47: The Direct Approach
"Colonel, I think they know we're coming."
The pilot's voice was laced with worry. John hurried up alongside him in the puddle jumper's cockpit, looking to the central display. Red warning signs were blinking, indicating that their cloaking system had been compromised somehow. Someone had run a translation program through the formerly Ancient ship's systems, ensuring that all the text on the computers within displayed in English (albeit somewhat broken English). From what John could tell, they were being detected, and in turn, their ship was detecting the fact that they had been detected. John could find some small amusement in that, even if it meant they were likely about to be shot down.
He looked through the canopy and towards the still distant shape of the moon ahead. They had made good time, moving along at speeds that would have otherwise crushed the ship's occupants into pulp were it not for the inertial dampeners. The crater-marked grey disc that was the moon now took up a good portion of the viewport. It was growing as they neared, although it appeared that their approach was about to become a lot more dangerous.
"Are they shooting anything at us?" John asked.
"Not yet." The pilot shook his head, having given the readouts a cursory glance. He was an Air Force Captain, an experienced pilot who had volunteered for the mission, as had the rest of the group. Apparently, the opportunity to get into some proper action had been too good to pass up. Of course, that eagerness was likely going to be put to the test very shortly.
"Any shields around the city?"
"The shield's in place, sir." Someone had done some work, then. Deactivated the cloak, although the shields remained to keep the atmosphere within. This was expected, and the harmonizer on board the cargo ship should make passing through that shield a simple enough exercise.
"Just keep going," John ordered. It was a shame this ship carried no armaments, for the Ancient drone complement on board had been exhausted a long time ago. Had they been armed, they might have been able to strike a few of the more critical points of the city, disable some key systems and potentially increase their odds of making a successful landing. As it stood, the best they could do was push on and hope no one shot at them. "Get us moving. As fast as you can."
"All right, Colonel." The pilot adjusted his hands on the controls, pushing the ageing puddle jumper to the limits of its engines. John felt the slightest sensation of acceleration, with the surface of the moon racing up towards them at a staggering pace. More red lights started flashing, complete with beeping: someone had launched something at them, multiple things actually, and they were coming in fast. John had a good indication as to what they may have been.
"Drones," he said aloud. The moon filled the viewport now, and the pilot sent them hurtling down low to the grey, rocky surface. "If you've got any fancy moves, Captain, now's the time." He turned his head, looking back through the open doors into the cargo section. The team remained seated, steadying themselves however they could. Even they knew that the ride was going to get bumpy.
Janus had been one to plan for any contingency, and as such the computers in his laboratory offered a means to access systems that would normally have required one to be in the central tower's control room to operate. Even so, they did not offer Daniel everything he needed, most of all communications and weapons. Someone had launched drones at the incoming cargo ship, only a few of them, yet all it took to destroy a ship of that size was one. The Ancient-built drones were fast and guided quite literally by the thoughts of whoever happened to be in the control chair. It was one thing for a projectile to be laser-guided or heatseeking, but guided by thought? How could one possibly avoid that?
Daniel glanced at Teal'c, who was watching the secret lab's entry. They needed a way to stop those drones, and there was no way to do so from here. However, there had to be something they could use to interfere, anything that might give them the edge they need. Janus would not have constructed a secret laboratory with only one way in, even if that one way was well-hidden. He had been smarter than that, smart enough to leave behind part of himself as he had done on Sanctuary, where they had met the computerised copy of him that had served as the basis for the Nomad settlement on that world. An arrogant man and a genius at that, Janus had ascended but not before ensuring that he lived on in the 'real' world to some extent. Almost as if he had been unable to bear the thought of a universe going on without his input.
The lockouts in place over the internal teleporters had been engaged from the central control room. Here in the secret laboratory, Daniel could see no immediate means to override them. He sifted through the various menus on the Ancient computer, trying to find any hints that may offer some means to stop the imminent destruction of the cargo ship. Daniel thought he might have found one, and as he had suspected, Janus had not built this place with only one way in or out.
"Teal'c, take a look at this," Daniel said, and he motioned the Jaffa over. He pointed to the screen, at the various Ancient writing displayed across it. "You know what this means?"
Teal'c's grasp of Ancient was average at best. The Jaffa quirked an eyebrow, and Daniel realised very quickly that the meaning was not entirely grasped upon by him.
"It means Janus hid a teleporter pad in here," Daniel explained. "We need to find it."
