Point of Ascension
Chapter 6 Part 2
"Earth."
Elizabeth, John, Carson, Vera and the wraith queen stood looking down at a wraith who was in the final stage of the turning process. He was strapped to the bed and surrounded by a couple of men in hazmat suits. After establishing that a gas was the only way to effect en entire wraith population at once, they had proceeded to test how long it would take for the transformation to take place. It had been approximately nine hours after the gas had been distributed.
"I want to go in there." The queen said with a hidden sense of exhilaration on her voice. She turned towards Weir. "Now."
Elizabeth and John exchanged looks before she turned towards one of the medical staff and ordered them to vent the room. Moments later a lamp above the door to the isolation room changed to green and the door opened. Two soldiers entered the room first, escorting the rest into it. Michael had joined them now. Vera remained by the observation window one floor up.
The wraith, now a pale human with white hair, was still strapped to the bed. He calmly watched as these strangers came closer to him, the wraith queen proceeding up to him. She let her hand touch his leg and caressed it as she came up to his face. He turned an innocent face up to her and she caressed his jaw with two fingers.
"Don't worry." Carson assured her. "He'll begin to turn back in only a number of days if we don't start administering-"
Without any warning the queen raised her hand and slammed it into the mans chest. He screamed and started to writhe in pain. Every soldier, including Sheppard, drew their weapons and pointed it towards the queen. Weir raised her hand and turned her head slightly towards him.
"Colonel. We knew this would be a part of the bargain."
Reluctantly he lowered his weapon along with the other soldiers and watched as the queen hissed in her pleasure. The man was still screaming and struggling against his restraints.
Sheppard took a glance up the window and he saw Vera standing still, watching the scene take place. Not a single change in her features. Carson was more than appalled but could do nothing but watch. As the man began to whimper, Michael claimed to have seen enough and left the room.
The man, once a wraith, then turned to a young human, now lied withered and old on the bed. Closing his eyes to death. The queen raised her hand and watched the organ used to feed. There were blood on her palm and fingers. With satisfaction she turned her head towards Weir.
"It works." She confirmed.
Later in the afternoon Sheppard came to the mess after a meeting. At a table sat Teyla, Ronon and Vera, dining. Sheppard joined them.
"Seems like we're trying it." He said, starting at his food.
"I thought you already tried the gas?" Ronon asked.
"Yeah, no, we're going against another hive."
"Already?" Vera was surprised, from what she knew they hadn't figured out a quick enough way to distribute the gas yet.
"Apparently there's a hive only a jump away. They're gonna pretend they're surrendering, carry the canisters on board and we'll detonate them simultaneously."
"Will you be able to effect a large enough part of the ship?" Teyla leaned forward.
"They seem to think so."
"Are we sending any of our people along?"
"Yes." Sheppard answered Ronon and smiled reluctantly. "We're taking the Daedalus. To observe."
"I have the feeling you're not entirely.. satisfied, John." Teyla smiled at him.
"It's too early and too much risk.." Vera voiced her opinion. "Have Dr Beckett's team produced enough gas?"
"He says they're been making it since we formed the alliance. There's enough."
"A full scale operation against a hive is still too early. All we have is one test, and that was in a controlled closed environment."
"Could.. be to our advantage." Sheppard suggested, carefully.
"How come?" Ronon leaned forward to the table. Sheppard followed his gesture and made a quick check so no-one was listening to them.
"If things goes south, we can't let the word go around that we were involved in this."
"You're hoping the hives will take out each other." The ancient said. "I thought you wanted this plan to succeed?"
"I'm just saying that if they blow each other to kingdom come we can all just go home and pretend it never happened."
He leaned back and continued his meal. Vera supposed she understood him. What they had witnessed today was something that hadn't left any of them untouched. It was appalling. The suffering these turned wraith would go through... And they had to go through it with a lost memory.
She herself had been against it because one fundamental value that many lanteans based the lives on.
Free Will.
