and whispering the directions, and Ronon last. Then she took a deep breath, turned around and climbed the stairs again.
On all fours, hiding behind the barrier, Alice quickly fixed an extended barrel onto her P90 and attached a laser-aiming scope. The normal sights on the weapon would probably be enough—the room wasn't that big—but Wraith were notoriously difficult to kill. If she went for head shots, she'd do the most damage, and maybe drop more enemies than what would be otherwise possible. Even with that, she estimated she could get rid of three, maybe four of them before they realized where she was shooting from and started firing their own weapons at her.
She inched closer to the gap in the barrier and looked down through the scope. She didn't dare use the laser yet, but it also had a two to ten magnifying power, so she could see everything much better.
The Queen was now standing, a Wraith worker bent almost in half before her. Sheppard was still sitting at his chair, but straightened up now, with a crooked smile on his face. The Queen was—not yelling, more like hissing at the minion in front of her.
"Just how hard it is to keep three miserable humans in a jail cell?" She seethed, barely contained fury in her oddly whispery voice. "Find them now or the next person I feed on is gonna be you!"
The Wraith, without changing his obsequious posture, backed away towards the wall underneath Alice's perch, so she lost him from view.
"Fool!" The Queen called after him, and then addressed Sheppard. "Do not kid yourself, they will be found. And when they are, I'm not gonna put them in a cell anymore. No… they will come right here and become the main course!" She then swept around to sit back down on her throne, but before she did, a door hissed open on the other side of the room and another worker came in. He hurried to her, stopped a few paces short, bowed, and then said in an unmistakably apprehensive tone:
"My Queen, they are here!"
She lowered herself onto her chair and smiled in a very ugly way. Alice didn't like that smile.
"Well, then, bring them here!"
The Wraith bowed again and hustled off.
"Finally," she said to Sheppard. "You will serve your purpose and I can get rid of your stench from my ship."
"No way!" Sheppard answered her in his most insolent, I-laugh-in-the-face-of-danger voice. "I just showered before coming to see you!"
Alice took a deep breath to stop herself from chuckling. The man was impossible.
The gibe didn't impress the Queen though. She hissed at him indignantly, but didn't make any other moves to punish him. Whatever she intended for him must have been important. Alice guessed he was annoying her for a while now, from the way she reacted.
A moment later the door slid open again and the same Wraith worker entered, followed by a party of five people—and one more Wraith. Alice inhaled quickly, surprised, at the sight, and then trailed the sight of her gun onto his forehead.
It was Jareth. He looked even more peculiar than before; Alice couldn't tell if it was because of the contrast with the regular Wraith around him that put his odd features in relief, or if he actually had some more modifications to his DNA done. He was accompanied by five humans—four unfamiliar ones, though wearing Genii uniforms and gear, and the fifth—Karim. Alice spared him only a cursory glance before going back to aiming at Jareth's head; her friend looked quite healthy, except for his glassy eyes that betrayed that he continued to be under Jareth's yoke, even if he wasn't walking next to him and a step ahead, a gun in his head, though now pointed down—in a sign of peace, Alice thought.
She could hardly start to wonder what they were doing here when the entire party stopped in front of the throne. Jareth inclined his head, but only slightly, nothing like the deep bows the other Wraith were according their Queen.
"Thank you for allowing us the privilege of coming here to meet you," he said, and Alice felt a shiver crawl up her spine. The sight and sound of him were bringing back the horrible memories—of the solitary dungeon, of thirst and hunger, of weakness, of the feeling of his hands touching her… she shuddered and told herself to focus on the mission.
"Thank you for coming," the Queen replied in her best hissy tone. "There is no reason to fight, is there? After all… we are all one family…" She gave him a contemptuous look, which he bore calmly. "This civil war is taking our attention away from the important things… while we squabble over the scraps of food still left in this galaxy, we know there is a better, much richer feeding ground not very far away…" She made an imperious gesture and two Wraith warriors stepped towards Sheppard, picked him up like he didn't weigh anything, and threw him onto the ground in between the Queen and Jareth.
"Ouch! Hey, don't damage the goods!" Sheppard quipped from the floor and tried to get up, but the Wraith turned their stunners onto him, so he raised his hands and stayed put. "Okay, no moving, I get it!" But his face was worried. He had never seen Jareth, but Alice described him very well, and even if he didn't recognize him, the fact that Karim was accompanying him was a dead giveaway.
