SURVIVING THE SIEGE, alternate tag to Siege II
PART SIX: LAST LINES OF DEFENSE
The Gateroom was alive with the whine of stunners and firepower. McKay, Teyla and two more soldiers were on the stairs, shooting up at the Wraith guards that had made it past the first line of defense and were now trying to move down to the control room. The last of the technicians from the control room jumped through the gate, just as the first of the Wraith drones forced open one of the set of doors to the main floor below, only to be pelted instantly by machine gun fire from the line of soldiers defending it. Stunner flashes burst across the floor, trying to get lucky without aiming.
The only non-military left on Atlantis now were Carson, Rodney, Teyla, Zelenka and Elizabeth, and not one of them was willing to leave until Sheppard hit the last hive ship.
The remaining soldiers, now under the command of a burly sergeant with a reedy voice (the lieutenant was out cold on the floor above, one of the first to go down), stayed only to protect these people…and hold Atlantis until the absolute end.
Which seemed to be, well, now.
Zelenka and Elizabeth stood shoulder to shoulder, watching the display intently. The Czech's hand hovered over the panel on which he'd placed the detonator for the bomb on Sheppard's jumper, trembling ever so slightly as his ears tried to block out the horrific sounds echoing from all around him. His eyes, meanwhile, were focused only on the little white dot. It was practically on top of the hive ship. And he knew, if he looked to his left, he would see Elizabeth just as intense and unwavering.
"Ten seconds," Zelenka said quietly, almost unnecessarily. "Until the major….What the…?"
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw it. A brief flash of light, and a new energy signature, showing up as bright yellow off to the side of the screen.
"UN-01?" Zelenka said, reading the display.
Didn't UN mean…unidentified?
"Abort!" Elizabeth screamed, faster on the uptake than the Czech, "JOHN! ABORT! The Daedalus! It's here!"
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John's eyes flew open, and he shoved down on the controls, trying to change the momentum of the ship…but it still continued upwards.
"Down!" he shouted at the jumper, willing it to respond, "Go down!"
The jumper shuddered, and for a moment, it seemed he was weightless as the jumper attempted to respond to his command, but it was only in his mind. He was still hurtling straight at the hive ship, the jumper's rate of speed giving it a momentum that was not easily turned.
"Shit!"
With a quick mental flip, he dropped the cloak and raised the shield, just in time to feel the impact against the base of the hive ship. The jumper, protected inside the shield, skidded across the underside of the hive like a large rock scraping along the undercarriage of a car, and, if there had been sound in space, he was sure it would sound even worse.
Weapons fire, now that he was visible, started raining on the jumper's shield, just as he managed to regain control and send the tiny ship plunging back into deep space. His mind begged the jumper to aim for the Daedalus, wherever she was, hoping it would know since he had no clue.
Glancing down, he saw that the shield's integrity was at twenty percent, having taking a massive amount of energy to avoid complete collision, and was losing more and more integrity as both the hive ship's weapons and a mess of darts started chasing him down.
With a growl, he dodged and weaved, and fired a couple of rounds for a distraction…and flipped the shield back to the cloak.
Pulling up as tightly as possible, he managed to avoid three separate beams from three different darts converging on his last position, but only barely.
A moment later, and he was out of their range, flying across empty space, checking to make sure that…somehow…he was not only alive, but away.
Okay, he thought inanely, you can breathe now….
"John!" Elizabeth's repeated shouting of his name over the comm. finally made it through the ringing in his ears. He swallowed to wet his dry as sandpaper throat before answering.
"Still here," he croaked, still not quite sure if it was true.
"I told you!" McKay's voice fairly bristled over the radio, and John frowned when he realized he could hear gunfire ricocheting loudly in the background. "But you just couldn't wait, could you! No, no, not the mighty know-it-all Sheppard! Rather die than admit that, maybe, you don't have to save the day in some heroically melodramatic fashion! We have to do it 'my way,' Rodney, because I know better, he says. Ha!"
But Sheppard only listened to what was apparently going on behind the snark, as Rodney's voice shivered in reaction to the bullets he was obviously firing from a P90 at the same time.
"Rodney!" he called, "You can yell at me later. What's happening? Is that gunfire?"
"No, we're just having some new curtains put up," McKay answered, his words almost as rapid as the fire. "Unfortunately, the Wraith don't like the new color scheme."
"Just hurry, Major," Elizabeth put in, her tone tense. "They've nearly breached the control room."
"We will survive this wave, Major," Teyla's voice added, "But not a second."
"So, we need that third ship destroyed, now, to convince the Wraith here to get the hell out of my City," Elizabeth finished. "And take as many of those god damned darts as possible with you, will you?"
Sheppard grinned at the smart response, and finally had the wherewithal to call up a display.
"I'll try," he promised.
With a nudge, he sent his ship straight for "UN-01," frowning a little as he saw a good sized contingent of Wraith ships were following, including the three mid-sized battle cruisers as well as a mess of darts. He had a good head start on them, but not by much.
"Daedalus," he called, channeling his communication now to all frequencies, "This is Major John Sheppard. Do you read?"
"Loud and clear, Major," a voice replied. "This is Colonel Steven Caldwell. We're locating you by your radio frequency. We've got a hanger bay open for you, so come on in."
"Thanks, but…."
"But no buts, Major. You get your butt in here, and we can talk about finishing off that pesky little wasp problem you've got."
Sheppard tried not to smile, he really did, because over-cocky colonels seemed to die pretty quickly in the Pegasus Galaxy, but…hell, he was still glad they were here.
"Yes sir. Coming in," he called, calling up the schematics of the still titled "UN-01" on his screen and locating the open hanger.
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TBC
See, no worries! Fact was,Icouldn't destroy another jumper, I just couldn't!LOL! Anyway, thank you again for the reviews! I was worried no one would read it, so, yay! And, speaking of cool things -- Bern? Is that you! Long time!