Chapter 28 – The Impending Loss
Teyla paced across the short distance at the back of Atlantis' Control Room.
The atmosphere in the room was tense and silent apart from the usual discussions such an operational centre required, but even those conversations were quiet and subdued.
All were waiting...
Waiting for the Portal to dial.
It would be either the Facility, Athos, or those that held John.
Teyla lifted her wrist to consult her Earth timepiece, as she had been doing obsessively for the last hour. The minutes were ticking away in a fashion that was somehow both achingly slow but frighteningly fast at the same time.
She was aware of each of her breaths as she stopped her pacing and looked forward, over Si' and Dr Zelenka's heads, towards the front of the room.
Colonel Carter stood quiet ahead of the front consoles, General O'Neill and Colonel Sumner flanking her shoulders. None of them were talking, they were simply waiting.
There was nothing else to do.
They could all only wait for news from inside the Alliance, or to be forced to watch John be tortured once again. Perhaps even killed live in front of their eyes.
Angry, frustrated tears threatened to fill Teyla's eyes.
She turned, putting her back to the quiet and stoically patient room.
Facing the back wall where no one could see her face directly, Teyla closed her eyes and willed herself calm.
The panic shook her breath and her mind kept stubbornly circling round the same thoughts, analysing timings and theories. There were no answers to them; no new idea arriving from the obsessive worrying that might stop what she might soon be forced to watch.
She had no way to save John yet; there was nothing new she could follow, demand, threaten, or attack for him.
All she could do was wait. The next step was entirely out of her hands.
Her only hope was that the Facility would dial in first, having located exactly where Kolya's people were holding John. If he was truly being held in Alliance space, then at least that meant she could call upon assistance, yet even that truth was limited today.
After she and Colonel Carter had spoken to Massa in the Facility, supplying him with everything the Elite needed to search the links network, she had then dialled into Athos. Though the search of the network would be thorough and accurate, she still wanted the Honour Guard involved and using their own connections and intel.
Vakalis had been as efficient as ever, but, whilst he had been talking with her, he had received the news that the border had once again been breached. The unknown Hive ship had once again reappeared within Alliance territory. It had been an outlying sensor satellite that had apparently sent up the alert from out near the border, which was fortunately an area mostly devoid of habitable planets. However, it would mean that the entire Alliance would now be focused on that danger rather than helping her find John.
Vakalis promised he would do all he could.
Massa and the technicians in the Facility would keep working hard to trace the links network, regardless of the crisis, but...
She had never felt so useless or so stressed. She could feel her heart pumping in her chest, vibrating uncomfortably through her ribcage. She had spent a lifetime in battle situations, regularly facing stressful situations that most would do anything to avoid. She had stood on the brink of battles in which she had been hopelessly outnumbered by Wraith ready to tear the life-force from her, but she had not felt this way.
The instinctive fear for her own life had faded many years ago. It was part of an Elite warrior's training to face the truth of one's mortality and be ready to throw oneself into the fire of war. Any who could not do that, did not complete their training, or did not live long enough for it to become a bigger problem.
Even caring for fellow warriors took on a different shade of emotional response for Elite. She would do anything she could to protect those she worked with, those who were her Elite family. Yet, she knew that they had chosen the same life as she had, and therefore their deaths, of which she had faced before many times, did not have the same sharp fearful response wrapped around them. If Si, Halling, Oneakka, or any of those of her Elite family were to fall in battle tomorrow, she would weep and she would grieve for them profoundly, but she knew that they had chosen their life's work. She would know that they had given their lives for a noble cause and that there were vast numbers of people alive today thanks to the work they had done so far in their lives.
But, John...
This felt very different. This was not facing her own demise, it was facing his.
It was the prospect of having to watch him die painfully at the hands of a Wraith while she was completely powerless to stop it. It would be knowing that she had failed him. That her last memories of him might be of watching him withering away into a hollowed dried husk and his body discarded without care.
