Note: We are fast approaching the end of this fic, with only six more chapters after this one. So, I'm going to try my best to release more than one a week; will see how it goes.
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Chapter 37 – The Skerti
It had taken a lot of work to make his way down through the levels of the Hive, not so much because of any problems of access, but the Wraith had clearly realised his intention was to hunt down the Queen.
Though Halling's sensor pad had showed a vast number of Wraith racing from the Hive, heading to the bays and out, a large number had remained, putting themselves between him and the Queen's retreat.
But their attack was just as uncoordinated and inept as it had been up on the higher levels with Oneakka. These Wraith were sick in body and mind, and their Hive was clearly falling apart and unable to save them, but their instincts still drove them to attack him to protect their Queen. Those attacks were simple rushing advances, which put them easily into the blast of his weapons, but their numbers had slowed him down.
That worried him, not so much because of the fact that the multiple repeated firings had drained both his primary weapons and one of his secondary weapons, but because, as sick and mad as they were, the Wraith had successfully delayed his descent towards the Queen's escape craft. Though he had made good progress and was now within sight of where the escape craft would normally be accessible, the Queen might already have had the time to escape.
He had not had the chance to consult his sensor pad since he'd made it to this final level, so he was not sure if she had already left. Though he had not heard or felt any tremors that suggested her escape craft had jettisoned, but perhaps she had left before he had reached this level.
If she had, hopefully the Fleet ships outside the hull would be looking out for her escape craft leaving, but he had hoped to catch her in time. They could not risk her managing to slip away among the ships and fighters outside and using this new unknown tech again in the future. If he could stop her here before she left, that would not be a problem.
That Inifee had called through over links earlier meant that the Ancestral ship was already docked back in the bay and waiting for him. So, if the Queen had left, then he would have to retreat back there, meet up with Oneakka, and see if they could track down the escape craft outside.
But there was the possibility that the Queen was still here, that perhaps her escape craft was damaged from the radiation, or perhaps she was sickly like her drones and warriors and was unable to escape any further.
Or perhaps she had decided to stay long enough to face him, which would be helpful.
Blasting his last remaining energy weapon down the hallway ahead of him, he shifted across to the left-hand wall. The walls in this section appeared healthier than on the other levels, and there were no signs that the ceilings or floors were weakened here. It was possible that this area had been better shielded from the radiation, or perhaps repaired more studiously, in order to ensure that the Queen could escape.
A curve to the corridor now presented the opportunity to check his pad, so he shifted into the natural protection of the curve and turned his back to the healthy webbed wall. Wraith stunner blasts tore through the space he'd just occupied, the Wraith too sick to realise still that he could not be stopped with stunner fire.
He lifted his pad.
The schematic showed that he was even closer than he'd realised to the entrance to the escape craft. It should be just beyond the next turn. On a standard Hive there was an intersection of corridors outside the entrance to the craft, providing the Queen multiple access points to reach her escape. It meant that there were a good number of Wraith life-signs glowing in that area, but Halling focused his attention on the slightly warmer glowing dot that presented the Queen.
Her signal was inside the escape craft – she hadn't left yet.
He had to be quick then.
He ran his eyes over the remaining Wraith signs. Perhaps twenty all close together, the last bastion left to protect their Queen.
He checked the power reading on the back of his last weapon as more stunner fire blasted past ineffectually. He had enough to take out these last Wraith and the Queen, but even if it did run out, he still had his blades. He had fought and won enough battles over the years with blades alone.
His last gun held ready, Halling watched the mass of Wraith life-signs moving towards his position on the pad's screen. They were all moving together, leaving only two single life-signs guarding the space outside the craft's entrance. A foolish decision, but one that would make his work easier.
He took a steadying breath, calming the adrenaline flooding his veins, and stepped boldly around the corner.
Wraith filled the corridor, rushing at him with renewed lightening fast speed regardless of their sickness.
He fired fast, constantly moving his shots, swinging his bombardment back and forth across the width of the corridor. The repeated firing lit up the hallway in a blazing light show, filling the low lit space with bright flares of dying energy blasts.
The air was absurdly loud with roaring, growling, hissing, death cries, and the sharp impacts of his weapons fire. The blasts of bright lights danced across Halling's retinas, partially blinding him, but he kept firing.