"This human knows everything," the Queen continued, her voice getting hissy again. "Where Earth is, how to get there, and even where is Atlantis… all of its vulnerabilities… codes to lower their force shield…"
Jareth didn't look impressed. "I know all that already," he stated simply. "My friend Basil here told me everything I wanted to know."
It took Alice a second to realize that he meant Karim. She had gotten so used to calling him by his last name, she almost forgot his first. She noted that Jareth pronounced it correctly—not with a z, but with an s, stressing the last syllable.
"They must have changed their codes since you acquired that human, though…" The Queen wasn't stumped. "This one is fresh… and he knows more. Their tactics… their long-time strategy… he is their leader. He won't say anything to me, but you may be able to get him to tell you everything… unless your reputation is a lie!"
"That may be of limited use to me," Jareth admitted in an off-handed sort of way. "But it is not enough for me to consider a cease-fire."
"They say that you are looking for something." The Queen's tone became more smooth, almost unctuous. "They say you are looking for someone who has an ability to use the Lantean technology… he has it. And it is very strong with him!"
"Is that so?" This, finally, stirred him a little. He stepped closer and looked at Sheppard. "I know who you are, John Sheppard!"
"You do, do you?" The colonel replied from his spot on the ground. "I gotta tell you, fame in this galaxy is not all it's cracked up to be!"
Jareth smiled his awful, toothy smile. "Insolent, like most of the Atlantians at first. They rarely stay that way for long." He then looked back up at the Queen. "It is true I had been looking for one like that. But it has been a while since I had gotten one. She has since slipped from my grasp… but I have her genome, and that is all that I really needed, in the end. So you see, my Queen—" the word was a clear mockery "—you have nothing of value to offer me."
She hissed violently again, jumping to her feet.
"Then you die!" She waved her hand imperiously, and all of the Wraith lining up the walls rose their stunners. Jareth's entourage had their weapons up even before that.
At that moment, three things happened at once.
There was a loud bang from afar, sounding like an explosion; the doors at the end of the room as well as those in the wall behind the row of Wraith slid open, revealing more men holding guns; and the floor started shaking like in a mild earthquake.
"Take them!" Jareth called and his people started firing at the Wraith. Only the five that came with him were not shooting; instead, they formed a cordon around him, literally shielding him with their own bodies.
From her perch up above, Alice swore loudly; her voice was drowned in the sound of gunfire anyway. She no longer had the shot; Karim was right in from of Jareth. She would have to bring him down first, but knowing him, he'd need a bullet to the head or to the heart, anything less would only slow him down but leave him still standing.
Prevented from killing the one she really wanted to get, Alice turned her gun on the other Wraith. With bullets flying every which way, there was no telling where hers were coming from, and there was so much chaos down there that nobody would notice one more player anyway. So Alice took aim and eliminated first the two warriors still standing over Sheppard, and then moved on to the next closest ones. The colonel didn't wait around; he got onto all fours, grabbed a stunner from the dead Wraith's hand, stood up, keeping his head low, and moved towards the side of the room. Thankfully, he chose the side opposite Alice, so she could keep the coast clear for him, shooting at anyone who even looked after Sheppard before they could raise their stunners or guns. And then, just a moment later, Sheppard was out and on his own.
Alice hesitated; should she go after him or wait and see if she could get a shot at Jareth later?
But the mayhem below was dying down now. Something strange was going on with the Wraith; their hands, clasped around stunners, were sagging, their knees bending. They looked like they were out of breath and in pain; they were dropping to the ground.
"What have you done?!" Screeched the Queen, falling on her knees and raising her hands, staring at them in horror. "What have you done?!"
"I have done nothing," Jareth replied from the inside of his protective cordon. His voice sounded amused. "That, my Queen, is the gene therapy the Atlantians have come up with. It will change your genome… make you unable to feed… you will have to eat to survive… like the vermin you used to suck dry…" He laughed; it was a very cold and perverse laugh that made Alice shudder again. "Humans! Ingenious things, really. I owe them so much. But I am forgetting… you will not have to live this miserable life much longer. I've sabotaged your Hive and it's already begun an uncontrolled descent towards the planet. Consider this my mercy."
