IT'S AN UPDATE! (And I really don't like that it's automatically spacing between the lines)
((Rant, bottom, you know))
Point of Ascension
Chapter 4
"I'm not your enemy."
It had been about two weeks since they left the world with Atlantis sistership.
After the ship Dr Weir promised Vera had been delivered to her, the SGA team hadn't seen much of the woman. Mostly she moved between her apartment and her study. Her study being the room she had awakened in. There had been no way to get access to any instruments that could read what was going on in that particular room. Well, to Vera's surprised these strangers hadn't even tried figuring out what she was doing. Except the occasional curious question. Which she answered in such an evasive manner that the person who asked didn't even realize that it wasn't an answer until she had disappeared.
Now she was walking along the corridors on the north arm. Heading even farther out the arm from her study.
In a quick pace Ronon caught up with her.
"Hey." He called, settling at her speed.
"Ronon Dex." She acknowledged him.
"You looking for Sheppard?"
"No?" She gave him a questioning look.
"You're heading towards them, him and Teyla. It's a day off for them."
"Oh, no. I'm heading towards a small loadout dock located at the end of the north arm."
"Loadout dock? Small open space towards the water?"
"Yes."
"That's where they are."
"Then we should hurry." She stated and increased her speed. Confused, Ronon made the decision to keep up with her.
The door to the loadout dock opened and Vera was met by the sight of John with a golf-club in hand and Teyla leaning on one.
"Hey Ronon and.. Vera?"
"I would suggest you take a few steps back." The blond stated.
"What?" John was stuped and looked at her confused. "It's nothing dangerous, we're just having some fun."
"I'm not trying to prevent your...game. Just take a few steps from the edge, quickly."
Teyla who had understood it was a good idea to listen to what the ancient had to say had already backed away from the edge. But it was too late for Sheppard.
A large wave of water drenched him to the bone as a Jumper suddenly rose from the ocean. Ronon burst into laughter and Teyla soon followed him. Perplexed Sheppard stood with outstretched arms looking down at himself. Only to confirm that, yes, he was drenched.
"I did warn you." There was a hint of a smile in her voice.
"Some warning." With a gesture of hopelessness he placed the golf-club back in the sack. "What is that thing doing here anyway?"
"It is the dock closest to my office." She clarified. "I just finished implementing a training course in the ship and I thought I'd try it out. It was a long time since I flew anything quite that small."
"A training course?"
"To test and practice ones skills as a pilot."
"You have that kind of thing?"
"In peaceful times there are the most need of it. Of course we have it. It was also a part of recreation."
"Let me tag along!" Shepard asked bluntly.
Vera hesitated. She had heard that this man was their most skilled pilot. He also carried the gene. Though the training she had tried to conduct with him with the chair wasn't exactly bearing fruit. He needed to raise his level of awareness, his level of concentration. And sitting still to focus wasn't really his specialty. This might just serve as another distraction, then again it might help as well.
Teyla noticed that the ancient was pondering the answer and stepped in with her diplomatic skills.
"The colonel is the best pilot amongst us. Observing you will certainly aid his training."
Her clear blue eyes shifted between Teyla and John.
"Alright. But I have two conditions."
"What?"
"First: Do not touch anything."
"Yeah sure, of course! And the second?"
"Get changed into dry clothes. I have maybe thirty more minutes of work to do here. Be here within that time, or I will leave without you."
Ronon laughed while Teyla smiled her skew smile. John hurried past them, leaving small pools of saltwater behind.
27 minutes later Sheppard appeared in dry clothes. The Jumper was sitting on the water, the back of it towards the dock area. Dock area, he had never considered the possibility of it. And exactly where had the jumper appeared from? At any rate it was closed so he knocked on the metal. A few seconds passed and it opened. He looked inside and walked in slowly. It seemed so empty without their own supply nets running through the sides. She had turned, watching him with a hand-held console in her hand.
"So, how do we do this?"
"Take a seat." She said, motioning towards the right seat, heading to the pilot's seat herself.