Wraith stunner fire struck him repeatedly in return, but it simply buzzed a loud dancing light show of its own around him.
Firing repeatedly, still holding his position, he simply let them run at him and their own end.
The pile of bodies started to build up, so that those behind couldn't get any closer. A few started to leap over the obstacle, throwing themselves with their more healthier speed, but he easily targeted them from this distance and they dropped like heavy weights onto the floor, further crowding the corridor.
They were too sick to be able to reconsider their attack, too lost in their mindset to just simply kill him. Their panic was almost palpable.
With so many of her warriors and drones falling, would the Queen be powering up her escape craft though?
He started moving forward, firing still, the numbers thinning out ahead of him now.
He had to navigate the piles of bodies carefully, briefly lowering his aim to fire at some still moving Wraith.
And then, abruptly, there were no more in his way.
The last Wraith in the corridor crumpled to the floor, its mouth hanging open with its last roaring hiss. Halling stopped his firing, lifting his pad to scan the mass of bodies. Only one showed a faint life-sign reading.
Moving over and around the mess, Halling fired at the lone life-sign and the last dot faded away on the screen.
The way was clear.
He hurried forward as quickly as he could over and around the fallen Wraith.
The two Wraith life-signs formerly stood guard outside the craft's entrance were gone, so the way to the escape craft was empty. The guards must have joined the rush at him instead.
But, just in case, he scanned the area around him again as he moved carefully forward into the intersection of corridors that met outside the Queen's craft.
There were no living Wraith in sight or within sensor range, except for her lone signal inside the craft.
Halling moved carefully towards the edge of the open entrance and lifted the pad again. She was definitely inside, only a few metres away.
She was either too sick to leave, or she was waiting to face him.
Oneakka had hoped she would be a fighter and he might turn out to be right after all.
The floor shuddered slightly under Halling's boots, a vibration that suggested that the fight outside the hull had restarted. Most likely stray weapons fire while the Fleet ships engaged with the departing Wraith fighters.
Halling edged his shoulder right up to the edge of the entrance into the craft, quickly shifting his eyes to the back of his weapon. He still had enough power.
And his knives were easy to hand.
She would most likely try to jump him the second he stepped through, so he would have to be quick. When they felt cornered, Queens could become fiercely violent; both physically and psychically.
He lifted his pad in his left hand, consulting the position of her life-sign. She wasn't near the door by the display's discernment.
Halling moved swiftly, slipping round and through the entranceway quickly and quietly, weapon high and his profile lowered.
There were no lights inside the craft, the depth of the blackness making it difficult for his eyes to make out any shapes at first.
There was no immediate attack.
She was hiding, waiting.
He shifted quickly to the left, moving into the dark room.
He knew the basic shape of these ships and the pad displayed the standard outline in relation to his position. The left side wall behind him, he moved carefully sideways, his eyes moving constantly, seeking out her shape somewhere within the deep blackness.
As he followed the curving line of the wall, his eyes started to adjust, though it was so intensely dark in here that the faint emergency lighting glowing in through the entrance was not all that much help as yet.
Still, it was enough for him to have a sense of the circular shape of the craft, which matched the standard of these types of ships. Some of the light ghosting in allowed sight of the domed ceiling above him and a series of curved rib-like columns spaced around the room, supporting the ceiling and helping brace the small craft against the forces of hyperspace. These escape craft were small, with only this main room and the small front piloting section, but they were robustly built.
Normally they were alight with consoles, flowing holographic displays, and the central large throne for the Queen was usually occupied.
This craft, however, was deathly dark and the throne was empty from what he could tell.
He could now make out the faintest tiny points of orange light across the large room that suggested a possible console, but it was too dim and too far away to provide him with any real perspective or helpful shadows.
She had either turned off the power purposefully to ambush him, or the radiation had affected the craft and it had lost power.
Halling suspected it was the former.
Edging carefully to the left, keeping close to the concealing darkness of the wall behind him, he lifted his pad higher into his view. The display had automatically detected the low light level around it and the screen was barely lit at all so as not to give away his position. However, since it was so dark in here, he was able to see it clearly enough.
There was one glowing dot across the far side of the room.
She was in here.