And he and his entire group turned around and walked away, Alice still trailing her gun behind them. But Jareth must have been concerned of a stray stunner—he never emerged from behind the human wall that encircled him.
Alice swore again, this time more quietly. She retreated behind the barrier, quickly unmounted the scope and removed the extended barrel, put them back into their places in her tactical vest, and went back down the stairs, already touching her mike.
"Edison, report."
"Still here," he radioed back. "We've met up with Teyla, Doctor McKay and Ronon, found the canisters with the gene therapy and finished the mission."
"Moors?"
"We're alright, Captain," came the Lieutenant's voice, slightly out of breath. "Macnamara got a stunner to the face, but he's back in the land of the conscious now."
"Good. All of you, head back to the Jumper, in double-time," Alice ordered. "This Hive is going to fall to the planet pretty soon, we've gotta evacuate immediately."
"What about Sheppard?" Edison asked.
"He got out, I'm gonna try to locate him now," she said. "But if we don't make it within the next ten minutes, go without us. That's an order," she stressed because Edison started to say something. Technically they were the same rank, but she had the seniority of date-of-rank, and it was the easiest and quickest way to have him pay attention. "We'll find another way. Be careful, though; Jareth is on board and probably heading to the Dart bay, too. Try not to run into him, he's got a small army with him."
"Yes, ma'am," came the response and then the radio fell silent.
She was out in the corridor, the P90 in her hand, ready to fire, and walking quickly. The floor was shaking more violently than before and there was noise coming from all around—the tumult of Wraith, moaning in pain, distressed at discovering their feeding organs gone, running around. How was she supposed to find Sheppard in all this chaos? Where would he go? She thought, beginning to walk quickly away with no regards to the direction. He doesn't know he's got reinforcements, he thinks it was the rest of his team that set off the gene therapy… And then she changed tack and thought: Where would I go in that situation?
Dart Bay. She'd assume that the rest of the team made their way there because it was the only way off the ship. It was the logical thing to do.
She bounded the next corner and came up face to face with two Wraith workers. Neither of them had any weapon, but when they saw her, their faces contorted with rage and they jumped towards her, ready to crush her by hand. They didn't get the chance; Alice's weapon was still up and safety off, so she merely squeezed the trigger and a hail of bullets nearly tore their faces off their heads. They dropped to the ground like two hundred pounds rag dolls. Alice grimaced and stepped over them, trying not to look at the pool of blood quickly spreading around; it looked purple in the oddly bluish light of the Hive.
She only made it another fifteen yards or so when another bend of the corridor suddenly bore her to an intersection. She stopped for a few seconds, remembering the ship schematics, and in that moment, she heard something different than the riotous commotion all around: sort of grunts and loud bangs, coming from just around the next corner down the left path. Without thinking much, she ran over there and jumped into the middle of the passage.
Sheppard was there, struggling against two Wraiths at once. The stunner he had picked up in the throne room lay unused to the side; one of the Wraith had him in a chokehold, while the other one was getting himself off the ground, apparently thrown down by the colonel in the previous scuffle.
Alice raised her P90 higher and pulled the trigger slightly. Only one bullet left the muzzle. Before it hit the target, Alice was already bringing the gun down and to the right, this time pulling the trigger fully. The Wraith holding Sheppard fell backwards, his hands opening up and releasing the colonel; before he hit the ground, with a hole between his eyes, the hail of bullets hit the other one in the back. He hardly had time to drop to the ground when Alice had the P90 already up and stabilized, looking for the next target—but there was none.
Sheppard had dropped to one knee when the Wraith released him. He was now getting up to his feet and massaging his throat, which was all bruised.
"Good timing," he croaked. "Thanks."
Alice nodded. "We should get out of here quickly, sir," she urged him. "The rest of our people is on their way back to the Jumper."
"Do you know the way?"
"Yes, sir, this way." She moved her head to indicate that they had to go back to the intersection.
Sheppard stooped down to pick up the stunner again and they set off at a brisk pace, nevertheless keeping their eyes and ears open.
"Jeremy." Alice tapped her mike. "Jeremy, come in." But she got only silence in return. She looked at her watch and sighed.