"You are certain?" Teal'c, ever the cautious one, narrowed his eyes slightly.
"As certain as you can be in a million-year-old Ancient laboratory," Daniel said. "We just have to find it." He looked about the room, seeing nothing in it that suggested a teleportation device. In fact, aside from the computer terminals, the room was mostly bare. Atlantis' latest caretakers had stripped the place clean.
"It must be behind a panel somewhere." That seemed about right, when it came to Janus: hide something inside an already hidden room.
"Does it not tell you?" Teal'c tilted his head towards the display. Daniel shook his head.
"No, just that it was one of the last things he installed here before he left." Daniel turned away from the computer terminal, starting over to the nearest wall. They had to act fast, for the backup they had been hoping for was now in the direct line of fire. Every second they wasted searching for the teleporter, the nearer the drones got to that cargo ship. Daniel tried to reduce his overall franticness, for he knew that getting too worked up over it would only impair his judgment. He needed to be focused if he was going to find this secret escape teleporter.
Teal'c started at the other end of the room, feeling about whatever grooves happened to be between the panels on the walls. They worked quickly, trying just about every panel and indentation and slight bump that happened to be within reach. Daniel stopped at one corner, to the right of where a wall mounted terminal was situated. It was a terminal with no apparent purpose, doing little at the moment other than providing some small measure of blue light. However, Daniel noticed a set of words etched into the metal at the base of its screen in carefully carved Ancient. In English, they translated to: It is an easy mistake to make, to look farther than one needs. There were a few such phrases carved about the room, likely put there by Janus himself, perhaps intended for whoever would eventually unearth this laboratory once he and his people were long gone. Daniel paused as he read the words, mulling them over, finding it to be a somewhat familiar phrase. He had seen it there when he had first discovered this place, now about fifteen years ago. How time flew by, he thought, once again reminded that he was not getting any younger.
"Teal'c." He gestured for the Jaffa to come over, and Daniel went back to the terminal. This time, he knelt before it, looking under the console itself. There was little to see there but a flat, metal surface. However, he sighted in one corner a small, barely fingernail-sized notch cut in such a way that if he had looked at it from another angle, he may have missed it entirely. He put a finger to it, feeling part of the panel underneath budge. With enough of a pull, he was able to pop loose a palm-sized section of the panelling underneath the terminal. Inside were a few innocuous switches, none of which were marked with any identifiers. So, as one did when faced with a bunch of mysterious, unmarked switches, Daniel went and flicked them.
He felt part of the floor beneath him move then, and he jumped back in fright, half-expecting the floor to fall out from under him. Instead, a section of the floor panelling had lowered itself a mere half-inch before sliding aside, disappearing under the neighbouring panels. The exposed section left behind was about a metre and a half in diameter, and within was contained the familiar sight of a teleporter pad of typical Atlantean design. Daniel rose to his feet, stepping back away from the exposed teleporter. The computer display had changed, replaced with a map of the city and the teleporter pads dotted about it on the city's internal network. Seeing as how this one was not technically a part of that same network, it had not been affected by the lockout like the normal ones had been. Daniel breathed a sigh of relief: this was exactly the kind of break he had been looking for. Trust Janus to put it right under your nose.
"I think we're in luck," Daniel said, glancing at Teal'c. The veteran Jaffa nodded in agreement: this city was full of surprises, always had been. Daniel looked to the map on the computer display, seeing right away the very place they needed to go. And with this teleporter pad, they would be able to get there in the blink of an eye.
"We could be heading into a world of trouble," Daniel warned, meeting Teal'c's usually firm gaze. He nodded in acknowledgment but was otherwise unfazed by what he heard. Charging headlong into danger was something Teal'c had done a lot of throughout his life, and today was hardly going to be any different. They had run from their enemies earlier; now, they must turn back around and face them, especially seeing as how they had other people counting on them now. Help was on the way, but it would not get here unless they acted now.
Daniel tapped the marker on the map for the central tower, the heart of the lion's den. Readying his pistol, he then stepped upon the teleporter, as did Teal'c. Cocking his G36K rifle, Teal'c glanced at Daniel and gave another nod. He was ready. Seconds later, there was a flash of light around them, a light that enveloped them and sent an odd tingle surging through the pair. In a literal flash, they had vanished from within the secret laboratory.
