Chapter 32 – The Foray
After a quick couple of circles of his cell, John was reasonably certain his body could keep up with the fight ahead. The Wraith had apparently been honest enough when it had said it had left him enough life to be able to help fight their way out of here.
How much life that actually meant wasn't a question John was looking to ask right now. He had to escape this place first, then, once he was back in Atlantis, then he'd allow himself to think about the future. Right now, he had no future unless he got out of here. If that took trusting a Wraith well...life was a funny thing.
John glanced at the Wraith through the small window between their cells and the Wraith nodded.
It was Showtime.
John headed towards the door of his cell and, one hand on the bars, he lowered himself carefully down onto one knee. The knee ached deep, like it really was years older than earlier, but it held and there was no shooting pain. Today, that was a real plus.
John got a good grip of the bars of the cell door and shook them as hard as he could. The door made a real satisfying noise as it clattered in its hinges and inside the lock, while also confirming that he did still have some decent strength left in him. Not that shaking his way out of the cell was the plan.
No, instead, letting go of the door, John looped one arm through the bars and draped himself against the door, his lower half sprawled on the floor as if he'd collapsed there.
"Humans?" The Wraith called out loudly from the next cell as John dropped his head against the bars and did his best to play dead. "Humans!" The Wraith repeated.
There was the faintest scuffing of soles on the concrete floor in the distance.
"What?" A voice demanded from the far entrance, clearly not impressed at the Wraith demanding attention.
"You should know that your captive is about to expire," the Wraith informed them with a helluva lot of amusement in its voice. Hopefully it was all just for show.
Boots shifted against the floor. "Damn it," John heard the Genii guard mutter. "Marcos, get in here." John listened as the boots moving closer.
"I would be happy to feed on him again," the Wraith suggested. "It would be a pity to waste good food."
"Shut up!" The guard shouted at the Wraith as he reached the other side of the bars from John. John felt the warmth of the Genii goon as the guy crouched down and clammy fingers brushed around the wrist of the arm John had hanging through the bars. The Genii squeezed his fingertips against John's pulse.
"What is it?" Another voice arrived from the far left, presumably Marcos.
"He's on his way out," the first goon replied, his fingers leaving John's wrist. "Get the medical response kit."
There was a scraping of something, while the first goon got hold of John's arm, trying to push it back through the bars.
"Damn it, he's right up against the door," the goon muttered.
"Just push the door back," Marcos suggested from the other side of the bars. "We need to tell Pranos." Something metal hit the floor nearby, which was presumably the med kit?
John heard the key entering the lock just above him.
"Just get the door open," the first goon argued. "He dies now and the Elite will definitely kill all of us."
"Don't start that again," Marcos complained as the lock turned and John felt the door shift. "We just need to get some air and fluids in him; that usually keeps them going."
The door started to push against him, so John rolled back and sideways, pulling his arm out of the bars, and dropped to the floor right in the way of them getting the cell door open any further. Hands grabbed at the back of his jacket, but he kept up the deadweight routine, forcing them to step into the cell to get hold of him and pull him around the door.
Lights flashed against John's eyelids as they rolled him over onto his back. He made a show of twitching and blinking as if he'd just come round with all the manhandling.
Hands gripped around his shoulders and he was dragged across the floor, through the open doorframe above him and into the space outside the cell.
Both Genii then came into view above, one crouching down on John's left. A hand appeared right in front of John's nose, the goon snapping his fingers loudly, presumably in an attempt to get John to come round some more. He obliged.
"Wha...?" He pretended to look around blearily.
"Get the air and I'll get the fluid push," The first goon ordered at John's side.
The other Genii, Marcos then, shifted out of John's view.
"Please help me..." John reached up and grabbed weakly at the first goon's arm, as if he were out of it. He probably looked so crap they wouldn't think he was any kind of threat right now anyway.
"Stay down," the goon shoved John's hands away.
"Where am I?" John spluttered as he rolled onto his left side, which put him right up against the goon.
"Just stay there," the goon ordered impatiently as he reached out to a metal box on the floor nearby, which involved him taking his eyes off John and turning away slightly; which provided John with a nice clear view of the sheathed knife against the guy's left hip. The Alliance style stunner was on the other side. John would have preferred the gun, but he didn't have all that many options right now.
Still working his confused and bleary routine, John rolled his head back slightly so that Marcos came into view a couple of feet away. Marcos was stood but was busy lifting a small oxygen cylinder out of the med kit and unravelling a long tube attached to it.
Both goons clearly didn't see him as any kind of threat.
If the Academy could have seen this, John was almost certain he would have gotten an Oscar.
The Genii crouched next to John turned back towards him with a pack of something in his hands. John reached out to the guy again, grabbing weakly at the front of his uniform. "Please don't let the Wraith hurt me again," John begged desperately as he clawed at the goon.
The guy tried to bat away John's desperate clawing, but John got a good fistful of the Genii' uniform in his left hand. As the goon tried to prise John's hand free, John dropped his right hand down to the handle of the goon's knife.
"Please don't hurt me again," John begged more loudly, pulling himself up by his hold on the Genii' jacket, which allowed him to get his left leg under him, ready and braced.
"Get off me," the Genii protested, pulling his head back with apparent disgust, which unfortunately helped expose his throat.
The knife lifted smoothly up out of its sheath and John brought it up and through, while simultaneously pushing himself up and around.
