Time Immemorial
Chapter 33: Invictus
July 17th
0932 Hours
Treading cautiously down an empty corridor, Major Sheppard listened to the sounds of the ongoing assault. He followed his ears, hoping to run into another expedition member.
Maybe if I still had my radio, he thought sourly, I wouldn't have to do this the old fashioned way.
Suddenly the flash of a camouflaged uniform cut across his vision. A marine darted from right to left down a t-junction ahead.
"Hey!" John called out, unable to discern who it was. He cupped his hands around his mouth and broke into a loose jog. "Hey, stop!"
The unidentified marine didn't so much as slow, plainly out of earshot. He disappeared as quickly as he had come.
John dropped his hands in chagrin. He pressed himself flat against the wall as he drew closer, approaching the intersection warily. The man had been running from something. Marines didn't scare easily, that much he knew, but the major figured whatever had sent him hauling ass down the hall was nothing to be trifled with-
"Whoa!" Sheppard exclaimed, his head nearly taken off as he'd slowly craned it around the corner.
The marine's partner - Sergeant Hernandez, John spied - flew down the hall nearly as fast as his predecessor. This time, though, as he reached the center of the intersection, Hernandez turned in the direction he had came and let loose with an extended burst from his rifle.
Sheppard ducked back around the corner, pressing himself flat once more. He waited out the salvo, drawing his confiscated Lacedami pistol to his thigh.
"Hernandez," he whispered once the sergeant had stopped firing.
The marine backed slowly down the hall, eyes still locked in the direction he had fired.
"Hernandez!" John yelled again, louder. This time John was certain: there was no way he hadn't been heard. The man was standing not more than six feet from him. Yet Hernandez paid him no mind, clearly more worried about whatever was about to come down that corridor.
John didn't like to be ignored. But before he smacked the enlisted man upside the head for insubordination, he'd help him tackle this unknown foe. John snapped around the corner to his right, gun up. Nothing.
Letting the pistol fall to his side, John rounded on the man. "Sergeant, you want to tell me what exactly..."
His eyes trailed Hernandez as he ran off in the direction of his partner.
"My day's going fine, thanks for asking - how's yours?" John muttered after the marine. He reholstered his sidearm. Turning back around, he faced the direction of the pair's emergence-
- and stood in full view of an oncoming Wraith sentry.
Shit! was his immediate thought as he raced to draw his weapon again. The Wraith was closing, moving too fast, too close to get a shot off, not enough time to-
The Wraith was right on top of him.
No, not on top of, John realized. Through. The creature had ran full bore right at him, passed straight through his form, and had continued its pursuit of the two marines. It was like Sheppard hadn't even been there at all.
John spun, watching the Wraith go. Instinctively he patted himself down: arms, legs, torso, all there, undamaged by the encounter.
"What the hell?" he couldn't help but breathing aloud. He took a step back, bracing himself against the wall. There was no doubt in his mind what had happened. Both he and the Wraith had occupied the same space for a split second. He was no physicist, but he was fairly certain that that wasn't possible.
Projections, John quickly remembered. The Wraith project false images to terrorize their victims.
"And it worked, too," he answered dryly, irritated how unsettled he had gotten over the event. "Buck up, John. What is this, your first day?"
Though try as he did to shake it off, a small corner of his brain remained unaccepting of the rationalization.
Forcing his feet forward, he continued his search. Figuring the direction the two marines had fled was as good as any, he trekked that way, vaguely recognizing the passages as being in proximity to the mess hall. As the major passed one open doorway, he made an educated guess that it hadn't been opened deliberately. His big clue: the ten foot piece of fallen metal framework lodging one half of the door in the semi-open position. The other half of the door had been blown clear off, leaving a ragged, scorched edge. Bits of debris laid piled around the exit.
It was the sight through the gaping opening, though, that had caught his eye. This particular door led outside, and should have led to a picturesque balcony overlooking the water. That balcony, though, currently laid in about five hundred pieces at the bottom of the ocean. Still, John writhed through.
He prayed what he was seeing was not true.
Careful not to lose his footing on the loose rubble, John stepped out onto what remained of the balcony. He cast his gaze upward. The exquisite sapphire cloak above mirrored the one below, and on any other day he might have found that blue sky and endless ocean welcome sights. But not now, not at the peak of the battle. He had expected he'd be seeing a different cloak enveloping Atlantis.
"No, no, no... The City's shield's not up," he murmured, his heart sinking.