As he moved further to his left, the dark presence of one of the supportive rib-like columns formed out of the blackness. The emergency light from the entrance was weaker this far back, but he could see it glimmer across webbing wrapped around the bone column. He moved slowly behind it, keeping his eyes moving, letting his vision relax to allow any subtle movements within the darkness to register and pull his attention.
Nothing stirred.
He moved past the column, shifting his gaze briefly to the pad and away again.
She hadn't moved. He needed to get further around the left-side of the circular room to stop the light of the entrance casting over him and giving her the advantage, and allow that same light to fall across her instead. Wraith could see far better in the dark than Humans, but they were more sensitive to sudden brightness, which he would provide from his energy weapon when he fired it. He needed to select his moment carefully though, for the sudden light would affect his vision as well.
He controlled his breathing as he moved, his hearing straining for any hint of her moving that would provide him with her exact location.
His boot hit something along the floor.
He paused and shifted back a fraction, controlling his natural reaction to jump back and make a sudden sound.
His back close enough to the wall that he could feel it, he held still and quickly dropped his gaze to the floor.
The faint light shone across the bright white hair of a male Wraith, lying on its side.
Halling quick consulted his sensor pad again, but there was definitely no life reading from the body, and the Queen's signal hadn't moved.
Had this been one of the guards Halling had expected to have been at the entrance, or perhaps the warrior who was supposed to be her pilot?
Halling dropped his eyes quickly back down to the dead Wraith and up again. There was too much shadow to see how the Wraith had died; it was possible that it had been hit by his own weapons fire and had staggered in here to die, or perhaps it had succumbed to the effects of the radiation.
Either way, it was in Halling's way, so, keeping his eyes on the darkness around him, he set his left boot against the Wraith and rolled it away onto its back. He lifted his boot to nudge the body's closest limp leg aside as well, but, as he glanced briefly down, something odd caught his eye.
There was a large dark stain across the side of the Wraith's face, neck and down over the top of its chest. The stain had an uneven splattered edge to it – blood.
That was unusual, but then so much of this Hive was unusual.
Still, Halling shifted a little closer to the body and quickly dropped his eyes back down to it.
It was definitely blood, and it appeared to have come from the closest side of the Wraith's neck. Peering a little closer in brief glances, Halling lowered himself. His eyes were adjusting well to the darkness now, though it was still deeply thick across the room. However, he was able to see the outline of the male Wraith's neck and the two raised dark circles on the side of its throat.
He blinked and peered closer.
Puncture wounds.
He pulled up and stepped back again quickly, his eyes shifting around the craft.
Had the Queen, starved and sick from the radiation, tried to eat her own kind?!
Clearly it hadn't worked and all she had done was open up its vein. Unless she had been after its blood for some bizarre reason.
He'd assumed the Queen would tolerate the radiation far better than the males, since Queens were normally more resilient, but clearly this Queen was not right.
A new nervous edge caught at Halling's awareness, the idea of being eaten alive a horrific one even in the face of the usual culling feeding of Wraith.
Something moved across the room within the darkness.
Halling fired immediately, the blaze of energy fire streaking across the room to slam against the far wall in a dazzling burst of light, which lit up the faint shape of the tall Queen moving away from the blast.
Halling fired again, tracking her moving position, but the next blast of fire missed again.
She could move quickly even with her likely sickness.
Halling fired again, just ahead of where he predicted she was headed, except this time the explosion of light showed nothing.
He held fire this time, letting his eyes and ears report her movements to him...except he heard nothing, saw only the newly impenetrable darkness after the blasts of dazzling weapons fire.
He blinked one eye shut for a breath and then opened it, and repeated the same with his other eye, helping his vision to adjust to darkness quicker.
Nothing moved.
He couldn't hear her.
Though...a faint niggling sensation started up, like something itching inside his head.
Was she trying to enter his mind?
From long practice, he quickly reinforced his mental imagery to strengthen the defences of his mind, just as Teyla and the other Seekers had taught him. He pictured himself stood within the safety of Tjaru, the city's walls growing taller than they could ever be in reality, and the Ancestral gateway glowed with powerful strength.
A deep sound echoed across the ship, a strange sound that was perhaps...laughter?
He lifted his pad quickly.
Her dot glowed.
Moving.