And it would be knowing that he would be killed for the simple sake of Kolya's advancement, part of his sick twisted determination to rise to power over his people. He was going to murder John as if John were nothing more than a card to be played in a game.
She blinked her eyes quickly, willing the tears away. They were not helping. She needed to be focused, be calm. Be an Elite.
Except, she didn't feel like one right now.
She felt like a wife about to lose her husband.
How many women had she witnessed crying over the bodies of their lost loves? How many tears sobbed over the dead? How many had she had not been able to save over all these years?
What if John was to become one of the fallen?
00000
Long Sleep slid to a halt in the middle of the corridor, the air whistling around him, rushing down the length of the flickering space ahead of him. Drones, some clearly injured, ran towards him and the entranceway in which he stood. Behind them, Long Sleep could see gases, steam, and boiling nourishment fluid splattering down the corridor.
He could actually see the long thin fissures along the distant end of the corridor, air and the steam rushing towards them, leaking out into the vacuum outside. The hull was breached; not enough for them all to be blown out there, but enough to destabilise this entire section of the Hive, bursting membranes, fluid tubes and power lines.
The wailing alarm echoed loud in his ears around the air roaring past him down towards the vacuum outside the cracks.
"Out! Out!" Long Sleep shouted again to the drones still to make it out of the section.
The Hive was trying to seal off the section, but the flickering and unsteady power supply meant it was taking time. The delay was worrying considering the importance of sealing damaged sections, but it was allowing those still inside the section the chance to escape before all the air was lost to space outside.
Long Sleep reached out a hand towards one drone almost to him and helped drag the large and clearly injured male through and then down to the decking. As others dragged the drone safely out of the way, Long Sleep turned back to those still running towards him down the damaged corridor.
The decking abruptly lurched under Long Sleep and he felt the shift of gravity, which suggested that the ship was pulling away from the conflicting pull of a planetary body. Had they jumped into orbit of a planet? He had had no time to find out where the new jump had brought them, as the results had been alarming quick and damaging on the Hive. Even if they were in orbit of a planet, this was hardly a good time to put the ship through dramatic manoeuvres.
The doorway around him abruptly started to close, the webbing finally gaining enough power to start to shut. Long Sleep snapped his arm back out of the way as the webbing began to slide together from the frame of the entrance way, only to run out of power at the last minute. A drone, still trapped on the other side, tried reaching through the remaining small open space in the webbing. Long Sleep set his hands on the webbing, hoping to push it apart, though he made sure not to put his fingers between the webbing's edges. The drone reached its hand through the space, but Long Sleep felt the webbing shudder, the decking shifting under his feet again, and the webbing slid out of his hands and slammed shut to finally seal the breached section.
The drone's severed hand dropped to the decking, still twitching as it landed by Long Sleep's boots.
His eyes on the dying extremity, Long Sleep realised that he was panting and so worked to catch his breath. He drew in the now fully oxygenated air around him and his ears popped uncomfortably, the air re-pressurising.
Steam and the smell of blood rushing up into his nose, he turned. "Clear this section!" He shouted at the drones and warriors stupidly still packed in the corridor behind him. "The power is unstable!"
They seemed to understand what he was saying, but their sickly minds were not moving all that fast to fully assess the danger they were in.
He pushed through a group of slowly reacting drones, and raced down the corridor behind them.
"Clear the section. The breach may spread and power is unstable," he shouted as he ran past some more blank looking warriors.
He had hoped to find a way to ensure that he could sabotage the power lines in this part of the Hive, but it appeared that it was hardly going to be all that difficult.
There was a regional power nodule just around the next corner; if he could damage it beyond repair, this entire quadrant of the ship would lose power. That would cut off power to both engine pods but, most importantly, the new evil drive.
He rounded the corner to find a massive crack broken through the floor of the corridor. A warrior was pulling himself up out of it, the corridor on the level below visible as Long Sleep jumped over the hole.
"Evacuate this section," Long Sleep shouted as he ran on.