He had had no time to see if the Genii sharpened both edges of their military knives, but at the speed and the angle he sliced the blade across the side of the goon's throat, it probably wouldn't really matter.
As it turned out, the edge was very sharp and it cut across the goon's neck all too easily. John didn't stop to watch the result though, for his momentum carried him up and round towards Marcos.
He'd clearly taken them both completely by surprise, but by being a few feet away, Marcos had time to react. It wasn't much time, but it was enough for the guy's training to kick in.
Marcos pulled back sharply, leaning backwards just enough to get out of the way of John's swinging knife edge. Unfortunately, Marcos had also struck out with the only weapon he had been holding; the slim metal oxygen tank.
John tried to pull up and dodge out of the way of the cylinder swinging round towards his knife arm, but his momentum was still carrying him forwards.
Fortunately though, Marcos hadn't gotten enough time to put any real force into the swing, but the cylinder still slammed against the back of John's arm with a bone-jarring impact.
Any other day, John was convinced he would have been able to take that hit, but today the pain lanced right down through his arm to his wrist and the knife dropped from his weakened grip.
The knife clattered to the floor as Marcos stepped forward, pushing his advantage by swinging cylinder back round again.
John dodged backwards out the way of the swing, his legs moving with surprising speed considering how stiff and awkward they felt under him. Marcos took one more swing, sending the small tank round in another large arch, but John stepped to the left, easily evading the attack.
Realising he wasn't going to win with an air tank, Marcos let go of the cylinder, letting it fly away out of view, and reached down to his right hip.
John watched in horrified slow motion as Marcos got his hand around the grip of his gun.
Without stopping to think about it, John threw himself at Marcos, grasping at the guy's right forearm.
Surprised at John's unexpected angle of attack, Marcos stumbled back, but John got a good grip around Marcos' wrist and shoved downwards, hard.
A sudden bizarre and desperate wrestling match started, with Marcos trying to pull the gun out of his holster while John pushed hard on Marcos' wrist, forcing the gun to stay in the holster.
At which point Marcos remembered that his left hand was free.
The punch hit John hard and deep against his right kidney, but he desperately held onto Marcos' wrist. Turning his shoulder into Marcos, John tried to shove him over, but the guy was a lot younger and hadn't been recently fed on by a Wraith! In retaliation, Marcos slammed another punch into John's kidney.
Pushing clearly wasn't going to work, so John brought his left knee up into the side of Marcos' thigh and then stamped his boot down hard onto Marcos' right foot.
Marcos shouted in pain, but channelled that into pushing hard against John.
John couldn't hold his footing, his strength starting to fail him, and Marcos easily forced him backwards. Perhaps back through the open door into his cell!
John dropped hard onto his left knee and pivoted sharply, turning and swinging Marcos round to the left by his wrist. The sudden and hard change of direction threw Marcos completely off his feet and John felt the guy's wrist snap in his hands. His broken wrist as the pivot point, Marcos performed a stumbling sideways fall round towards the cell bars and John let go of him. Without anything to slow his crash now, Marcos slammed into the cell bars a good metre away.
It wasn't going to be enough though. Marcos still had a working left hand, a knife, and a gun. And now he had some distance between them to give him time to draw the weapons.
John pushed off the floor to rush at Marcos, but suddenly it didn't matter.
A large pale hand abruptly reached through the bars beside Marcos' head and the Wraith grabbed a hold of the Genii' throat.
Marcos cried out in shocked alarm, but the Wraith moved quickly, its long unshackled arm looping around Marcos' neck, holding him tight up against the cell bars.
Marcos flailed wildly at the Wraith's arm as a loud slamming sound of metal on metal shook the bars.
John stopped, realising what was happening.
The Wraith was smashing the heavy metal shackle around its right arm hard against the inside of the bars beside Marcos. Within seconds, the lock that held the shackle shut cracked and the shackle broke apart, dropping to the floor as the Wraith reached its now free feeding hand through the bars and down against the top of Marcos' chest.
Marcos' cries mixed with the roar of the Wraith as it started feeding.
John turned away from the sight, his own feeding mark stinging against his pounding heart underneath. He really didn't need to see that happening to someone else right now.
He instead focused on crossing the short distance back to the first goon, realising that maybe the guy had had a chance to hit his radio or...
No, the guy clearly hadn't been able to do anything like that. He lay in a slump, one red coated hand near the open wound on the side of his neck. His face was pale with death but also from the complete lack of blood in his head.
John looked away from the guy's face, pushing away the guilty feelings. He worked on pulling the guy's stunner free of its holster, but he left the radio as it was coated in blood.
The Wraith's feeding noises died away as John turned back around to see the very dead, shrivelled remains of Marcos drop to the floor.
John headed to the body.
Instead of pulling the radio and weapons free, this time he simply unbuckled the Genii' holster and pulled it free. The body smelt all too familiar with that desiccated decayed smell of every fed-on Human John had ever had the misfortune to come across. He wouldn't wish that on anyone, especially not now, but it wasn't like there had been a choice considering what the Genii had had planned for him and the Wraith.
John wrapped the Genii holster around his own waist, Marcos' stunner and knife still in their places and, alongside the radio, the ring of keys. John unclipped the metal ring and assessed the four keys hanging from it. Two were smaller and were presumably for the Wraith's chains and former shackle, and the other larger keys were presumably for the cell doors. John picked one as he headed for the Wraith's cell door.