He did as told and sat down. Though he couldn't deny the fact that it felt weird sitting on the 'wrong side' in the ship. The back door of the ship closed and he put his hand up on the panel. Strange feeling, he frowned lifting his hand again.
"Something wrong Colonel?" She asked, putting away the console.
"I don't know something feels.. odd." And he couldn't quite put his finger on what.
"It's probably the gravity."
"Gravity?"
"I increased the force of the artificial gravity. It gives me a better feel of the ship in general."
"Really?" He was doubtful of the statement, but said nothing further of it.
There popped up a an interface on the screen that reminded him of a video game. A racing game with different courses and difficulty levels. She navigated through the menu without moving a finger, only her eyes pointed out the direction and the computer read her thoughts. A choice and a loading screen later a red light blinked on the window.
"It's been a while since I last flew something this small, so I chose a course with medium difficulty. Also, these scores.." She moved her finger over the pad and the interface was translated to English for him. "..are for fighters, not re-con ships like these."
He studied the course and saw that it wasn't entirely flown in the air. It dodged under water as well. But the course still kept within visual range of Atlantis. No landmarks to go after. How would one know how to navigate through the gates?
"The program will project virtual gates that serves as check-points." She explained as if though she'd read his mind. He nodded, slightly impressed.
"You expect to do that run under ten minutes?" An eyebrow arched at her.
"As I said, these scores are for fighters. But I should get below fifteen."
"Let's see it." He mused, almost certain it was impossible.
Even if this had been a straight stretch he doubted it could be done at top speed. Below fifteen with twists and turns? Doubtfully.
"Countdown. Ten Seconds. Get Ready." She stated and warned.
The screen started the countdown. Each number in a red color until the zero appeared in green. This ship, that Sheppard had flown so many times before, now shot from the water up in the air in a speed he wasn't ready for. In fact he would think this kind of acceleration impossible. The checkpoints, consisting of virtual red rings, flew by. The turns she made was disorienting at first. Flying upside-down? Not a problem, it was a strategy. The artificial gravity kept them at their seats in the jumper. Then, when he was finally getting his bearings right and keeping up with the turns without having his eyes spin, they were suddenly under water. They never went very deep though, so the bulk was never even close to crashing in. With a cascade of water they came back to the starting point. The time on screen flashed with 14:58.
Vera nodded, satisfied with the result. Shepard was still slightly stunned and looked over at her.
"I've never seen anyone who flies like that before."
"That's not so strange. How many of my people have you seen fly before?" She asked without sarcasm.
"...You got a point."
"When you have learned that there are limits on how to control a vehicle, it's hard to unlearn and erase those boundaries. In space there is no up nor down, no correct way of flying. It's hard to learn, unless taught from childhood. I know. But there is no other way than practice."
"Are you telling me I get to fly next?" He smiled.
"No." She said with a slight shaker to her head. "Not this ship. But with permission I could install the program in another."
"Then what are we waiting for?"
About an hour or two later there were two jumpers up in the air. Chasing targets that couldn't be seen from the balcony outside the gateroom where Dr Weir stood. She straightened her back and followed the two ships as they manoeuvred in the sky.
"What are they doing?" She asked out loud and wondered if she should make radio contact and really ask. That's when a light shot across the sky, it hit the jumper in the lead and it instantly blew up. Metal plates soared down towards the surface in burning bits.
A quick Wraith Dart suddenly shot across the sky. They were under attack! Several Dart's shot across the sky and up there was a hive ship descending above them.
"Sound the alarm, raise the shield!" She shouted as she tore her eyes from the sky and ran inside. "How the hell did they get past our scanners?"
"There still isn't anything there!" A man behind the panel shouted.
"They sure as hell seem real enough to me. Sheppard!" She tapped the earpiece to connect to the military officer in command.
"I'm heading back towards Atlantis right now. Taking out some of these bastards along the way."
"You're out in that jumper? Who was in the second one?"
"Vera." His voice was sharp and strained.