The puddle jumper swooped in low over the lunar surface. Hot on its tail were a trio of Ancient drone weapons, each a glowing orb against the stark black of space behind it, illuminating their surrounds like a beacon. Were it not for the light that emanated from them, one might have noticed they appeared almost jellyfish-like, trailing behind a set of winding tendrils that presumably had something to do with their guidance systems or means of movement. At a glance, one might have thought that the warm glow coming off of them gave them an almost pleasant appearance. However, this belied their destructive potential, and three drones for a puddle jumper craft was practically overkill. One was enough to destroy a capital ship, if targeted properly.
John had taken his place at the co-pilot's seat inside the ship. The pilot at his left seemed to be doing a good enough job of keeping as much distance between them and the drones, although the weapons continued to close in. They simply moved faster than the puddle jumper, and no matter what the pilot did, no matter how hard he pushed the ship's engines, the drones kept on closing.
"Captain, I'll take it from here." John put his hands to the controls, sensing that almost telepathic connection take hold. It had been a long time since he had felt it, the long-buried Ancient gene putting him in tune with the ship immediately. The Captain at the pilot's seat had acquired the gene through experimental gene therapy, much like McKay had done so. However, that connection was not as fine-tuned as the one John carried and, although it allowed one to activate and operate Ancient technology, it did not offer the same intrinsic 'sense' that a natural connection brought with it. John could practically fly this ship with his thoughts, less operating the controls and more 'thinking' of where he wanted them to go.
Behind them, the team braced themselves. Stanton wore a tense expression, presumably expecting a fiery death within the next few seconds or so. Aithris appeared calm as he so often did, with Elsie's eyes noticeably widening in contrast.
John set his focus on flying the ship, finding something welcomingly familiar to being at the controls of a puddle jumper again. The display at the centre of the dashboard made it clear that the drones were getting close, whilst the crater-marked lunar surface shot by in a lightning blur. John had flown fighter planes, but this was a whole other level of speed. He sent the puddle jumper into a slight dive, causing it to barely scrape the lip of a large crater. Swooping low, he skirted dangerously close to the ground. Behind them, the drones followed, with the first one striking that same lip, kicking up a plume of grey dust. This impact was enough to knock it ever so slightly off course, sending it plunging into the floor of the crater, detonating with a deep rumble that sent forth an ever larger, spreading cloud of grey dust. Fire erupted from the impact, disturbing the lunar surface for miles around. Somewhere distant, the footprints left by one of the Apollo moon missions were shaken about to a small degree, having gone undisturbed for decades.
John remained calm, or at least forced himself to remain calm, as he sent the puddle jumper into a sharp climb that sent it soaring out of the crater. And still, the remaining two drones followed. Even if they managed to lose those, the people in Atlantis could simply shoot more their way. No, they could not keep running, not anymore. The city lay far off to the east, and it was in this direction John turned the ship.
"Hang on, everyone!" John called, glancing back at the passengers, seated in their varying states of preparedness for a crash (or flat-out death, for that matter). Heading for the city presented its own risks, among them the possibility that the shield harmonics might have been adjusted since this puddle jumper had last been there. If so, they would splatter across that shield like a bug on a windscreen. Not a pleasant thought, yet it was either risk that or continue getting hounded by drones until one of them finally caught up. Neither option was appealing. Still, John knew which one he would prefer to take his chances with.
Seeing the city on the lunar horizon, John pushed the puddle jumper's engines into the red. If he kept this up for too long, he could burn something out. However, by that point the drones would likely have caught up with them anyway. It was the kind of situation that called for desperate moves, and they were about all John had in mind right now.
Teleportation was quick and painless. The Ancients had refined it to a point that one barely felt anything during the transit. What came after was another matter entirely, as both Daniel and Teal'c materialised in a teleporter/elevator only a corridor away from the room that housed the city-ship's control chair. That put them in the heart of the central tower, the figurative 'lion's den', right where most of the bad guys were located.
The shooting started almost as soon as they had exited the elevator. Teal'c swivelled about to face one end of the corridor, with Daniel turning to the other. They moved in unison, gunning down a guard each before their opponents even had a chance to properly react. The gunshots were loud within the confines of the corridor, reverberating down its length and echoing throughout the entire tower. Moments later, an alarm started to sound, with just about every guard within the tower being diverted to their location. They had little time to lose, and so the pair raced on down to the room that housed what was perhaps one of the city's most important items.