It was hardly going to be difficult now to enact his plan.
The regional power nodule's maintenance chamber entranceway ahead, Long Sleep rushed inside to find one Keeper already here. The Keeper looked round, his face coated in nervous sweat and he appeared to be struggling to assess what he should do about the blinking panels around the chamber.
"Shut it down," Long Sleep ordered without slowing until he slid to a hurried stop at the main panel.
"Yes, Keeper," the warrior agreed with obvious relief and pressed his hand into the main command panel.
Long Sleep ran his eyes quickly over the blinking soft glowing lights and the flickering holographic display. Most of the nodule's main power lines that ran out from this point, feeding power to this quadrant of the Hive, were nearly all buckled or breached, and some were even on fire according to the display.
At the other Keeper's touch, the nodule started powering down, the lights overhead dimming, and the display showed an immediate reaction. The lines that had been struggling were dimming and fading.
It wouldn't be nearly enough though.
The other Keeper turned away to see to the emergency power cells, so Long Sleep set his hand to the Hive link and commanded the right subtle sequence to surge renewed power back into the nodule. It was the wrong sequence, one that all Keepers knew not to do, especially if the regional nodule was damaged. Today, however, it was just what Long Sleep needed and it would seem entirely in keeping with the current damage.
The reaction happened immediately, the display lighting up with a flash of light and the nodule in the next chamber exploded within its housing.
00000
The air whipped aggressively around Halling and he lifted his arm to cover his face as he looked up into the faintly orange coloured thin atmosphere of the Arkinian moon.
"...in...now, Honou...Elite," Inifee's voice cut through static into Halling's ear as he felt the air moving as the Ancestral ship landed close by. With the cloaking shield in place, he could not tell where the ship was, but the air displaced by the ship's approach was obvious.
Halling looked back over his shoulder towards the gouge in the moon's surface that allowed entrance into the water caverns beneath, but Oneakka and Seeal were still on their way up to the surface.
The air started to settle, but there was still nothing to see of the Ancestral ship. He waited, knowing Inifee would be opening the back hatch and quickly provide the location of the ship.
"...up there?" Oneakka's voice added into Halling's ear.
"I am here," Inifee's voice arrived alongside Oneakka's but also off to the right and Halling looked round to see the top half of Inifee appearing out of thin air.
Halling rushed towards him and Inifee held out an arm. Halling caught hold of the offered forearm and allowed the angle of Inifee's body to guide him as to where the open back hatchway would be. His boots met the secure metal surface and he released Inifee's arm and strode up into the welcoming warmth of the inside of the Ancestral ship.
"I'm onboard," Halling stated into his link as he looked back towards the exit out of the caverns, waiting for the others to appear so he could guide them to the ship.
"The link is clearer," Oneakka reported over the connection, his voice winded from running up from the floor of the cavern.
"The Hive is moving away from orbit," Inifee supplied from where he was hurrying back to his pilot seat. "It appeared exactly at those ordinates I was scanning. If it hadn't been for the radiation appearing first and warning me, the Hive would have crushed me as it came through."
"Came through?" Seeal's breathless voice entered over the conversation. "There was a doorway?"
"Damned well looked like an opening," Inifee replied, and it was one of the first times that Halling could recall hearing Inifee swear. In fact, Inifee looked slightly shaken still; clearly it had been a very close encounter with the Hive. "I'm guessing it was too low in orbit and immediately started moving up and away."
"We're up," Oneakka stated and Halling saw him and Seeal appear out of the cavern's entrance.
"This way," Halling called as he stepped one leg out of the ship to the moon's surface, partially revealing himself out of the cloaking shield.
Oneakka and Seeal ran quickly towards him, both looking red faced from their fast run. They had made it up here in quick time.
Halling stretched out a hand towards Oneakka as he fast approached, and his friend caught his arm and Halling stepped back, doing what Inifee had done for him, and guided Oneakka up onto the lowered hatchway. Releasing Oneakka's forearm, Halling shifted aside to repeat the same for Seeal, but saw that she had caught hold of the back of Oneakka's holster and had followed him inside the ship that way.