Oh no. Along with a long trail of other thoughts crossed her mind. But this wasn't the time. She turned towards her team and called for Dr McKay to get to the bridge. The security of the bridge was being increased as the seconds ticked by. The lieutenant colonel didn't let the time go to waste, he could very well issue the orders from the jumper. The first larger shots lit up the shield. How was this even possible? Atlantis possessed both long and short range scanners that hadn't failed them yet. Yet there they were. An entire hiveship sneaked up upon them.
"Show me the scanner." She jumped up to the screen.
"There is nothing there." Zelenka gestured with his hand's and didn't understand it himself. Just as he said the scanner kept it search, but found nothing. "I would say that they have acquired technology that's masking their signals but I'd highly doubt it."
"Could they be blinding our instruments?"
"Not both the long and the short-range scanners." McKay arrived and joined them.
"What's happening?" Ronon and Teyla came into the gateroom together, just as confused as everyone else.
"Give me shipwide." Elizabeth told one of the technicians and turned towards the windows. She had to speak to the crew, this situation was beyond any preparations they had made. Could a hiveship really blindside them like this? But the darts continued charging them, her guesses was they had already landed troops somewhere in Atlantis. "This is DrWeir. We are under attack from one Wraith hiveship. Arm yourself and move with care. We will set up a perimeter with the gateroom and the medical quarters as our top priority. I repeat-"
Sheppard had taken out three darts before he landed. Instead of setting the ship down through the gateroom he landed as close as he possible could the got the chair room. He figured that was the place where he could be of most use. He ran through the corridor as silently as he could. He didn't have anything close to a weapon that could actually immobilize a wraith, even less to take him down. He stopped abruptly as he was about to turn the corner to the chair-room. There were no less than six wraith soldiers guarding the door.
He pressed himself against the wall, what was his next option? There wasn't a change he could take them out. And what if there were even more wraith inside? Though he doubted it. The door had higher security, not even anyone of Atlantis crew could just walk in there.
Dr Weirs voice sounded in his ear, warning the crew of the situation. He noted that she wasn't using Atlantis own internal speaker system. Good, he thought. There would be no point in informing the wraith what they were up to.
"Colonel." He heard her voice then.
""Dr Weird." He answered with a whisper.
"Where are you?"
"At the chair room. But it's guarded by six wraiths. I'll make my way to medical. You know how many intruders we have?"
"The computer is counting about fifty and increasing in the inside, we're stil not getting any reading on the outside."
"No readings?"
"We can see them clear enough but we're not getting anything on the scanner. McKay is working on it."
"Forget the scanners." He said and started running after he had gotten a block away from the chair-room. "They're already here. Focus on defense, how long will the shied last? Are the Daedalus in range?"
"At this rate, we only have a few hours worth of shield. The Daedalus is still on route back to earth, it wouldn't make it in time."
"Dammit."
"Colonel what do you want us to do?" Teylas voice joined in.
"Get to medical, we'll see if the doctor has any alternative weapons."
"Alright."
"Sheppard..."
He heard the seriousness in her voice and stopped running to listen. She spoke quieter now.
"We might have to evacuate Atlantis."
"Come on Elizabeth it doesn't look that bad?"
"We're not prepared for this, and if we need to call earth we only have two hours worth of shield-power left."
"Alright." He said. "Let's make it count."
There was really one option if they were going to make it through this. They had to get to that chair. Sheppard gathered his best fighters, including Ronon and Teyla, to force the guard. Except for Ronon's gun they only had one other gun that had any effect of the wraith, Sheppard carried this one. Teyla and three other men carried the standard P90, along with a gun that held improvised bullets. The idea was they they were going to be sedative. But they hadn't ever tested them.
Despite normal armour not holding up much of a resistance for wraith weapons the three soldiers still wore them. Teyla and Ronon was dressed in their normal clothing, while Sheppard only wore the kevlar vest. 'Force of habit.' He'd stated.
"How do we do this?" One of the soldiers whispered.
"Me and Ronon takes point." Sheppard started. "Major Lorne is standing by on the other side. At my signal they will create a distraction. Hopefully most of them will leave. That's when we'll attack."
"We're in position Colonel." The major informed with a silenced voice.
"Alright. When you're ready Major." Sheppard signed and everyone shuffled into position, waiting.