"What is it?" Sheppard asked.
"We just lost our way off the Hive. I told them to leave if we didn't get there within ten minutes. The ship is coming down towards the planet," she reminded him. "We'll have to figure something else out."
"Well, I assume they went out in the Jumper you came in." Sheppard shrugged. "But the one we used to get aboard should still be there, too."
Alice looked at him, surprised. "Why didn't I think of that?" She shook her head. "Good thing the remotes work on all of them." Every member of a team going out in a Jumper had a remote—not necessarily an original Ancient one, for they managed to replicate them, and it was proven beyond doubt that it made good sense for more people to have one, not only the pilot.
"Woolsey sent you after us?" Sheppard changed the topic.
"Yes, sir, two teams, Edison's and Moors'. And me," she added as an after-thought. "The Daedalus is just out of sensor range, which is good because I assume Jareth's Hive Ship is close-by."
"Oh yeah, that guy. You did say he was odd, but man…" He shook his head. "The Wraith are all disgusting, but there's just something completely off about him."
"Yes, sir."
They bounded the next corner and came up to at least half a dozen Wraiths, all lying on the floor in a pool of blood.
"That's probably Jareth's people's handiwork," Alice said as they skimmed around the puddle. "We're close."
"They must be gone by now. They wouldn't want to stay on a ship that's on a collision course with a planet." He paused for a moment, frowning. "Come to think of it, why aren't we dead yet?"
"The atmosphere of the planet must be much denser than Earth's," Alice replied distractedly, looking around another corner. Not seeing any danger, she waved them both forward. "That means it extends farther away from the planet so that we have a longer way down, but it also means we're going to burn up faster the closer we are. Wraith ships are not designed to withstand that much heat." She didn't add that leaving in a Jumper in these conditions would be extremely risky, too.
"And Jumpers are?" Sheppard echoed her own thoughts. She didn't respond. They reached the door to the Dart Bay.
Alice stopped dead in front of it and turned to Sheppard. "Sir, it is entirely possible that the Bay door has already failed and the only thing we're gonna find there is death, though if that's any consolation, it will be quick. We'll be almost instantly vaporized. But if by some miracle it's still safe, it might fail any moment."
"Is there any other way off the ship?" Sheppard asked.
"None that I know of."
"Then I guess we risk it."
Alice nodded and turned back around. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and touched the panel to the right of the door. It slid open with a silent hiss—and they didn't die instantly.
She opened her eyes and said a silent thank you to any being that was watching over them that day. She moved inside quickly, with Sheppard on her heels. He sped up and took point, directing them to the left of the large, cavernous bay, littered with darts; he knew where he had left the Jumper.
It seemed like a long time before they got to that spot, but really it was only a minute or so. Alice had already had the remote in her hand and clicked it as soon as she saw Sheppard slow down. For a fraction of a second she was scared that nothing would happen, that they were in a wrong place, or maybe the Wraith had found the Jumper and moved it—and then it appeared in front of them. She clicked the remote again and the rear door began to open. They scrambled inside quickly, and Sheppard took the pilot's seat. Alice sat next to him.
The Jumper came alive under the colonel's touch and within seconds they were in the air, flying towards the bay door. Alice activated McKay's IFF spoofer to open it—and nothing happened.
"Must be jammed from the heat!"
"Not a problem. Hang on, this might get a little rocky!" Sheppard took a deep breath and then a single drone shot out from the side of the Jumper and hit the door in front of them. It didn't just punch a hole—it exploded the entire thing in a white, blinding flash, and the entire Jumper rocked as if knocked back by some huge force. Sheppard stabilized it and they flew through the gaping hole and out of the Hive—and suddenly they were caught in a burst of heat, pressure and speed; the little spacecraft spun around and started falling towards the planet after the giant blazing ball that was the Hive. The only reason why Sheppard and Alice didn't fall out of their seats was because the inertial dampeners were still working, although even with them operating at 100%, the G-force almost knocked them out. But Sheppard managed to keep his hands on the console, and very soon they were slowing down—the spinning stopped and they started pulling up.
Still woozy, Alice looked down and saw that they had escaped with literally minutes—if not seconds—to spare. As they straightened their course, the giant fireball beneath them just hit the ground. The force of the explosion rocked them slightly, though it was really nothing in comparison with what they had just survived. With one last glance down, Sheppard turned the Jumper around and up.