The two both safely boarding, Halling followed them into the back of the ship and set his hand against the Ancestral panel to trigger the back hatchway to close.
"Where is it now?" Oneakka asked Inifee as he and Seeal hurried into the forward section.
"I've got it on sensors still," Inifee reported. "It's holding just out from the moon."
"Did it detect you?" Oneakka asked next as Halling watched the hatchway close.
"Back is sealed," Halling reported and then hurried forward to join the conversation.
"There was no indication that they detected me, but I headed down here as soon as I avoided the collision with their hull," Inifee explained.
"Can you show me the readings you took?" Seeal asked from the seat across the aisle from Inifee, Oneakka stood between them. Halling moved in close behind Oneakka's shoulder to see the Ancestral display shifting to show several sets of energy readings.
Seeal had her computer tablet on her lap, the previously recorded radiation and data across the smaller screen. "It looks exactly the same as what we've seen before, but less static filled."
"It certainly sounded full of static," Halling noted.
"I was so close to the Hive that the radiation just blasted through even the clearer links frequencies we've been using," Inifee explained.
"The Ancestral sensors still picked up far more than any of our other sensors previously," Seeal supplied. "It's recorded a hell of a lot more in fact, but it all still matches what we've seen before. I'd say it's the same Hive."
"Take us up," Oneakka ordered Inifee.
"Up as in to the Hive?" Seeal asked worriedly as Inifee started lifting the ship up from the moon's surface.
"We have to be sure it's the same one," Oneakka explained, his eyes on the quickly shifting view outside.
"If we stay in low orbit, we should be able to scan it," Inifee suggested.
"I'm sure that will help protect us from the thing's weapons if it turns out that they can detect this ship," Seeal put in sarcastically, though it was true enough.
"We haven't found anything that can detect this ship through the Ancestral cloaking shield," Oneakka told her.
"Until the one time you do," Seeal countered.
Halling tuned out what sounded like it might become renewed bickering; apparently they could fall into it even in such a demanding situation. The view outside the ship shifted darker as the stars became more visible and, just ahead, a distinct lump of a shape was highlighted on the Ancestral window display. The image of the Hive was immediately pulled forward in the display, the ship's sensors providing a magnified image with various labels and data appearing around it, all in the Ancestral language.
"The hull looks identical to the other scans," Seeal supplied quickly. "But..."
Halling saw what had made her pause. There was what looked like a trail of vapour, and possible Wraith bodies, floating away from one section of the Hive.
"The hull is breached," Inifee supplied the translation displayed across the window. "I'm reading atmosphere leaching out from several small points, but that one is the biggest."
"It's damaged," Oneakka said thoughtfully and Halling suspected that he already knew what his friend was thinking.
If it was damaged and they could ground it here...
"These sensors are picking up far more detail about the Hive than we've done so far," Seeal said with clear admiration in her voice. "Inifee, can you zoom into that part?"
The image shifted immediately to where she was pointing.
"How did you do that so fast?" She asked Inifee.
"I just think it," Inifee explained quickly.
Halling leant forward against the back of Inifee's seat. The Ancestral display outlined the image of the Hive with sorts of data readings and labels, but there was one area brightly outlined and flashing. "The new tech?"
"We guessed that was housed in that extra lump, but this ship's sensors are picking up the actual tech inside the Hive," Seeal added, pointing towards the outline on the display. "It's not just data either, it's labelled it. What do the labels mean?" She added with a frustrated tone.
"I'm not fluent at all in the Ancestral language," Inifee replied. "I think one word means 'engine'."
"It is a drive then," Oneakka concluded.
"And these sensors recognise it," Seeal added. "Maybe the Ancestors knew this tech."
"Maybe it is Ancestral tech," Inifee said. "Mayb...wait!"
The display changed, showing flashing lights and outside Halling saw the glow of the Hive's engine pods dim.