As he stepped up to the lock, he looked through the bars at the Wraith on the other side. The Wraith's dark, almost cautious, gaze stared back.
He could leave the Wraith here; try and escape by himself.
It would probably be safer.
Except he had no idea how many Genii were in this place or the layout; he needed the Wraith and they'd made a deal.
John pushed the first key into the lock and when it didn't turn, he slid the second choice in and the key turned easily. He pushed at the door enough to start it opening and then stepped back.
The Wraith let out a loud heavy breath that sounded like surprise as it pulled open the door and stepped out of its cell.
John held the creature's eyes as he threw the keychain at it.
The Wraith caught it easily, a small smile crossing its greenish face before it set about freeing itself from the chains around its middle. As it freed itself, John looked over Marcos' radio and the first goon's stunner; both looked easy to use. In fact, he was pretty certain he'd fired this exact type of stunner before when he'd been with the Elite.
Metal chains hit the floor next to Marcos' body and John fixed his eyes on the Wraith again.
The Wraith looked back; completely free to attack.
John waited a beat to see what the thing would do. He was holding a stunner in one hand and had another in his new holster, so he was far from defenceless, but John had seen how fast the Wraith could move.
This particular Wraith didn't move though, it just let out another one of those hissing breaths as it straightened up to its full weight as if it hadn't stood that tall for awhile.
It seemed that the Wraith was keeping to the deal too then.
They needed each other.
For now.
John held out the free stunner to the Wraith. "You know which way we need to go?"
The Wraith took the stunner with a slightly confused frown as it considered the weapon, but then looked up and nodded. "This way," it replied and turned quickly towards the exit out of their shared prison.
0000
The gun in Halling's left hand lit up an overheating warning, the alert unsurprising considering the constant repeated bolts of high powered energy he was firing at the rushing swarm of Wraith filling the corridor.
Shifting his stance so his right foot, and the weapon in his right hand, were slightly further forward, he sent out a fast barrage of strafing fire across the incoming mass of Wraith while he rolled the overheated left weapon down into the empty slot in his holster on his left side. His hand found the butt of his second weapon on his left hip easily and he brought it up, firing immediately alongside his right without a pause in his defence.
The floor shuddered hard under his feet, but he compensated easily as he kept firing. The heavy impacts through the Hive presumably meant that the Fleet had arrived and were exchanging fire with the Hive. Hopefully Inifee had gotten word to the Fleet ships that he and Oneakka were in here.
The attacking Wraith didn't seem concerned at the heavy weapons fire outside.
It had taken for the first charge to blow before the Wraith had realised he and Oneakka were aboard, but they were making up for their error now. The overcapacity of fighters back in the fighter bay clearly reflected an equally overcapacity of Wraith onboard as well, and it appeared as if most of them were throwing themselves at him and Oneakka.
It wasn't the best offensive, especially in the confined space of the corridor, but they appeared determined in their assault.
Halling had no idea how many active engagements he'd faced with Wraith, let alone how many had involved him storming one of their ships or facilities, but the Wraith were nearly always taken by surprised. Even after all the success of the Elite and the Alliance, the Wraith still seemed ignorant of how easily their ships could be infiltrated. Their sense of superiority failed them spectacularly in that regard.
However, once they realised they were under attack, the Wraith had a small selection of options in dealing with invaders. They often tried to simply seal up sections of the corridors, but charges and focused weapons fire could usually take cut through that; they sometimes tried venting all the air out of a sealed section the Elite were in, but all Elite carried re-breathers for that event, so it was just a case of breaking out of the sealed section.
Another occasional defence was for the Wraith to cut off all light and power in a section, even the artificial gravity as well, but all Elite trained for such eventualities, and experience had perfected their ability to still move around in limited lighting and without gravity.
Another occasionally reported defence was for the Wraith to release their tech spores into the sealed areas, hoping to infect the attacking Elite. The Elite countered that by taking a high dose of immune boosting preventative treatments to fight such infections before boarding any Wraith ships.
If the boarding Elite were near the engine pods, on a couple of occasions Halling had heard that Wraith had tried another attack by flooding local sections with radiation. That was a more effective defence and the outcome depended on the strength of the radiation exposure. As part of their pre-engagement treatments, Elite took a type of radiation preventative medicine, but that would not protect from extreme exposure.
As had clearly happened on this Hive.
Halling had never seen a Wraith ship so severely affected by anything as this one and he suspected it was not just the ship that was so damaged. It was clear that the Wraith themselves were equally as damaged. All of them had a sickly pallor, with a thin slime of sweat across their faces, and some of them appeared barely able to control their limbs as they attacked.
He suspected that the sickness wasn't just limited to their bodies either.
Despite all the ways the Wraith could attack, this Hive's contingent were fighting back by simply throwing themselves at him and Oneakka with a complete lack of interest in their own survival. They appeared almost manic in their mad assault, presumably thinking that it was by sheer weight of numbers alone that would stop him and Oneakka.
That was not the case. Working systematically forward, setting off charges on the main power-lines as they went, he and Oneakka had simply cut through the Wraith onslaught quickly and efficiently. The corridor floors were littered with dead Wraith, an almost literal carpet that he and Oneakka had to step over and around as they pushed their way deeper into the Hive, moving closer towards the target central node.