There was a noise from the other side of the corridor. The guards turned their heads towards it, one of them nodded and two of them left. Ronon motioned towards the door but Sheppard held up a hand to stop him. There were shouts and then a sound of rapid fire. The four guards looked at each other and two more of them left in a hurry. After they turned a corner the Colonel made a sharp motion with his hand that couldn't be misinterpreted.
With raised weapon the group moved quickly forward. It didn't take long before the two remaining guards were on the floor. They had done it as silently as possible, so the guards who left didn't rush back. Sheppard relieved the wraith from their weapons and tossed them over to two of the other soldiers. Teyla hurried up to the door and opened it. The doors opened and she found herself eye to eye with a Wraith commander. A shot sounded, her mouth fell open, and she fell to the floor. The seconds that passed was as if stuck in time. Slowed down and unreal.
"Teyla?" Shepard heard his own voice speak the name, he saw her body falling to the floor, registered the wraith and then it was as if the dam broke. "Ronon!" He shouted, raising his gun towards the wraith commander. But there were soldiers on the inside of the room aswell. The soldiers started emptying their clips into the enemy. It was little to argue about the situation, they were outnumbered and outgunned. The colonel took hold of Ronon and pulled him backwards while starting to retreat.
"Major, pull back, we're outnumbered. I repeat Pull Back!"
Sheppard and Ronon backed away until the broke the line of sight with a corner. They turned and ran away from there. Luckily they knew Atlantis far better than then wraith and lost them easily. When they stopped both of them were out of breath and took a moment to recover. Sheppard leaned against the wall, the events of the passed few minutes ran through his head. He should have seen it coming. Guards outside, force on the inside. How could he have been so stupid?
"Sheppard-"
"We need to get back to bridge." He snapped, turned and started towards the goal.
"It's not there!" McKay almost shouted at Elizabeth, holding one of their portable screens on one arm.
"Oh it's there alright McKay, and it's trying to kill us." She had walked up to the windows and pointed at the hive ship in the air.
"The computer can't detect it! No matter how I calibrate the sensors they just wont pick them up. They shouldn't be there!"
"I thought Sheppard told you to work on the defence."
"I did, there isn't all that much I can do when it comes to shooting. Look." He turned the screen towards her. "It's not there."
She looked at the screen. There was no denying what the sensors said. According to Atlantis, the ship wasn't there. But looking out the window told you another thing.
"You think it's an illusion?"
"It has to be."
"And the wraith on the inside?"
"The computer tells us it's there but... They shouldn't be."
"Dr Weir." It was Sheppards voice over the radio. Elizabeth tapped the earpiece.
"Go ahead Colonel."
"We failed to get to the chair... And only me and Ronon made it back."
"What about-"
"The others are dead. We'll arrive shortly." He broke the contact and Weir moved her eyes over to McKay.
"They lost."
"What?"
"That's reality McKay. Three of our best soldiers and Teyla. We haven't even heard from Major Lorne yet. Stop playing with the scanners." She sounded determined enough, but he had planted a seed of doubt. But what they dealt with was reality. People were dying and time was running out. Sheppard and Ronon came running into the gateroom. She waved them over.
"There's only twenty minutes left until we're under the power required to call earth and evacuate."
"Let me take a jumper."
"Sheppard-"
"We can't get to the chair, it's the only way."
"Colonel-"
"If we get rid of the hivesh-"
"John." She said in a hard voice. The man fell silent. Her eyes shifted between the two men. "We have to leave Atlantis."
The silence between them was a heavy one. It was little to do. They had been overpowered, taken by surprise.
"Help me with the destruction sequence." She said and moved to the control panels. He moved along with her. Stepped up to the console. Dr Weir tapped a scientist on her shoulder and asked for citywide communication. "We have to abandon Atlantis." She saw the bitterness in Sheppards face, the wandering eyes of Ronon. They had to bring him with them, didn't they? "We are initiating the destruction sequence and opening a passage to earth. We will leave within the next ten minutes." She repeated the message then met Sheppards eyes again. "Do it."