There were two guards at the entrance of the room, and both had their guns up and ready as the intruders neared. Daniel and Teal'c simply pressed on quickly, weapons firing as they rounded the bend in the corridor, sending both guards tumbling. One slumped against the wall, leaving a bloody red smear after him. The inside of the room housed only one other occupant, seated on the only chair within. The rest of the room was otherwise bare, with the floor around the central chair illuminated from within with a blue-tinted white light. A sign that the control chair was active, with the elaborate device occupied by a thirty-something dark-haired man in a plain grey uniform.
A technician, no less, saddled with the thankless job of shooting drones at intruding ships. One of the very few blessed with the Ancient gene, the technician sat up as the two intruders barged in. His eyes widened and fear took hold of him when he saw the guns being aimed his way.
"Stop the drones," Daniel barked, his heart pounding. "Right now!"
The technician did not appear to be one with the stomach for a fight, and so he very literally jumped out of the chair. The illuminated backside of it suddenly switched off, and the quiet hum it had been exuding ceased abruptly. Silence fell about the room, the technician with his hands raised and eyes filled with fear. Daniel and Teal'c had their guns trained on him, but it was apparent that this technician was the least of their concerns.
Shouted orders and thumping footsteps could be heard echoing from down the hall outside. Daniel glanced at Teal'c, and the pair of them rushed back over to the doorway. More of the local security was coming for them, and Daniel sighted a pair down the left-hand end of the corridor. Behind them, the technician suddenly rushed forwards, intent on making his getaway. He brushed by Daniel, stumbling into the corridor.
"Wait!" Daniel shouted, but it was too late. The two guards down one end halted, their guns raised, and in a matter of seconds they were shooting. Daniel and Teal'c stumbled away from the doorway as bullets slammed against the walls, sparks flying. The technician half-spun where he stood, bloody spurts erupting across his torso as a good dozen rounds tore through him. He fell into an undignified and bloodied heap upon the floor of the corridor, blood slowly pooling around him. The guards ceased fire, realising very quickly that they had shot the wrong person.
Daniel slammed a hand against the glowing control panel by the door. The door slid shut, and without further thought he put the barrel of his pistol against the panel and fired. There followed an eruption of sparks and some small slivers of metal, a thin wisp of smoke wafting out of the destroyed panel. The light in it died and the door remained closed, rendered non-functional for the time being. Of course, there were ways to force it open, and it was with this in mind that Daniel turned to Teal'c.
"We need to barricade this door." He knew that there was no way out now. They had done what they had come here to do. Neither of them had the Ancient gene, so operating the chair was out of the question. They would barricade themselves inside and keep the bad guys out for as long as they could. Not the best plan, but for now it would have to do. It would only be a matter of time before the security forces broke in, and with no other exit both he and Teal'c would probably be killed. Daniel searched for any reachable vents about the room, and the one that he saw in the centre of the ceiling looked a little too small for him, and it was certainly too small for Teal'c.
There was little other furniture in the room. One metal bench was folded up and leaning against the far wall; for lack of anything better, they dragged it over to the door and leaned it against there. Already there were people thumping on the other side, trying to force the door open. Some gunfire followed, but the rounds simply pinged off of the solid metal door, doing little actual damage save for marking the copper-coloured alloy. Daniel estimated they had several minutes before someone was able to force the doors open, perhaps less if these people pulled out energy weapons to aid in the task. And there was no doubt in his mind that this shady cabal had access to such exotic alien weaponry.
"Should we sabotage the control chair?" Teal'c asked, as both he and Daniel took a few careful steps back from the door. The Jaffa kept his gun trained on it, ready to open fire as soon as it opened even a crack.
"Not yet," Daniel said. "That's a last resort." Taking back Atlantis intact would be preferable, even if it seemed unlikely. If there was no other option, then they would destroy the control chair and deprive the enemy of its use. For now, they would sit back and hold out for as long as they could. Daniel had figured that one of these days this job would get him killed. Today seemed as good a day as any for it.
"Sir, take a look." The pilot nodded to the central scanner display. John, his concentration set upon flying the puddle jumper, took a moment to glance over. Doing so was a risk, if only because of the speeds they were going and the fact that they had two Ancient drones on their tail. However, when John saw the scanners, he found himself taking a somewhat closer look.