A series of blasts of Wraith stunner fire flew past Halling as he pushed forward, only one blast vaguely getting close enough to skim across his arm. The Wraith's aim was a weak as their realisation that stunners were not going to work on him and Oneakka. The defuser tech danced the stunner bolt away across Halling's arm as he focused his fire on the few Wraith near the back of the current mass of attackers who were firing the stunners. He took one down at a good distance, but the others kept firing. The blasts were hitting the backs of their own warriors now though, so Halling focused back on the front attacking lines instead.
"Safe distance reached," Oneakka shouted from behind Halling's right shoulder. Halling nodded with an exaggerated motion, as it was so loud in the corridor that Oneakka surely couldn't be sure he had heard. Even with the constant weapons fire, the roaring, hissing and snarling of the Wraith, there was also the still ongoing blaring intruder alarm cutting on and off through the hallways. Halling was grateful for the hearing protection the radio links earpieces provided, even when the links were not currently working.
Halling stopped in the middle of the flickering lit corridor, bracing his feet for the next charge to blow. He felt Oneakka's hand against the middle of his back, the procedure ensuring that both of them were braced, and a split second later Oneakka detonated the explosive.
The explosion was loud and abrupt, shaking the air around them. The Wraith ahead stumbled back, snarling and covering their faces as pieces of the corridor's walls and bits of the ceiling started falling down around them.
"Watch above!" Oneakka shouted as he shoved hard at Halling's back.
Halling lunged quickly forward and to one side with the push, getting out of range of whatever it was that Oneakka was warning him about. Keeping up forward stunner fire, Halling braced his legs and glanced back as quickly as he could.
The reason for the shove was very obvious. The last charge had brought down a section of the corridor's ceiling a metre or so back. There was no corridor or room visible above through the hole that Halling could see, but Oneakka was moving back under it to check.
The floor shuddering hard under him from the battle outside as Halling turned back to face the direction of their advance, firing at the Wraith mass once again.
However, it appeared that the collapsing ceiling section had finally cut through the wild assault mentality of these Wraith and they were pulling back, the ones at the front seeming panicked now that they were in Halling's direct line of sight.
He shot quickly as the crowd ran away, and he saw that there was a large intersection ahead, into which the retreating Wraith were disappearing around both corners at the end of this corridor.
Well, some of them were peering back round. Halling fired at the corners, discouraging them to try their luck.
"Oneakka?" Halling called since Oneakka hadn't reported on the ceiling yet.
"All clear," Oneakka replied from only a few steps behind Halling. "Nothing up there. Looks like part of the structural skeleton of the ship collapsed when I blew the power-line near it."
Halling nodded, his eyes still forward as Oneakka stepped up into his peripheral vision.
"Our target is up on the right round the corner at the far end of that intersection," Oneakka supplied.
"Good," Halling commented between the blaring alarms.
Oneakka's stunners blasted forward through the air, hitting a Wraith peering around the right side corner of the intersection ahead. Halling lifted his left arm to see the screen of his pad around the back of his left wrist. It showed the outline of the intersection ahead. There were two corridors leading immediately off it to the left and the right, but he and Oneakka needed to get through the intersection to the rooms beyond.
"Grenade going in right," Oneakka shouted and Halling watched the dark metal grenade tumbled through the air, sailing down the corridor and landing perfectly placed to the right side of the intersection.
Halling shut his eyes on his silent third count and heard the grenade detonate loudly. He snapped open his eyes to see the right hand corner ahead was collapsing, crushing Wraith and scattering more bits of Hive wall across the intersection's floor.
Halling pushed forward quickly, firing repeatedly at the Wraith scattering out of view.
"Grenade going in left," Oneakka called as they neared the entrance into the intersection.
Halling paused his firing for a split second during which Oneakka stepped forward and to the right, getting the angle right to lob the grenade in an arching curve around into the left side of the intersection, aimed for the entrance to the corridor just to the left out of view.
Halling closed his eyes on the third count again and the grenade pushed hot air back towards him almost immediately.
Halling was moving forward before he even had his eyes open again, moving in time with Oneakka so that they both arrived into the intersection, covering one direction each. Halling was on the left side so he fired towards the right, where parts of the corner and corridor entrance were still collapsing with wet dying pieces of webbing and broken pieces of structural skeleton.
The simultaneous attack wasn't necessary in the end, for the Wraith that had been able to get away had already disappeared from view. The only Wraith still alive in the intersection were those partly crushed under pieces of corridor wall. Oneakka fired at them, removing them from their crushed misery, while Halling checked his pad again.
"No more immediate life-signs," Halling reported. "All retreating both directions and around the corner ahead. Target node room should be up around that far corner."
Halling strode through the now empty intersection, heading for the single exit ahead. Beyond it, a corridor stretched away to the right, according to his pad's map, so he pressed his shoulder to the edge of the exit and peered very quickly out. As the pad had predicted, there was a long and narrow corridor on the other side, at the end of which Halling could see retreating Wraith.
The way was clear, but Halling took the time to consult his pad, as it was possible that the Wraith had left a little explosive gift behind. Except all scans on all frequencies that the pad was still about to detect despite the still present static in the air, were clear.
Halling looked back round to where Oneakka was watching over the intersection, both his weapons held high and ready, and his attention switching between the entrances into the intersection.
"Way clear for now," he reported to Oneakka.