It was with reluctance the both punched in their command codes to arm the self-destruct. The warning signal sounded. A loud, rythmic horrible sound. Elizabeth wanted to cry.
"Atlantis." A voice suddenly rang out from the balcony above. "Discontinue sequence drill. Return system to normal."
The alarm shut down. The lights indicating combat situation returned to normal. People looked at each other and tried to see where the voice came from. A device uncloaked on the upper balcony, revealing none other than Vera.
"Give me shipwide communication." There was a sound of confirmation. "Crew of Atlantis. What you have experienced this past two hours was a military drill. In this no one has come to any harm. I repeat. No one has come to harm. What you have seen was optical illusions. There have been no real wraith here. The evaluation will be shared with you at it's completion." The transmission ended. She turned her bright eyes down on Elizabeth. "Dr Weir. If you would join me in your office?" It was less of a question and more of a demand. The woman turned and walked into the office.
"Zalenka." She called at once. "Life sign count.. does it add up?" She licked her lips, swallowed hard and waited for the answer. A few buttons were pushed and he looked up at her.
"They do. It's an exact count." The relief that washed over all of them was to such relief there were smiles popping up.
No one died today. They didn't have to destroy Atlantis or flee home. Ronon laughed of relief and Sheppard turned to Weir. She nodded.
"Medical teams. Arrange it."
"I will."
"I told you it wasn't there!" McKay shouted from the scientists.
Elizabeth gave him a stare before turning towards the stairs and heading up.
There were much to be discussed here. Her relief was quickly replaced with anger. Two hours ago she thought this woman dead, now she stood here.. toying with them? She didn't close the door softly behind her.
"Dr Weir-" Vera started but the other woman snapped.
"Listen. What you did here today is unacceptable. You caused a complete panic and devastation among my people. We almost destroyed this entire city!"
"Ship." She was as calm as ever. "And yes, I was surprised that you were prepared to destroy the only city-ship class that is known to exist."
"We can't let this technology fall into wraith hands! Their ultimate target is earth! Six billion lives. We don't have the technology to fight that enemy."
"Dr Weir." Vera raised her voice to make throw Elizabeth of track and silence her. "You did well."
"What?" She scowled, and stared.
"This exercise may look as a complete failure to you. You lost a lot of men. To me it shows that you were willing to pay every price to protect Atlantis. And in the worst case scenario, you are prepared to destroy her. I would rather die with her, than see her fall into enemy hands. This is my preliminary evaluation of the events." She placed a palm computer on the table. "I will write you a more extensive report."
Elizabeth was slightly stunned by her behavior. A few minutes ago she was so angry that thw ancient had acted like this, on her own. Now Vera spoke as if Elizabeth was her superior, promising her reports. Weir sat down and leaned her arms on the desk.
"You could have warned me about this."
"Don't you have stress-tests on your planet?" Vera asked with a puzzled look. She didn't think she had done anything wrong here. Perhaps she had gone a bit over the top with the scale of the invasion. But she had learned much of how these people behaved, what was their priorities.
"Yes but..."
"Do they warn you about an upcoming drill? I would find that very counter-productive."
"No. But... we don't have the technology to make monsters of our nightmares seem completely real either." She leaned back in the chair and sighed. Allowed herself once more to feel the relief of lives that hadn't been lost. "We though we lost half our crew today. We value life very high."
"So I have understood. I took precautions so that no one would be harmed. When the computer recognize a person to be out of play it distributes a mild sedative. Like when I made my first contact with you."
"What I am trying to say is that... This wont be very... appreciated. No matter how good grades you give the crew. We are a very social race, people might get angry with you."
"Dr Weir." Vera straightened her back, leaned slightly forward and reassured her. "My job here isn't to make friends. My job is to see to Atlantis safety. If this causes your people to hold a grudge, I will not mind it." On this she rose. "Of course this will not be repeated. Not for a long time at the very least. Holding drills too frequent can have the opposite effect after all. Also." She paused, thought for a while. "There were some who deserved a mention. People I believe you should commend. Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard early pointed the Chair as his top priority, it was a good call. It's highly unlikely the wraith would have gotten to it so quick. I made it seem heavily guarded because I was using the chair myself."