It wasn't enough that it was done to the wraith against their will from the beginning. After the drug had taken effect, they were a brand new person. Their memory was lost. When they realized this after turning Michael, she had insisted that they wouldn't lie to him. This had been voted down instantly, deemed too dangerous.
"They didn't need you on the Daedalus?" Dr McKay asked the asgaard that had stayed behind in Atlantis.
"Colonel Caldwell believed my time was better spent disabling their jamming code."
"Huh." He hunched over another computer. "So they can fly that ship without you." He commented, clearly with spite.
"Yes." Hermiod answered, matter-of-factly. "But apparently you can't run these tests without me."
Straightening up, McKay looked over at the alien, his pride taken a thorn.
"I'm sure I would've been fine." His voice shivering with barely contained annoyance. Hermiod looked up with narrowing eyes.
"I am not as sure."
"Really? Well..." He bends over the computer again and his hands rapidly hammered across the keys.
"Dr McKay, Hermiod." Vera greeted as she came into the room. "How is the progress on the code?"
"I'm almost done." McKay answered. "Aren't you on the Daedalus?"
"Clearly not." Hermiod stated, which caused McKay to pause for a moment and take a strained breath before continuing.
"I'm listening in on a direct radio link. If anything goes wrong, I'll know."
"There." He straightened again. "Try it now." Folding his arms he waited with a smug smile for the asgaard to run the simulation.
A few seconds passed as Hermiod initialized the simulation and waited for it to run. Eventually the message "Simulation Successful" Appeared on the screen.
"Well, well!" He stated triumphantly. "Turns out the human knows what he's doing after all."
"Indeed." Hermiod answered with an ill-concealed sigh. "Your assistance on this project will be noted."
"My assistance?!" McKay shouted half in-dignified.
Vera smiled vaguely at the scene in front of her, but that smile vanished as she heard the radio chatter in her ear.
"Is something the matter?" The asgaard asked her and her eyes shifted over.
"Something's wrong. The delegation to the enemy hive is returning too soon."
"What? What do you mean?" Rodney heard the alarm in her voice.
"I'm going to the chair." She instantly turned and headed towards the elevator. McKay took up chase.
"What's happening?"
"I think they were found-" She stopped in her tracks and turned her eyes to McKay. "The enemy hive has opened fire."
"What?"
"I have to get to the chair. Go to Dr Weir, she'll have more need of your assistance than I." Vera started running through the corridor.
"But-"
"Now McKay!" Was her last word.
"Apparently it scientist appreciation day!" He grumbled in sarcasm before heading towards the control room.
The chair reclined smoothly as Vera leaned back in it. Instantly the screens lit up. Giving her a status report of Daedalus condition. The hive was shown on another screen but without any damage report, as she didn't have access to read their systems. The whole thing was nearly over when she hailed the ship.
"Colonel Caldwell, speak to me." She asked.
"We're about to jump into hyperspace. Get that Jumper back into the Bay! We're not gonna be able to keep this up for long." The colonel was shouting his orders.
"What happened?"
"Your guess is as good as mine."
"Jumper eight has been recovered." Another voice announced.
"Set course for Atlantis, get us out of here!"
It was the last she heard from the Daedalus before they jumped and effectively cutting off communication. With a slightly nervous set of mind she decided to stay in the chair. Carefully watching every scanning device Atlantis had.
"Our delegation was searched." The hive queen could be seen on a screen from the control room. She was not in a good mood. " They were killed immediately when your canisters were discovered. Our transport ship tried to escape but it was destroyed. You must devise a better delivery method."
"Or what?" Dr Weir asked.
"Or we will disclose your location to other wraith."
"We kept our part of the bargain. We gave you the retrovirus."
"And it is useless without an effective delivery system!" The queen said in anger and frustration.
"So we have to do everything?" McKay extended his arms in a gesture of 'what do you want us to do?'.
The queen remained silent, staring into the camera. Apparently it was exactly what she expected. Moments passed and Weir also turned her head towards him.