Oneakka nodded once, his back to Halling. The floor shuddered under them and a few pieces of the ceiling dropped around Halling's boots.
"Smoke grenade and I'll head round to the node engineering room, you hold here," Halling told Oneakka between the blares of the alarm, while he pulled one of the slim smoke grenades out from his holster.
"Go," Oneakka agreed with another nod.
Halling checked his pad once more, triggered the grenade and quickly threw it around the corner into the narrow corridor beyond. The snap hiss of the grenade was just loud enough to hear between the blaring alarms and the shaking of the walls, and smoke started lingering around the corner.
Halling moved quickly, stepping around into the smoke and through it, aiming for the open doorway that was his target up on the left. The smoke wasn't damaging to humans, but the density of the smoke was designed to particularly interfere with Wraith eyesight, so if any were down the end of the corridor and thinking of attacking, they wouldn't be able to see him slip quickly into the side room off the corridor.
Weapons raised, Halling quickly entered the engineering room for the central node, but it wasn't quite as empty as the pad had suggested. There was a dead Wraith lying across the floor that had clearly been fed upon by another of its kind; though, oddly, it also had some sort of metal tool sticking out of its desiccated left eye socket.
Halling stepped over the body as the floor shook with another impact from outside the Hive, and headed towards the main console as he pulled out his last remaining charge. He pushed the soft sticky base of the charge against the curve of the Wraith console and pulled out the charge's trigger unit. He jabbed the prime button on the charge and the trigger unit lit up correctly in his hand. All ready, Halling turned back round, stepping over the dead Wraith once again, and headed out of the room and back into the hazy corridor outside.
Back out in the lingering smoke, he turned back to the entrance into the engineering room and quickly pressed his pad up against the outside of the 'doorframe'. He triggered a quick sequence on the pad and the device emitted a short burst of the basic Wraith frequencies that activated their doorways, and immediately webbing slammed shut across the room's entrance. It wouldn't reduce the damage he planned for the node, but it should contain some of the debris from collapsing the corridor outside.
Moving quickly back down the short end of the corridor, Halling stepped back around the corner to join Oneakka.
"Charge in place," Halling shouted.
"Moving," Oneakka stated and started forward back through the intersection. There was still no sign of another incoming wave of attacking Wraith. Had they given up?
The trigger unit vibrated in Halling's hand. "Safe distance reached," he reported to Oneakka, who paused. Halling set his left hand against the middle of Oneakka's upper back, bracing them both, and triggered their last charge.
The sound of the explosion was partly muted this time, but the effects were instant. The lights above immediately flickered and died, plunging the intersection into complete darkness.
It was also suddenly blissfully silent, apart from the occasional splats of pieces of wall and ceiling dropping onto the floor. The intruder alarm had stopped and there wasn't anything to be heard.
"That worked," Oneakka stated in the darkness, the glow of his own pad becoming clearer as Halling's eyes adjusted to the darkness, only for a faint flicker of a bluish light to come to life overhead. The Hive's emergency power was kicking in; it would keep basics going like air circulation, but otherwise the Hive was showing barely any power on Halling' pad.
Though there was a growing mass of red dots on the screen. Halling turned slightly to reorientate himself in the low light. "We've got life-signs building up around the end of the corridor near the node."
"Either looking to fix the damage to the node or attack us," Oneakka concluded, his voice low.
Halling nodded; the first part of their mission had been achieved pretty efficiently though and the Wraith would struggle to get that node working again now its controlling consoles were destroyed.
Which left the second part of their mission to complete. Halling adjusted the range of his pad, seeking out that extra warm life-sign. He noticed that there was far less static dancing across the pad's screen now the power was down.
"The weapons impacts have stopped," Oneakka noted and Halling paused, becoming aware of the lack of shuddering and occasional shake from the battle going on outside the hull.
"The Hive's weapons are down," Halling concluded. "The forward section's node is still operating, but its too low to be useful."
"The Queen?" Oneakka asked.
"I'm already scanning for her," Halling replied as he worked the range of the pad's sensors out further. "She's not in her chamber anymore. Here – she's moving. Three floors down from here."
"She's a runner," Oneakka concluded with clear disappointment.
Halling nodded; the Queen would be heading down through the Hive to the escape craft set in the base of each Hive. "We leave now we can probably chase her down."
Except, the distant sound of hissing and snarling caught at Halling's ear.
"I'm detecting masses of Wraith moving towards both fighter bays," he reported from his pad, "but there's a load holding place at the end of the node corridor. In fact they're incoming," he corrected as the dots started slowly moving.
If they left now to hunt down the Queen, this group would easily catch up with them and attack them from behind, thereby slowing them from getting to the Queen in time.
"We need to split up," Halling concluded. "You deal with these and I'll go chase down the Queen."
Oneakka looked round at that, just enough to look over his shoulder, and Halling saw the worried frown creasing Oneakka's brow. In the low light it was almost as if Oneakka's pale complexion glowed in the emergency lighting.
"It's a Queen," Halling objected, annoyed at Oneakka's sudden returning overprotectiveness.
How many times had they faced far worse situations than this and Halling had proven his skills? Sitayi' prophesy might have obsessed them both these last weeks, but this situation was very different from whatever fateful day she had predicted.
"This is our known enemy, Oneakka," Halling pointed out forcefully as he pulled out his left secondary weapon and checked it over. Whether Oneakka agreed or not with the plan, this was what was going to happen.