Directly towards him.
He lifted his weapon higher, peering into the darkness, but nothing seemed to move.
He shifted his eyes back to the pad again, she was still moving, almost to him!
But nothing moved in front of him, unless...
He lifted his eyes upwards, up towards the domed ceiling above him, and a large darker shadow within the dome was clearly moving.
She was on the ceiling!
A sudden forceful and entirely unreal pressure struck down hard at him, making him stagger from the mental pressure of her psychic assault.
"Elite," a word shouted into his head, tearing painfully into both of his temples.
He'd never felt anything like that before. How could a single word hurt so much?
"I wait." Two more words arrived into his skull, and he gritted his teeth hard through the pain.
His legs threatened to buckle under him, but he held himself up, and forced himself to look back up towards the ceiling. To fire at her.
The pressure increased and he gasped loudly.
Tjaru's walls.
He'd never felt a Wraith mind like this! It was unbelievable.
He focused his thoughts quickly back on the strength and safety of Tjaru's Ancestral walls and the tall, ancient gateway.
"Weak," the voice ripped in his head.
He wished he didn't immediately agree with that statement, but he breathed hard, shifting backwards towards the wall behind him, managing to keep a tight hold on his weapon.
Where was she?
Above him still?
"Show me," the words demanded. "Their fear. Reason."
Breathing hard, the long remembered Tjaru Gateway in his mind; he forced himself to remember the power of standing in the shadow of the Gateway as a child, staring up at its massive strength. The Gateway's towers had appeared to reach the sky and he had stood in awe of them.
The pressure lessened slightly.
He pictured the long strong walls of Tjaru running out from either side of the Gateway towers; the city walls that had protected Athosians for centuries, strengthened by Ancestral hands.
A faint hiss echoed from the ceiling.
He started to be able to move his arm again, and he forced it to move upwards, slowly pointing his weapon up towards the Queen somewhere above him.
But it was too late.
A heavy mass within the darkness detached from the dome above, dropping down towards him, and something hard and heavy struck at Halling's right arm.
The weapon dropped from his hand, his forearm screaming in pain, but he had no time to pull back, for something warm and tight slid around his throat.
It had been so fast that he had barely registered the pale skin until the hand was around his neck.
And suddenly he was being lifted up.
Despite his own inmate height and well trained weight, it felt as if she lifted him without any struggle. His boots left the floor in an instant, his neck stretched in sharp blazing pain that ran down into his shoulders and back, and his head throbbed, his vision dimming.
Grabbing quickly at her overly large hand, he squeezed his left fingertips in between her hand and his throat, allowing him to brace his weight a little and take some of the pressure off his throat, and he gasped into the darkness.
As oxygen started to arrive again, he was already striking out at her. He hammered his right fist into her wrist, but it was still her hand, the appendage bizarrely larger than he'd expected. He hit at her again, but she shoved hard at him, and his back was slammed into the wall. It forced more air out of him, but the wall was finally something supportive at least. He bent his knees, shoving the soles of his boots against the wall, working to get some traction to help support his weight. He had to get more air, be able to see, fight!
He slammed hard at her hand with his right fist again and worked to get his left fingers further between her hold and his throat.
He couldn't breathe enough.
The urge to cough, to gag, was overwhelming, but he couldn't pass out.
If he did, it would be over.
He struck forward now, aiming for the bleary shape of her head and neck in the faint light, his vision oxygen-starved and fading.
His punch wasn't even close to reaching her though, and he instantly could see why.
The world seemed to freeze in the moment that he was able to finally focus on her face.
The hold on his throat lessened a fraction, allowing him to drag in a breath as he stared at the thing that held him.
It wasn't a Wraith!
She had the pale skin of a Wraith, but her face was longer, her jaw seeming too large for her skull, and there were dark veins crossing her face. Her slit eyes were bright yellow, even in the low light, as they stared at him.
She opened her mouth, revealing silvery Human-like teeth, except for two exceptionally long fangs, which were stained with blood.
The reality hit him far harder than anything in his life.
It wasn't a Wraith.
He was alone.
In the dark.
This was it!
The moment Sitayi had told him about.
This was it.
The Ancient enemy returned!
The alien Queen closed her mouth, her eyes narrowing.