The road home felt as if it was much shorter. They did not see Jareth's Hive anywhere near—apparently he didn't stay to watch his rival's ship go up in flames. They managed to radio the Daedalus though and confirm that all the others had made it safely back on the other Jumper. On the way, Alice recounted the mission from her perspective. Sheppard was taken aback that she been there when Jareth had come.
"So I wasn't imagining it," he commented with a crooked smile. "Somebody really did clear the way for me. I thought it was a huge coincidence that all them were dropping ahead of me like flies. That was some superb marksmanship, Boyd!"
"Thank you, sir. It was easy—nobody thought to look up, they were too focused on each other."
Sheppard agreed and then encouraged her to tell the rest of the story. When she finished, he supplied information of his own—how they were captured because McKay found something interesting in the ship database and wouldn't move before he managed to download it all. Which of course he didn't, because they were discovered and imprisoned. The Queen tried to get them to spill the beans about Earth and Atlantis, but they all resisted—"even McKay", he added in a tone of vaguely insulting surprise, though Alice knew it was just posturing—and the Queen grew tired of it. She sent the other three back to the cell and left Sheppard in the throne room to offer him as a good-will gesture to a rival Hive who had been of growing concern to the big alliance.
"I would think so," Alice opined. "Jareth's isn't even a real Hive—he doesn't have any Wraith in his army, only humans he'd bent, as far as we know. I wonder if he just doesn't want the Wraith, or maybe they're not as susceptible to his mind tricks?"
"From all we know about the drones, they must be," Sheppard mused. "Maybe he just doesn't want them. I mean, he is changing his DNA to look like other species, isn't he?"
Alice mulled over it for a while after they fell silent. She didn't think Jareth wanted merely to look like other species—he wanted to become them. Or at least adapt some of their traits—like Vanir's superior intelligence, the Atlantians' ability to operate Ancient technology, maybe even Elyssians' shape-shifting?
After reporting to Colonel Caldwell, they were both sent to the infirmary for a checkup, and in the meantime the Daedalus jumped into hyperspace. After being pronounced completely healthy—at least this mission didn't leave her with a weeks-long recovery to do, she joked to herself—she joined the others in the mess hall, where she had to repeat her part of the story once again, and then listened to theirs'.
"What was it that you found in the Hive's database, Doctor?" She asked McKay after all's been told.
"Basically, data," he replied excitedly. "I found the specific frequencies which Wraith use in their ships to communicate with each other. It's a huge find, it will win the war!"
"Does that mean we can listen in to what they're saying to each other?" Edison asked, his eyebrows all the way up as far as they could go.
"Well, no, but it means we can detect them in real time!" He looked around at all their faces and seemed exasperated at the lack of enthusiasm. "We will be able to track them. All of them. All the time. We can warn settlements before they're culled or destroyed… we can attack them when they're vulnerable, gorilla-style… we can send teams to spread the gene therapy further…" As he spelled it out, the people around the table became more agitated.
"Why, that is amazing!" Lieutenant Moors exclaimed, to general assent. "This can really help us in the war!"
"Yes, well, like I said," McKay pointed out.
"Does it show all of them, or just the ones in the alliance?" Alice asked.
"Ah, well…" McKay looked flustered. "I don't know. Yet! I don't know yet!" He added hurriedly.
"Even if it's just the one alliance, it's huge," Sheppard came to his rescue. "We can deal with them and then move on to the others. It's not gonna be easy," he warned them. "Just because we know where they are doesn't mean we can effectively fight them. I mean, we still have three ships against their sixty or however many they have…"
"Still, knowing where they are may save many lives," Teyla put in.
"Unless they find out we have it and change the frequencies," Alice said quietly and got blank stares in return. "It's a classic spy conundrum, isn't it? We have an excellent source of information, but if we use it too much, the enemy will find out and remove it from our reach."
"You are a killjoy," Sheppard told her and then sighed. "Well, this is still very early stage. Smarter heads are gonna be making these decisions. Or at least more bureaucratic ones." He grimaced. Alice knew he meant the IOA and she sighed, too. She feared he was not wrong.