He might not survive what Sitayi had seen, but until that day, Halling was determined to live everyday as the Elite he had always been. And hunting Wraith and their controlling Queens was something that he was very experienced at doing, regardless of Oneakka's fearful worries.
Oneakka looked away, his expression hidden again. "You just want another tattoo to finish up you left arm," he muttered.
Relieved at his friend's acquiescence, Oneakka's faith in him unquestioned in facing Queens at least, Halling smiled tightly down at his pad as he moved around Oneakka and headed across the intersection. The Queen was now four floors down. He needed to go.
"She's moving fast," he reported. "I should be able to cut down through the floors of the closest sweeper transport channel."
"We don't have links," Oneakka pointed out.
"Inifee will be back in the bay soon enough and patch the links through the Ancestor system," Halling returned as he reached the exit off the intersection that would take him in the right direction to get to the sweeper transport channel. If the floors were weak with the radiation damage, it probably wouldn't take him long to blast his way down through them and catch up with the Queen.
"Head back to the bay when you're done," Halling added to Oneakka over his shoulder just before he left, "and I'll meet you there."
"You'd better," Oneakka called back, looking down the length of the intersection as he lifted both his weapons, shifting to the corner on the other side of which the Wraith were closing in.
Halling locked eyes with his friend and nodded. After all these recent weeks of doubt and fear, it felt good to be back doing what he was supposed to do. What he was good at. Here he was the strong and respected Elite he had worked to be, not the frightened creature he had allowed himself to become following Sitayi' warning.
Of course that wouldn't change what she saw from happening, but at least he had been allowed at least one more victorious battle to be the man he had lived his life to be.
With Oneakka covering this way, dealing with this mass of Wraith looking to try and stop them, Halling was free to indeed claim that next tattoo.
And if it turned out to be his last battle with a Queen, then it would hopefully be a glorious last marking to claim.
He'd ask Oneakka to ink it for him.
0000
Seeal grabbed at the Ancestral console in front of her as Inifee angled the ship round and under the Hive at a ridiculous speed. Or course she couldn't feel the forces on her thanks to the fantastically engineered Ancestral tech, but she could damn well see what was happening and her stomach wasn't happy about it.
Swallowing down the rising bile, she watched as the Hive twisted round outside again as Inifee turned the Ancestor ship's belly to the underside of the Hive. The uneven thick dark hull of the Hive rushed under them, the stars and an upside down looking Fleet ship just off to the right.
She knew the position of ships to each other was all relative in space, but her body felt the simulated pull of artificial gravity so, as far as her primitive brain was concerned, those ships were hanging upside down above her and she'd just gone through some sort of spinning loop.
Her stomach rolled again.
She quickly 'dropped' her gaze to the hull disappearing under them as Inifee flew along the belly of the Hive, heading back towards the fighter bay where they'd dropped off Oneakka and Halling.
"Should we really be moving this fast?" She asked Inifee; how could there be anything like a decent reaction time when they were moving at this speed?
Something smashed into the hull off ahead of them; energy fire from one of the attacking three Fleet ships they'd met on their way out of the system. There were apparently more ships incoming, but these three big battleships were clearly giving the Hive a good pounding. The Hive itself might be lacking power in the entire back half of the ship, but it still clearly had working weapons.
"Best to be a moving target," Inifee replied to her question, sounding far too much like he was enjoying himself. Pilots.
"Don't the Fleet ships know we're here!?" Seeal exclaimed as more weapons impacted the Hive's belly off to the right.
"Cloaking shield remember," Inifee replied simply as he expertly piloted around the dancing blasting fire outside.
"I know," Seeal replied. "But they know we're trying to get back in there."
"Taking out the Hive is far more important than watching out for us," Inifee replied calmly.
She glared round at him as she gripped the console. "That's nice to know."
Inifee grinned, his eyes forward and his hands on the simple steering device of the ship. How could he still be smiling in this situation?
"You'd think keeping this Ancestral ship in one piece would at least be important to them," she muttered as she looked back out the front, in time to see a large protrusion on the hull's surface come rushing into view.
She tightened her grip on the console about to shout an unnecessary warning, but Inifee shifted the ship aside in a lightning fast move.
The holographic display over the front window abruptly reappeared, providing the schematic of the Hive once again. This time though there was a flashing dot in the middle of the ship and lines of Ancestral text around it.
"They've shut down the Hive's central power node," Inifee interpreted the display. "It's grounded; even manoeuvring thrusters are down."
Seeal felt a physical burst of relief – that meant that Oneakka was at least alive in there still.
"So, the Elite will be heading back out, right?" She asked Inifee.
"They usually go take out the Queen too," Inifee replied as he leant one way quickly.
A burst of light ahead of them snapped her attention back round, just in time for her to see a massive fireball exploding ahead of them. She had a split second to wonder if fire should actually burn in space before they were ploughing through it.
"Wraith shit!" She cursed loudly as she instinctively closed her eyes. There was no explosive heat, as her basic human nervous system expected, and she opened her eyes to see the Hive's hull reappearing on the other side of the fire. She looked quickly back over her shoulder, only remembering too late that this ship had no back windows.
"You need to fly more," Inifee laughed.
"I need to stay on the ground more," she responded more loudly than she intended.