"Using it? Wait- How much energy was waisted on this?" They had raised the shield and let it run for hours. How much energy did these projections drain? There was a slight panic gnawing.
"None, essentially. I used the time to optimize some of the systems. It isn't my field of expertise but If anything you should draw less power now."
"But... how? We used the shield."
"No you didn't." Vera smiled faintly. Not really used to how these people wasn't used to technology on this level. "It was all illusions. Which leads me to the second person I would like to mention. Dr McKay. If you had allowed him to continue his analysis of the scanners I believe he would have revealed the illusion."
"Alright." She nodded slowly. "Anyone else?"
"Yes, Lieutenant Crown. She handled her team very efficiently. Without her efforts the perimeter would have been greatly delayed, or even forced."
"I see."
"You will hear from me when the report is complete." Vera turned and walked to the door but stopped just before she reached the door and turned back. "Dr Weir... I am not your enemy." She fell silent, nodded shortly then left before Elizabeth could answer.
Vera knew she had never been good with people. A military chain of command she could handle. But these people. These Tau'ri as the asgaard called them. They had such complex relations. Even their highest permanent military command on Atlantis, John Sheppard, what a very relaxed character. She had to admit it felt rather... good. Comparing to the life she had led before, filled with orders and deadlines. Where all waking time had to be used efficiently. She had a hard time letting go of her habits. But earlier today she had loosened her own rules and actually taken a ship to fly, just for fun. Just for fun.
In the evening Vera sat in the jumper that had been given to her. It laid stationary in the water, at the same place where she had drenched Sheppard earlier. The same dock she had used as a starting point as she had raced him, and faked her own death. The report to Dr Weir was finished and handed over. By now she supposed that anyone interested in her evaluation had read it. As an evening past-time she had sat herself in the cockpit and brought up an interface on the jumpers window. The text displayed was scrolling by slowly, and it was in ancient. It was reports from her own people. She was trying to read up on what had happened since she had entered the stasis pod last time.
That's when a knock came on the back of the ship. Surprised she looked up and had the door open without saying anything. Outside stood Sheppard, he peered inside and asked.
"Can I come in?"
"Of course." She said and the text stopped rolling on the screen. She didn't bother hiding it, knowing the man couldn't read it anyway.
"Late night reading?"
"There is a lot to catch up on."
"More mission reports?" He walked through the jumper and sat down on the other seat.
"Yes, I want to know how the war went. I suppose you're here to talk about the drill."
"Yeah.." He placed a boot on his knee and leaned forward. "I read your report, we all did. And we're... I mean... We thought... You wrote we did well."
"Yes." She blinked, confused.
"Half of our crew died, we tried to blow up the city-ship." He corrected himself.
"I presented you with an extreme, highly unlikely situation. What I expected to study was your complete failure. Where your weaknesses lie, how long it would take. Instead you held your ground for more than two hours. Allowed maneuverability within the time you calculated you had left. And in the end your leader made the call that no hope was left. But still you would have safely evacuated little less than half the crew and destroyed Atlantis. Quite honestly Sheppard, I was impressed."
"Well..." He shrugged and tried to look unaffected, and failing at it. "We can only do our best." They shared a smile and he took a look around the cabin. "So.. does this mean I can race you again?" He asked with a grin on his face.
End Chapter 4
Authors Note: I SERIOUSLY hate the way you handle documents and text on this page nowadays, I can't divide sections of texts into sections by just pressing enter. NO. You actually have to use a damn LINE.
And this GOD DAMN line spacing. It breaks the flow of the text. I HATE IT.
There. I got that out of my system. Other than that YAY UPDATE!
I've hardly proofread anything this time. Why? I finished it and wanted to get it OUT. I wrote about two pages two weeks after the last post. SInce then I've barely written _anything_ at all. It's been a weird year for me. The next chapter will either be a short one or I'm starting to write another episode-re-write. Do tell me if you have any wishes.
I'm just glad I'm writing again : )
Please pop in a Review if you got all way down here!