"They're gone?" He could not believe it. The two yellow indicators on the mostly blue scanner display had been rearing up on the ship at a rate that John knew was inescapable. Losing one had been a small miracle, but losing all three? Even John, who had flown puddle jumpers through some serious trouble in the past, did not think he was going to succeed. All he had been doing was prolonging the inevitable and hoping to whatever higher power was out there that some good luck came their way.
It appeared that their prayers had been answered. The scanner screen was clean, and John, very carefully, began to slow the already straining puddle jumper to a more manageable speed. The pilot on his left took another look, tapping a few keys to make sure that there were no glitches in the system. The drones were gone, a miracle in itself. Perhaps there really was someone watching out for them?
More like someone in the city was looking out for them. John slowed the puddle jumper right down, allowing his hands to relax somewhat on the controls. No need for the white-knuckle piloting now, for they were in the clear. And somewhere further north was Atlantis, nestled amongst the crater-marked surface of the moon. He turned them towards it, sighting the city in the distance through the viewport. Whoever was running the place now had some pressing questions to answer, not that John really wanted to give them a chance to do so.
"We're in the clear," John called, glancing back at the passengers behind him. He saw some relieved faces, heard some exhalations and sighted a very thankful Elsie meet his gaze and smile. John noticed that Natalia had put a hand in one of Aithris' own; she was quick to disengage the grasp, untwining her fingers from his.
"For now," John added. He turned back to the viewport and the puddle jumper's controls. "I say that because we're heading right for the cause of our trouble. They might have anti-air batteries, there's no way to know until they start shooting at us." He thought of cloaking the puddle jumper again, but it seemed a waste of time. Not if they could detect them regardless. Save the power, he thought, and hopefully it would become useful later. If only this thing was still armed…
Atlantis grew in size as they neared, the shimmer of its dome-shaped shield apparent. This would be a moment of truth: would the harmonic field the puddle jumper generated still be in tune with that of Atlantis' shield? Or had it been altered in some way? If so, then this ship was about to splatter right across that shield.
John gritted his teeth as they neared the city. The size of it was always enough to make him pause, as approaching it from the air often gave the impression that it was not quite so big. However, up close, one truly got a feel for the vastness of the city-ship the Ancients had built. The various buildings and towers rose up high, some higher than most skyscrapers on Earth. The highest tower was roughly eight-hundred and fifty metres in height, dwarfing any manmade construction on Earth. It was to that central tower that John guided the puddle jumper for now, swooping in low beneath the perceived rooftop level of some of the structures that surrounded it.
The puddle jumper made contact with the city's shield then. John winced slightly, expecting the ship to buckle and flatten itself across the shield. If so, then such a demise would be relatively quick, especially at the speeds the puddle jumper was travelling. However, no such end came, and the ship simply shot straight on through the shield as if it was not there. A sigh of relief escaped the veteran Colonel, for now that last bit of uncertainty was gone. They were within the city limits now, and with that progress their odds of succeeding with this haphazard mission had greatly increased.
The secondary jumper bay seemed like a good bet, if only because the scanners were telling him there were ground-to-air missile batteries near the upper levels of the tower. The secondary bay, located lower along its height, was also the only other real place they had to park the puddle jumper within the tower. Either that, or they could put it somewhere further away and try to make it to the control tower on foot. Such an option would cost them time, and too much of it, not to mention provide the enemy with more of an opportunity to hem them in and prevent their advance.
John came upon the jumper bay doors, nestled some ways below the upper levels of the tower. They opened automatically as the spacecraft approached, the city detecting the familiar ship and the presence of apparently friendly life on board. One of the ground-to-air batteries had fired, but it was irrelevant now, the puddle jumper now heading into the tower itself. The missile would likely be disarmed before it tracked them, lest it do damage to the most critical building of the city.
Sometimes John had thought that maybe the city had a mind of its own, as strange as that seemed. Given how advanced the Ancients were with their artificial intelligences, it was probably not such a stretch. Even so, they had never found any real evidence of an underlying 'presence' to the city's systems. However, John found it slightly odd how the jumper bay doors opened, for they did so without him having to give any commands. Normally a thought was enough once he was within range; this time around, they had done so before he had even thought of it. The idea that they were heading into a trap did cross his mind. Regardless, the puddle jumper was not so easily damaged, so unless their enemies had more drones to throw at them he figured that coming in under fire would not be an issue.