She knew how to fly small ships this kind of size, but she'd never really been a natural pilot. She preferred being on the ground where a fight involved easily controllable things like guns and fists. Not hurtling around in a stomach churning spin in the vacuum of space, explosions blowing up in your face and while moving at speeds that really should be forcing her eyeballs out the back of her head!
"Didn't you used to live on a space station?" Inifee asked almost conversationally.
"It hardly moved like this," she argued as Inifee re-angled their approach, moving up and around the side of the Hive now. "Isn't this the part of the ship that the Fleet are firing at?"
"Hive's weapons are down," Inifee replied. "Our target bay is ahead."
The Ancestral display flared to life again and she watched the outline of the bay glow ahead of them.
"Uh oh," Inifee muttered as a series of red dots appeared in the bay's outline.
Seeal focused her eyes forward through the display to see the real-life action it was showing. Little flashes of light were pouring up out of the bay.
"The Hive is launching fighters," Inifee explained the obvious.
This was going to make getting into the bay more interesting.
As was the new blazing bursts of weapons fire as the Fleet ships started exchanging fire with the fighters.
00000
It hadn't been that long since Sora had left to get to Dahlia, but it felt too long to Ladon.
He had started obsessively checking his pad, waiting for any kind of news. Where were Maloo and Tyrus with an update? Or any of the rest of their circle?
He'd decided to send his construction team home earlier than planned, citing that he was worried about the latest Alliance-wide alert. The explanation had clearly been accepted and they had dispersed quickly, clearly pleased to be free sooner than planned.
Which left Ladon finally alone in the construction room with no eyes watching him.
He walked to his workbench against the side wall and listened to the thick silence.
It all felt wrong.
Surely there should be some news by now.
Had Kolya ended Major Sheppard's life yet? Had the Elite found something in the Confederation links? What was Cowen going to do in the face of these threats?
Had Sora gotten to Dahlia and were they both safely heading down into the underground city? He had no way to know.
What if Cowen truly did suspect him and had targeted Dahlia?
It occurred to Ladon then that he was now entirely alone in the construction room.
Perhaps it had not been wise to send Sora away after all.
Stood at his workbench, his back to the open door, he shifted his stance, looking over his shoulder to the open doorway. He lowered his hand to his holster and unclipped the cover that secured his sidearm weapon in place. He couldn't remember the last time he'd actually fired the weapon; perhaps during the assault on Atlantis?
Perhaps he should have gone with Sora and Dahlia. There were plenty of excuses as to why he might visit the underground city. He had an elderly Aunt living down there still; he could use the pretence of visiting her to explain why he had left the complex.
The sound of footsteps started up in the distance.
Sliding his pad into his pocket, and keeping his right hand on the butt of his weapon, Ladon edged towards the doorway.
The footsteps were hurried. Tyrus perhaps?
Ladon moved into the doorway, risking peering out.
It was Tyrus and he looked worried, his eyes practically bulging to share what he knew.
Ladon quickly waved him inside and shut the door as soon as Tyrus crossed the threshold.
"What has happened?" Ladon asked.
Tyrus let out a loud nervous breath. "He's gone."
"Who's gone?" Ladon asked.
"Cowen."
"Off-world?" Ladon asked, shocked that he actually had done it.
"No," Tyrus shook his head. "He's left the complex, taking all his Generals and his guards with him."
Ladon frowned, confused. "Where have they gone?"
"We don't know," Tyrus puffed. "Did you hear about the links search?"
Ladon nodded. "Sora said the Elite are searching the Confederation links into the main network."
"Once he heard that, Cowen told Pendrick to prepare a lockdown for the Parliament complex," Tyrus relayed. "I was in a meeting with Pendrick and other security about it, when Commander General Reed came in and told Pendrick he was in charge of the complex and then just left."
"Cowen's left Pendrick in charge?" Ladon repeated. As a lead security member, there was no reason to question why Pendrick had been left that responsibility, but still for Cowen to take all his Generals and guards and leave...
"General Maloo sent me a quick message that Cowen was taking them all out of the complex, but I've not heard from him since. I came here as soon as I left the lockdown meeting with Pendrick," Tyrus finished.
Where would Cowen go?
"You're certain Cowen's not gone off-world?" Ladon checked.
"He hasn't. Part of the lockdown is securing the Portal and I checked with our contact in Portal security," Tyrus reported confidently. "Where's Sora?" He glanced around.
"She's taking Dahlia down to the meet point," Ladon explained, but his mind was working hard.
If Cowen hadn't gone off-world then the only explanation was that he had gone to ground. He had heard the Elite were sniffing around the Confederation and so he was retreating to more secure ground with his most trusted Commander General Reed at his side.
Which was the exact opposite of what Kolya's plan proposed.
Would Cowen retreat to the underground city? Or...
"The Palace," Ladon realised. It was one of the most secure facilities on the homeworld. With a bunker level set beneath the Palace's shiny display of surface living confidence, Cowen had offices, full communications access, and personal quarters all just below ground. The Palace was built to withstand heavy assault from orbit or land, and was Cowen's official seat of power. It was where he would feel safe and in control still; hidden in his well fortified prison.
What he thought that would achieve in the face of the Elite and their search of the links was unclear, but then it had always been the Genii way to go underground in the face of any perceived danger. Their people had survived as well as they had by the mere fact that they had hidden themselves away from the eyes of the Wraith.