"Its engines are dying," Inifee reported quickly.
The display shifted again, displaying information in charts and graphs now.
"It's losing power throughout the back part of the ship," Oneakka noted what they were all seeing.
In the displays, several graphs dropped to zero.
"The engines are completely down," Inifee concluded. "Including the new drive."
Oneakka turned and Halling looked round into his friend's hopeful blue eyes.
"If it heals up and jumps away..." Oneakka needed to say nothing more.
This was an opportunity they couldn't miss.
0000
John stood waiting as the Genii goons approached his cell.
After a long nap on the cold floor, he gotten some of his strength back, but it still felt like he had the galaxy's worst hangover. His legs held him up, but it kind of took an effort to keep the rest of his body above his legs. Still, he had enough left in him to put up a fight.
He watched as one goon unlocked and opened the cell door.
"Out," the goon ordered, waving his stunner in a vague path to show which way he wanted John to walk. As if there was any confusion in that area.
John thought about resisting again, but considering the effort required just to stand right now, and the other armed goons watching, it wouldn't be all that smart.
Now, if the damn Wraith had agreed to team up, then maybe there would have been a chance.
John headed out of his cell, but he moved a little slower than needed. Best they think he was feeling worse than he was.
As he stepped out of the cell, he glanced to the left to see that they were getting the Wraith out of its cell at the same time. The tall green faced creature stepped out to stand level with John and its alien slit eyes looked round at him.
John looked away, annoyed with himself for the tremble of nervous fear the thing's eyes made him feel.
The feeding mark began to sting again.
So this was probably going to be the last time he'd be going through this routine of walking to the torture room. And there weren't even any hopefully sounds of Teyla and the others beating down the door to rescue him.
He reconsidered resisting. Maybe it would be better to die fighting in here, not strapped to that dentist chair.
"Move!" the closest goon ordered.
John glanced round at the idiot. The stunner was within easy reach, the guy standing far closer than he had before. Maybe the hangover ruse was working and –
The punch was pretty light, but it still took John by surprise. He stumbled a little to the right, his left cheekbone complaining instantly from the impact.
"Move!" the guard repeated and shoved at John's back.
Cupping his wounded cheek, John glared round at the goon. "Alright, since you asked so nicely," he muttered as he started forward.
The other goons were watching him carefully and at any annoyingly sensible distance from him now. He headed towards the door, which took him right past the waiting Wraith. Keeping his chin up in his best Teyla impression, John strode past the Wraith without looking at the thing.
He swore the damn feeding mark started to throb though.
Through the doorway into the cold stone corridor outside, all the goons and the Wraith followed along behind him on his long march to his fate.
He guessed they didn't need to lead the way anymore; he knew the route.
All that was missing was someone shouting "Dead man walking".
0000
Oneakka didn't need to explain his plan to Halling.
"The local satellites will have detected the Hive's arrival," Halling considered.
"And the Fleet's not far away," Oneakka added. "They'll be responding already."
"They could be hours away for all we know," Halling noted though.
"So Inifee heads out to meet them and leads the Fleet straight back here, while we ground the ship for good and kill the Queen," Oneakka summarised the plan.
It was a simple and common enough plan for the Elite. Albeit on this occasion there was this new tech, but the readings said it was powered down, the Hive clearly badly damaged from the radiation. The scientists had surmised the Hive would suffer damage from repeated use of the new tech, but clearly it was far worse than they had predicted.
"What if the power is restored and the ship jumps away?" Halling worried.
"We make sure their power is down for good and it won't be able to," Oneakka answered.
"It is likely that the Hive is highly irradiated," Inifee put in from his displayed readings.
"We're not actually going to board the Hive?!" Seeal exclaimed from the other front seat.
"Are the radiation levels too dangerous to board?" Halling asked Inifee.