"Ready up, everyone," John called, and he heard the familiar clicks and clacks of weapons being loaded and cocked. Carefully, John brought the puddle jumper into the expanse of the secondary jumper bay. There were a handful of the craft parked about the multi-level hangar, although less than he remembered there being here the last time he had paid Atlantis a visit. He went to set his puddle jumper onto the lowest level, a mostly empty expanse housing another puddle jumper and several stacks of metal boxes containing equipment and supplies. The lights were on about the bay, so the place was operating at some level.
As John slowed the craft and began to bring it in for a gentle landing, he sighted the doors at the end of the lower-level opening. He supposed he should not have been surprised when several armed men, clad in black combat gear with their faces concealed under tinted visors and respirators, came charging in with their weapons firing. Bullets clanked and pinged against the puddle jumper's metal fuselage. They did little else, and John offered the armed goons a wave whilst he set the jumper hovering a few metres off of the floor.
The wave must have invited trouble, since another one of them ran into the room, this time wielding some kind of large black metal weapon that John recognized as being Calsharan in make. One of their heavy pulse cannons, normally mounted for easier use, but this one was being wielded single-handedly by a very determined anonymous goon. John hit the button to open the puddle jumper's rear hatch.
"Everybody out!" John shouted, and he set the controls to keep the ship hovering in place as he himself rose from his chair. The thug with the pulse cannon lugged it onto one shoulder, the barrel glowing brightly with a blue-tinted charge. The passengers started throwing themselves out of the opened rear doors, taking their chances with a fall of a few metres instead of sticking around. John was the last one out, hearing the dull thump of the pulse cannon as it let fly with its blistering plasma charge, signified by a brilliant blue flash.
The entire puddle jumper shook violently, sending John stumbling as he neared the exit. The front of the craft had been set alight with searing blue flame as the plasma blast had spread across it, scorching metal but not outrightly penetrating the ship's frame. However, a second blast followed, and this one clipped one of the jumper's extended wing-pods, shearing it away completely. Fire spilled out of ragged metal that remained and the entire jumper began to spin slowly, its anti-gravity drive failing.
John landed in a heap on the floor, pain shooting up from the wound he had received on Dalabrai. Gritting his teeth, he scrambled to his feet and threw himself into cover behind the nearest parked jumper. The damaged one he had just bailed from was falling forwards, nose-diving for the very doors the armed security guards had just emerged from. They all scrambled out of the way of the oncoming ship, with even the man wielding the Calsharan pulse cannon throwing the weapon aside in order to make a quick getaway. The jumper slammed into the walls and double doors, the noise of the impact reverberating loudly throughout the entire jumper bay. It was like someone striking two metal poles together, albeit at a volume one hundredfold, and for a moment John could hear some subdued ringing in his ears.
And then the jumper's engines went, the ship erupting into a brilliant ball of flame, the heat almost white hot as the Ancient-made power source only added fuel to the fire. The explosion was the next noise to rattle the occupants of the bay, with the roar being about all John could hear for several seconds right as the concussive shockwave slammed into him and everyone else. A large portion of the jumper bay's entry was consumed in the blast, metal warping and twisting and being torn asunder in the blink of an eye.
Rubble was strewn about the floor of the landing bay. What remained of the puddle jumper, little more than a flaming hulk, had come to rest where the double doors had been. One of the security troopers was flailing about, consumed in flames, his screams muffled by the mask he wore and the vaguely electronic tones it gave them. A couple of the other troopers lay dead amongst the rubble. The others were regathering their senses, readying their weapons.
Aithris was first to open fire, a volley from his SCAR-H putting down one of the troopers. The rest of the team quickly followed, spread out as they were across the floor of the jumper bay. Weapons barked; short, controlled bursts at that, and the faceless security soldiers ahead of them went down one after another. John was impressed by the overall efficiency of the team, and once the last thug was down, he signalled for them to fall-in and follow. He had a feeling they would find the people responsible for what was happening here somewhere in the levels above, and that was if they did not try and clear out in a hurry.
Despite the circumstances, it felt good to be back here, as if he 'belonged' to this place. It had been years since he had last set foot in Atlantis, and to see it commandeered by some genuinely shady characters only made him all the more determined to rid the place of them. The rules of engagement had very quickly gone from 'fire when fired upon' to 'kill anything that moves'. The people in charge of the place now certainly had no qualms about killing the intruders. John intended to find out who was at the top.