"Know us," words slammed around in his head. "We. Return." The words arrived with clear pleasure in them as they tore loudly through his brain. "The Skerti Will Rise!"
Panic hit Halling in a crashing wave. He kicked out both his legs towards her, uncaring now about supporting his weight in her weirdly large hand, and he slashed his right fingernails towards her eyes.
She hissed at the attack, but her arms were longer than normal and she easily pulled her head back out of range. But one of his boots made contact with her. He kicked again, hitting what felt like the narrow line of her ribcage.
She hissed louder and her hand tightened, starting to crush his windpipe. "Rebel!" She shouted into his brain.
Knives!
He grabbed down to his right side, reaching for a handle of one of his eight knives, but somehow she had seen his intention too quickly.
Warm skin wrapped hard around his forearm and she snapped his arm up and away from his holster with a strength that almost dislocated his shoulder. She slammed his arm against the wall beside him, pinning him in place now by his arm as well as his throat.
He kicked out again, wriggling in her hold now, tensing his shoulders and neck has hard as he could to protect his throat, as the darkness dimmed further around him.
He knew he was seconds from death if he did nothing.
In a risk that he wasn't even aware of deciding, he pulled his left fingers free, which had been protecting his throat, and grabbed at the left side of his holster.
His fingers found the familiar position of a knife handle and, in a smooth well trained motion, he pulled it out, up, and round.
Through swimming vision, he saw his hand slice up, the small blade cutting up and across the back of her hand that was holding him up by his throat.
She made a sound like a roar, but with a hissing rage to it, and abruptly she let him go.
He fell to the floor, collapsing down at the foot of the wall, gasping for full breaths.
He had to stay conscious; had to keep hold of his knife.
He needed another one.
Or his gun.
He forced himself to look up, bringing up the small knife still held tightly in his left fist.
But she was suddenly already there.
Her hand clamped around his left forearm, halting his strike and the knife in his hand. He tried to resist, pushing his arm hard against her grip, and simultaneously clawed up at her approaching face with his right hand.
Her mouth was open, her fangs projecting towards him.
He punched at her face, but she somehow shifted in time so the strike slid off her cheekbone, and she came at him again. He shoved his right hand against the front of her face this time, spreading his palm and fingers over her nose and one eye, gripping the sides of her face with his spread fingers as he held her back. Bracing his back against the wall, he put everything he had into holding her, and her fangs, at arm's length.
Her face felt hot in his grip, and she flailed her head one way and then the other, trying to dislodge his hand, but he held on tightly, gripping and pushing hard.
He had to hold her back; had to keep those fangs away.
She hissed, loud and angry, and he felt something claw at the wall just to his right.
She still had a hand free!
He was in the worst position, half slumped against the foot of the wall, his legs partially caught under his own body so he had no way to wriggle them out to kick her.
Panic and blazing fear helped him in that moment though, he was sure of it. He put everything he had into holding her head back and in resisting her grip on his left arm, preventing him bringing his small lone knife around at her.
He had more knives on his holster, the long one at the back...
He couldn't get to them though.
The energy weapon was lost somewhere on the dark floor.
She pulled back slightly, but he kept a tight hold on her face, allowing her to lift him partly away from the wall, but then her other hand was suddenly in motion towards his face.
A hot, dry large hand spread across his own face, pushing hard. The back of his shoulders were again pushed hard against the wall behind him, and her grip tightened on his face, just like he was to her.
Except her grip was stronger and he felt it forcing his head round to the left.
He tried to resist, tensing every muscle, every part of his body, but her strength was too much.
He shouted in pain as muscles screamed in the side of his neck as his head was forced to the side. If the wall were not behind him, she surely had the strength to break his neck.
She pressed in harder against his left arm and his right hand against her face. She was trying to get closer to him, get her teeth to him, into the now turned and exposed right side of his throat.
He screamed with the effort, pushing against her with all his might.
Holding her back.
The moment held, his awareness of it shifting.
He remembered Sitayi' wide, haunted eyes.
Oneakka's promise, his desperation to deny this moment would arrive.
And this was it.
If he died, everyone would die.
He felt tears of rage in his eyes as he blinked hard, unable to clearly see the alien with her large hand partially over his face and his head turned.