Which made always made the original plan to get Cowen to go off-world to the Primary planet all the more questionable. In the face of conquering an enemy, Cowen might have left in order to oversee an enemy's defeat, which would allow Ladon's explosive device to remove Cowen and his loyal battalion on one swoop, but this situation was very different.
Ladon turned from Tyrus, pacing away as he tried to think it all through logically. "With Cowen in hiding, Pendrick is in charge of the Parliamentary buildings, and he's part of our circle. A loyal follower of Kolya."
"You think Pendrick is going to seize power in Kolya's name?" Tyrus asked with a heavy frown.
"That would never work," Ladon disagreed. "Cowen is in the Palace, but he could easily send his guards, or Commander General Reed, to arrest Pendrick via the underground tunnels. Cowen wouldn't need to stop out of his Palace to stop that; he is no less in charge by being in the Palace."
"So Kolya's plan has failed?" Tyrus concluded.
Ladon turned away again. "Something doesn't make sense. It never has. Kolya was going to use Sheppard as a hostage to obtain weapons from Atlantis, but there's been no talk of that. It was supposed to draw Cowen off-world to suppress Kolya's attempted coup."
"And your weapon would deal with him," Tyrus nodded.
"But Cowen would never go off-world when he is under threat here," Ladon frowned. "Why would Kolya think he would?"
"Maybe if the situation with the Elite becomes so bad, Cowen will run off-world," Tyrus suggested.
Ladon shook his head. "There's no evidence of Cowen colluding with Kolya, so why would the Elite turn on him to that degree?"
"The Elite are searching the links," Tyrus replied, "maybe Kolya has planted evidence against Cowen for them to find?"
"Possibly," Ladon frowned. "But I still don't believe Cowen would go off-world in such a situation. Kolya is an excellent strategist; he wouldn't make such an obvious miscalculation. He's worked hard to turn public opinion against Cowen, which has made Cowen dig his heels deeper into the ground, and surely makes him less likely to leave the homeworld and his seat of power. He's far more likely to do exactly what he has done and fortify his position in a well defended location of strength. Cowen would be more likely to cut off all ties with the Alliance and the Elite rather than surrender his throne."
A sudden thought occurred to Ladon.
"Except, what if this is the plan?" He considered out loud. "Kolya knew Cowen would go to ground...taking his most loyal with him." Just like they had planned for the Primary planet. "What if the explosive device isn't to be used on the Primary planet...but here? Under the Palace bunker?" Ladon felt a chill pass over him.
"What?" Tyrus asked, shocked at the suggestion. "No, the weapon you designed would be far more destructive than that."
Ladon froze in place, the horrific logic of the plan suddenly falling into place. "The blast radius would take out the Palace, this complex, and most of First City. Those that might survive on the edges of the city would die soon after from the radiation exposure. But the other surface cities would be fine, and most of our people still live in the underground cities. It would just be First City; all the Parliamentary complex and workers, all of Cowen's power structure, and all of his loyal military leaders and his personal battalion would be obliterated."
"Kolya wouldn't do that to his people," Tyrus shook his head, but he looked worried now.
"Wouldn't he?" Ladon asked. "He's flooded the planet with destructive Quantum and other drugs, started up gangs of rioters and he's risking alienating the Genii to the Elite. Think about it, all the trouble has been coming from Second City. If First City is destroyed, it will become the main City and they will welcome Kolya back as a returning hero. They'll blame Cowen for what happened; the evidence the Elite are looking for will probably fit into that. Kolya will be seen as the victim of Cowen's rule able now to return home as one of the last surviving leaders of our people."
"That's why he hasn't told us the real plan," Tyrus added. "Because he expects us to die in the explosion, along with everyone else in the conspiracy."
"There wouldn't be anyone alive from the conspiracy to tell the truth about what happened," Ladon realised.
Why had he given the device to Kolya? He had never meant for it to be used on a populated area! It had been designed to fight the Wraith and, on this one occasion, to eliminate Cowen and his battalion on the Primary planet.
"We need to evacuate First City," Tyrus stated.
"We do that and it'll warn Kolya," Ladon shook his head. "He could set it off the second he realises we're on to him."
"How?"
"He's obviously got someone willing to press the trigger, or perhaps he'll send the signal via the links network," Ladon considered as he rushed towards the closed door, getting a grip on the cold metal door handle.
Tyrus' hand caught at his arm. "We have to get below ground then; follow Sora and Dahlia down to the meet point. We'll survive then and tell the truth of what happened."
Sora and Dahlia! Were they safe?
"You need to do that; get down to the meet point and make sure Sora and Dahlia are there or on their way. I need to stop the weapon from detonating," Ladon argued. "I can find it and I have an override code."
He pulled the heavy door open and rushed through. He needed to get down to the emergency access tunnels that connected the complex to the Palace, following in Cowen's retreating footsteps.
Where would Kolya hide the device though? It was small enough in design that it could probably be concealed in a closet or in a storage area in the Palace's bunker. Kolya's loyalists could have wheeled it in there via the tunnels with it disguised as anything!
"Ladon, you need to come with me," Tyrus protested, catching Ladon's arm again.
"No," Ladon pulled his arm free. "I can't let him use my device like this. I have to stop him."
"You can't do it alone," Tyrus argued.
"Yes, I can," Ladon told him. "I'm the only one who can stop it."
0000
TBC