"According to this, the radiation stopped being emitted when the new tech lost power," Inifee reported. "So there's no active radiation source, but the ship is bound to be irradiated. Though, admittedly, these scans are not throwing up any more danger warnings. I'd say it's safe to board for a short while, but more prolonged exposure could start to cause cellular damage."
"The brains back in the Facility said we should be able the handle the Wraith tech after the radiation, and our sensor pads will alert us on excessive radiation exposure," Oneakka explained. "We can survive in there long enough to stop the Hive from escaping."
"Once I alert the Fleet, I can come back and collect you right away," Inifee supplied.
"Wouldn't it be smarter to just fly closer and use whatever weapons there are on this ship to take out the engines permanently?" Seeal objected to the plan.
"We don't know if the new tech drive can work independently of the usual drive pods," Oneakka pointed out. "If it heals and activates again, the Hive could still jump away."
"Not if I'm right and they have to head back round towards the doorway to leave," she argued.
"We don't know if your theory is correct," Halling pointed out.
"This is our chance to make sure the Hive doesn't get away," Oneakka stated the obvious conclusion. "Take us in, Inifee."
"Yes, Honoured Elite," Inifee responded instantly.
"Slowly," Halling warned unnecessarily. "Just in case they are able to detect us."
Inifee nodded, the Hive already growing larger.
"The link frequencies we thought would work through the radiation weren't working when Inifee was up close to the Hive," Halling added, "so it's highly unlikely they'll work inside the Hive with such high levels of residual radiation."
"I ended up patching the links through this ship's communications system to speak to you," Inifee explained. "There's a chance I could communicate with you that way while you're on the Hive."
Oneakka nodded as the Wraith ship began to fill the front view. Inifee was taking a careful path in approaching the Hive, angling in from behind and towards the section they knew had lost all power.
"This is crazy!" Seeal complained from her seat. "You're experts on grounding Hive ships, isn't there some important part of the ship we can just hit to take out all of their power? Stop even the new drive from powering up? Surely this ship has advanced weapons and these sensors could target a specific place in the Hive."
He understood her protesting; to those outside of the Elite ranks, boarding a Hive ship was considered madness. What she didn't appreciate was that this was common enough work for him and Halling. A large part of being an Elite warrior was boarding Hives and Cruisers, killing their power and dealing with the Queen at their heart. This was his job.
"The most efficient way to take out the internal power of a Wraith Hive is to target their distribution nodes network from the inside of the ship," he explained for her.
"And we can't do that from the outside?" She demanded, turned in her seat, glaring up at him.
"Maybe, but we can't risk damaging the new tech," Oneakka replied, looking back out the front. There were no signs that the Hive had detected their approach; good.
They were fast approaching the darkened back corner of the Hive, and it became apparent just how enlarged the Hive's hull had been grown. The previous scans and images didn't do it justice. The hull was truly malformed in the way it had grown so thick, giving it a lumpy and over-weighted appearance. As Inifee ran them alongside the hull, the various pockmarks, cracks, and burns across the hull surface told of the damage it had held against. Much of it wasn't from weapons fire either. Whatever the new drive tech was, it was not kind to the Hive.
"Take us into one of the fighter bays," Oneakka ordered Inifee as the ship moved closer to the Hive's surface.
Inifee nodded as the Ancestral display shifted across the large front window. "I'm detecting structural damage inside the ship now we're closer."
"It must be from the radiation," Seeal supplied. "The new tech must be kicking out more than we've detected, or else they've been running it constantly."
Oneakka ran his eyes over the display. "Good; it should mean their power grid will be easier to sabotage."
"We'll need charges," Halling noted and moved away, heading into the back compartment to gather the necessary supplies.
Outside, the opening into one of the Hive's fighter bays started to fill the view, and Oneakka watched as the entrance gradually grew and finally engulfed them.
"Find a high quiet platform where you can drop us off," Oneakka suggested to Inifee as he considered the unusually packed platforms of Wraith fighters inside the large bay.
"The bay is unusually full," Inifee noted.