He swore he could feel her breath on the side of his throat even though she was still at arm's length.
His arm was shaking though, the growing tremors of muscle fatigue a horrifying reality down the limb.
The edges of her claws were cutting into his face as she hissed at him, pushing harder at him.
She was too strong.
He could feel the impasse slowly shifting.
In her favour.
His left arm was weakening faster, her grip around his forearm starting to push his arm back.
She was winning.
She had only to keep up her pressure on him and wait for his arms to give out.
"Rebel. All Elite. Die," her words hit into his head, the mental pressure from before abruptly tearing though his skull again.
He gritted his teeth, panting as he tried desperately to remember the walls of Tjaru, to remember their strength, to help him to-
A blast of light shot through his limited view of the alien and her grip suddenly lessened on his face.
A sharp crack and blast again lit up the air in front of Halling.
Energy weapons fire.
He didn't think much further than that, for the alien had pulled back from him as she turned towards the new threat, hissing loudly.
His hands were free.
He registered that someone was stood off to the right, but he didn't think any further than that.
His hand was at the back of his holster the second he lifted his back from the wall, his hand sliding around the handle of his longest knife.
The blade sliced through the air as he swung it round.
Another burst of weapons fire lit up the alien, its yellow eyes starting to shift back towards him again through the dazzling light.
But it was too late for the creature.
Halling's long, sharp knife blade cut through the alien's oddly delicately shaped neck in one clean slice.
Blood splattered through the air as Halling's momentum carried him onwards, round and down onto his left side on the floor.
He felt the pressure on his mind disappear as he landed, and he blinked up to see the alien's head topple to the floor.
In a frozen long moment of seconds, he watched the head roll away, the long pale body falling down a moment later.
He let out a long breath, heard it shake with emotion and shock.
He kept his eyes locked on the creature though, as if expecting it to come alive again.
Was it over?
Sitayi' prediction?
He had survived.
"Halling?!"
The moment broke, and the voice registered and Halling realised it wasn't who he had expected.
He sat upright from the floor, panting still, and looked round towards the craft's entrance to see a female shape moving in from the light outside. Seeal?
"Are you alright?" Seeal voice asked worriedly as she moved closer, her features becoming clearer though the darkness. Her eyes and weapon were still focused down on the alien body.
"I'm okay," Halling confirmed.
Where had Seeal come from? He had assumed it had been Oneakka who had arrived to save him.
"Thank you," Halling told her gratefully as he worked to get up off the floor. His neck and upper back burned with excessive muscle strain and he still couldn't quite breathe properly, his lungs working hard from the adrenaline and near suffocation.
"What is this thing?" Seeal asked, her own voice shaking and fast.
Halling shook his head as he stood upright, staring down at the body.
It was just as tall as he had suspected during the battle, even without its head.
The head was a good few metres away from the body, but Halling felt the compulsion to kick it further away, just in case.
"If its dead we have to go," Seeal stated, urgency plain clear in her voice.
"It's dead," Halling hoped.
"We have to go now," Seeal ordered loudly as she turned away, rushing back towards the entrance. "Oneakka's dying."
Halling's settling world suddenly spun around again.
He snapped his eyes to Seeal's departing back, heading out of the craft.
"What?!" He raced after her.
"He's really hurt," her voice shouted back as he ran out into the contrastingly bright emergency lighting outside. The floor shuddered under Halling as he turned a sharp left, Seeal jumping over the piles of dead Wraith ahead of him down the corridor.
"What happened?" Halling shouted as he ran after her.
"I think he was stabbed," she replied, her voice clearly panicked. "Inifee!" She shouted. "I've got Halling and we're heading back. Is the medical team here?"
Halling reached up to his earpiece, desperately grateful to feel that it was still in place in his ear canal. He tapped the links awake and Inifee's voice arrived mid sentence into his ear.
"...inbound, but the fight is making it difficult for them to get into the bay."
"They need to be in here now," Seeal shouted back, though she didn't need to shout over the links.
But Halling understood what her panic meant.
Understood the speed with which she led him down the broken and scorched walls of the corridor.
Oneakka was dying.
Sitayi' prediction of death in the moment of darkness raged through Halling's mind and ears as he caught up with Seeal, the two of them racing on with blind abandon.
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TBC