Darts zoomed past him, left and right, their engines droning with their signature buzz. An occasional pop-pop-pop heralded defensive antiaircraft fire, but they were too seldom to be making any dent in the onslaught. Most ships opened fire on the City, strafing at key positions along the piers and towers. The others flew low, using their culling beams to either collect their human prey or deliver more drones. Even more were inbound from above, brazen and confident in their trajectory without a shield to stop them.
His first thought was that Antigonos had duped them, that he had truly given them a completely depleted ZPM. He cast that theory aside. Antigonos had promised it was fully operational. John had believed him at the time and still did. The commander had needed a working power source for his plan; a drained ZPM would have done him no good.
That only left one alternative.
"McKay..." Sheppard realized.
Fearing the worst, John struggled back through the entryway and ran with all he had toward the Power Room.
The Athosian wanted nothing more than to curl up and let sleep take hold of her, right there on the hallway floor. She fought the urge. While it would have been wise on any other day to heed her body's protests, she knew that if she didn't move in the next few seconds a more permanent kind of sleep would be upon her.
Teyla squirmed forward along the tile, her back on fire. Already she could feel warm blood seeping into her shirt. She ignored it. All that mattered was distancing herself from the Wraith behind her.
To underscore the urgency, a threatening hiss arose from her six o'clock.
Looking desperately at her P-90 only feet away, Teyla continued to clamber toward her one and only weapon. Reaching out took all her strength-
Teyla yelped as she felt herself being suddenly and swiftly dragged backward across the floor, a strong hand clenched painfully around her left ankle. Its skin was cold and clammy, repulsive. She kicked instinctively against it but to no avail. Her earpiece tumbled across the tile, dislodged by the tussle. She cried out at the crushing pain before her movement abruptly halted. The Wraith released its grip.
Before she could reorient herself, the scout grabbed hold of her combat vest and flipped her on her back. Bolts of pain shot through her body.
"Never have I been made to work so hard for a meal," he rasped irately. He looked her up and down, disappointed. "And a light one at that."
Teyla glared back at the monster defiantly. Though a hand the size of her own head pinned her down, she writhed forcibly still against its grasp. She felt her vest being torn from her torso, her upper chest now exposed. The creature raised its arm back, preparing to feed, the grotesque mouth on its right palm opening in anticipation-
The Wraith looked up sharply. The Athosian could not see what had caught his attention, but it was plain from his piqued expression that he was not pleased at the interruption. He hissed menacingly at the new arrival.
The Wraith rose abruptly and stood squarely between Teyla and the newcomer. "How dare you interrupt my feeding!" he bellowed.
Craning her neck, she spotted the source of the scout's vexation. It was the third Wraith, the hulking warrior that she and his two hivemates had left in the dust during their chase. He had finally caught up with them.
The silent drone stood stock still, unperturbed by the smaller Wraith's threat, menacing even in complete silence. He studied Teyla, wounded on the floor, an easy target. He then looked at the scout, cocking his head in a distinctly alien fashion.
Teyla swallowed as she recognized the situation. The drone was sizing up his competition. It was classic feral behavior. Instinct and hunger transcended any rank or caste when scavengers smelled their next meal. She'd seen them quarrel over a fresh kill. She didn't particularly want to be the next one.
Though the scout had laid claim, the masked behemoth easily outweighed him. And as she saw the warrior's gaze land on the scout's knife wound she herself had inflicted, she knew that rightful claim or not, he liked his odds against its smaller, injured hivemate.
The scout must have realized the same thing, for at that moment he roared in indignation, his pride besmirched. He launched himself at the larger Wraith, bringing his spear gun round as he closed the distance. The warrior, too, calmly raised its own weapon, but not before the scout's stun beam landed squarely on the warrior's chest. The drone, however, simply stared back at his opponent, unfazed. He fired his own shot back at the scout.
Teyla wasted no time. She fully intended to make use of the distraction. Her eyes searched the space for something, anything, she could use to her advantage. The exit was forty feet away - too far. Her P-90, much closer. She crawled on her hands and knees, trying to keep quiet but unable to squelch small cries of pain as her back erupted in agony. Moving quickly, she closed the gap, reached out for the rifle-
A stun blast nearly caught her arm. Missing by inches, the energy pulse instead slammed into the rifle, causing it to skid away across the floor. Teyla snapped her head around. She spotted the Wraith scout, the tip of his spear rifle still glowing white-hot from the energy discharge.
It seemed she hadn't been forgotten about after all.
The Wraith scout reengaged the warrior. The two were now locked in brutal hand-to-hand combat like nothing Teyla had ever seen. Their movements could only be described as animalistic, visceral.