"Gathered fighters from other Hives," Oneakka explained. "Probably survivors of the Nest System battle from what we saw of the crashed fighters on Atreus."
Like on the exterior hull, there were clear signs of damage inside the bay, as one corner had suffered significant structural weakness and several platforms had collapsed into a mountain of crushed fighters.
Leaving Inifee to the task of finding a safe landing place in the overly crowded and damaged bay, Oneakka turned away to join Halling in the back section. Only a hand caught lightly at his arm and he turned back to see that Seeal had followed him.
"You can't be serious about this?" She asked, her hand dropping away. "We can't board the Hive."
"Halling and I are going onto the Hive; you're staying with Inifee and getting the Fleet here as quickly as possible," Oneakka told her clearly; there would be no arguing about this. She wasn't trained to face Wraith on their own ships. He had had enough worrying about Halling these past weeks, so he wasn't about to lead her into such a dangerous boarding.
If this wasn't a Wraith ship, he would be happy to swap out Halling for her, keeping Halling safe and trusting her to watch his back. But, this was the Wraith and this was territory that he and Halling knew well.
He continued on towards Halling, who had found the charges and had already fitted them into some extra holsters for them carry onboard.
"You don't know what you'll find on that Hive," Seeal continued to argue though as she followed fast on Oneakka's heels. "That ship has extensive internal damage, it's filled with radiation and you don't know what that'll have done to the Wraith inside. They could be mutated in horrible dangerous ways."
"The Wraith we studied on Atreus showed the usual damage we'd expect from radiation exposure," Oneakka replied logically as he reached Halling, who was holding out one of the special holsters. Oneakka took it and wrapped the belt around his middle, sitting it above his usual holster. The pouches holding the charges could be adjusted along their strap to fit around another holster, so he adjusted them until he had plenty of room to still draw his weapons.
"That ship is a death-trap," Seeal continued, her voice raising.
He turned back towards her as he quickly checked the clasps of the pouches holding the charges. "This isn't the first time we've done this," he explained calmly to her.
It also wasn't the first time he'd had people react this way to seeing how the Elite operated, but considering her life-long affiliation with survival, this probably looked like absolute insanity to her.
Over her shoulder, he could see that Inifee was raising the ship up higher into one corner of the bay, looking like he might have found a potential landing point.
Halling brushed past slightly, heading to the back hatch to prepare for deployment. Oneakka turned to follow, only Seeal's hands caught at his elbow this time. He paused and looked back round at her.
"This is suicide, Oneakka," she stated, her eyes wide and worried.
Her hands stayed tight around his arm this time, her hands feeling cooler than normal. It would be because of the stressful situation, making blood run away from her extremities.
He looked straight into her dark concerned eyes.
And he felt the faintest tug in his chest at seeing the raw worry in her eyes. It wasn't worry about some criminal scum finding her, or whether a Wraith might kill her, it was fear for him. It reflected much of what he'd been feeling himself for Halling's safety these past weeks, and it found a sharp nerve to strike in his chest.
But, this situation was different. This was an enemy he knew very well and which he and Halling had faced throughout their lives.
He couldn't count how many apparent suicide missions he'd set out on. He'd returned from all of them so far, but it would be stupid to promise her that this wouldn't be the one time that he didn't.
One day it would be his last mission, and one day Halling would face the same. But, today, at least, this was a known quantity. The enemy was adrift and damaged, and the opportunity could not be missed.
This was who he was, which he'd made clear to her before now.
Were he a different man living a different life, seeing her fear might give him pause in walking away from her into such an unpredictable dangerous situation. But, that life, one in which a beautiful woman like Raven could be more than an unexpected friend to him, would never be.
He did this work to give other people the freedom to live their lives in any way they wished. He protected life with each mission he threw himself into, providing freedom for the Alliance and its people.
What better gift could he give The Free One?
"We're Elite," he told her honestly and directly, "this is what we do."
He turned away, gently pulling his arm from her hands, and headed towards the back hatch to stand ready with Halling.
00000
TBC