The masked drone was clearly winning the bout. Bred for this singular purpose, his genes did not let him down. He delivered wallop after wallop to his opponent who continued to weaken with each blow. Then, in the coup de grace, the warrior knocked the scout off balance, wrested his spear gun from his grip, and ran his adversary through with his own weapon. The point of the slender rifle pierced the scout's chest like a bayonet, but the warrior didn't ease up until the entire length of the barrel protruded from the scout's back. The vanquished Wraith gargled on his own blood, clenching the larger beast's armor to keep from collapsing.
Teyla saw her opportunity and seized it. Abandoning logic and reason, Teyla ran toward the locked pair. She prayed she remained out of their peripheral vision. Before either Wraith knew what was coming, the Athosian reached the warrior, depressed the large, round button on his armored vest, and swiped his legs out from underneath him with a low kick.
She then ran for all she was worth.
The behemoth lashed out at the wily human but she had been too quick. He toppled like a colossal tree, taking the second Wraith with him. They collapsed in an entanglement of limbs. Struggling with each breath, the scout's eyes widened at the sight of concentric blinking rings on his hivemate's vest, accompanied by a steady beeping. He attempted to distance himself from what he knew was to come, but still skewered by the rifle he had nowhere to go. The drone, realizing his own fate, tried to detangle himself from his brother. As the beeping quickened, he wrested an arm free from under the weight of the scout. But it was too late.
The concussive force of the self-destruct mechanism drove Teyla into the far wall, having rounded the corner of the T-junction barely a split second earlier. She felt the heat of the blast singe her lacerated back as she hit the floor. Then just like that, it was over. She'd escaped the worst of it.
Catching her breath, the Athosian crawled cautiously toward the intersection. Warily, she peered back around the corner. There was no sign of either Wraith, both blown to bits. Small spot fires and charred tile marked the spot she'd last left them.
Allowing herself a small sigh of relief, she wiped her brow and took to her feet. She winced as she put weight on her left ankle, the one the Wraith had crushed under its powerful grip. Weaponless, she hobbled in the direction of the Control Room.
Every step leaves its print, and each makes solid progress.
How she hated her father's adage at that particular moment.
Wiping the sweat from his brow, McKay worked feverishly to finish coding the ZPM's subroutine. Wait, how am I sweating? he asked himself. Wasn't it freezing in here a second ago? Wait, I always sweat. I'm a sweater. Plus, I'm trying to save the City. Right.
The light of the screen his only illumination, Rodney hurriedly manipulated the Lantean controls. He knew he was taking far too long. He should have been complete over ten minutes ago. But the interface proved harder than he'd anticipated, especially with one arm immobilized, and with every additional minute he lingered the math showed that another teammate probably-
No excuses, no conjecture, his subconscious interrupted. Finish the job.
He could see the code's end in his mind's eye. He wished he could just skip to the punchline, but he dared not push his pace any harder. Any quicker than the blinding graduate-school-Mountain-Dew-induced-all-nighter speed at which he was currently operating and he risked inducing error. McKay was painfully aware that a single line omitted, even a single misplaced character, would spell the end for Atlantis.
The physicist pressed on. Twenty lines of code to go.
He suddenly recalled Dr. Weir and Major Sheppard's inevitable badgering to turn on this gizmo or fix that widget, their voices over the radio then hounding him for incessant status updates, his deadlines always in half the time he would've liked and the consequences of his failure always grim. They never took his 'no' for an answer, regardless of the long odds. He'd always been chafed by that, now realizing their refusal to acquiesce was a testament to their faith in him. Touching his earpiece, gone silent many minutes ago, Rodney now wished for nothing more than to hear those voices again, badgering and all.
Five lines left.
Their faith was not misplaced. He would not let them down.
Three lines. The final if statement, the last endloop.
His finger hovered over the Enter key. "I'm done," McKay realized. "I'm done! Please check good, please check good, please check good..." he chanted, slamming Enter to run one final diagnostic. It passed. The ZPM was ready for use, to operate under the specifications he had provided it.
The Canadian shot to his feet, his chair careening over backward behind him, as he raised his good arm in silent victory. "I know Kung Fu," he breathed.
He allowed himself exactly three more seconds of celebration before gathering a few precious tools and heading for the exit. They were so close to the end; the disaster was almost over. All he had to do was raise Atlantis' shield from the Control Room.
"Teyla! Teyla, can you hear me?" he whispered tersely into his radio. McKay poked his head into the hallway as he awaited a response. All was quiet.
"Teyla, it's done! I'm headed to the Control Room! Are you out there?"
No reply.
"Teyla?" Rodney tried again, dread creeping into his voice. For reasons he didn't want to fathom, it was plain he would be making the journey to the Control Room alone.
TBC