"Ok, ok! I'll figure something out!" He threw his hands up in a gesture of 'I give up'. "But no more holding back!" He pointed to the screen where the hive queen was visible. "I wanna know everything there is to know about hive ships: schematics, power distribution, life support configurations, everything you've got."
"Then you shall have it." She said solemnly.
"For real?" He looked startled.
They watched the queen turn her head and give a nod. Seconds later a console beeps behind McKay. He turned towards it, barely heeding Weir's warning.
"Make sure it's secure."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah we're completely fire walled. Let me see that."
Absentmindedly he pushed away the technician, who was on a chair with wheels, thus he kept rolling away across the floor. McKay skimmed through the text and his jaw slightly dropped.
"She actually did it!" He looked over at Dr Weir. "This, this is the motherload!"
"What is it, exactly?"
"Only everything you've ever wanted to know about wraith technology but were afraid to ask." He answered with a growing smile.
"Why are you doing this?" Elizabeth turned towards the queen again as McKay continued drooling over the computer.
"We have suffered extensive damage." It wasn't something she was happy to admit, that much was clear.
"We could render assistance." Weir decided it was a good idea. The wraith would allow humans to work on their ships, which in turn mean they would learn even more about the technology.
"You would do this?"
"We're supposed to have an alliance, aren't we?" Elizabeth utilized her most reasoning voice. "Sending information on Wraith technology was a remarkable act of good faith on your part."
"Your assistance would be... acceptable."
"Alright then. We have a deal." The two women nodded towards each other before the transmission was cut. "This better be worth it." She sighed.
"That's your sweet spot. This central chamber scrubs the CO2 from your artificial atmosphere and redistributes it as breathable air to the rest of the ship. You get a sufficiently large canister of retrovirus into that central chamber, the whole ship'll be affected simultaneously."
McKay pointed to a screen displaying the schematics of a wraith hive ship. More specifically he pointed to a location at the center of it. He was explaining the idea to the Wraith queen who, after a few days of reparation on the hive ship, had returned to Atlantis.
"Getting to this location without arousing suspicion will be very difficult."
"I'm sure it will be." Weir commented, doing her best to keep the spite out of her voice. "But we can't really help you with that."
"Although.." McKay started. "The Colonel and I have come up with a way to test that theory." He looked over at John who nodded for him to proceed. "Step one: we find another enemy hive and jump to a location just out of its sensor range."
"Step two:" Sheppard continued. "The Daedalus takes position in close proximity to your hive, essentially merging with your scan patterns, rendering it practically invisible to the enemy sensors."
"Step three:" McKay took over again. "Using sublight systems, our ships approach the target hive for.. whatever reason, I'm sure you can come with something.."
"Step four:" John finished. "Now that the Daedalus can use its beaming technology again-"
"Thanks to -" Rodney interrupted him and pointed to himself with both of his hand, but as usual no one gave praise for his skill.
"Anyway.. once we get in range we can beam the canister into the CO2 chamber and boom! One hive ship de-Wraithified."
The both of them smiled, simultaneously putting their hands on their hips. A smile of self satisfaction plastered across their faces.
"Unacceptable." The queen instantly rained on their parade.
"Excuse me?!" It was McKay's feelings that was most hurt.
"This plan keeps us completely reliant on you to disseminate the retrovirus."
"It's meant to be a test to see if the gas works in the first place." Sheppard explained without much patience. "If it does, you can come up with some other way to deliver it."
The queen considered her options, shifted her head to Weir and back to the two men. A glance was given to the bright blonde who kept herself in the background. She clearly wasn't happy with the situation.
"Very well." She said reluctantly and turned to Weir. "I'll transmit the coordinates to our new target as soon as I return to the hive. We'll leave as soon as you are ready."
As she left the room Vera got up from the chair and joined the others.
"Hmm... I should be on the hive when we do this." John and Elizabeth both stared wide-eyed on McKay.
"Excuse me?!" Elizabeth exclaimed.
"Really?"
"I know its uncharacteristically brave, but I've hacked a lot of their systems under the guise of repairing them. I've convinced them that I should be there to supervise their systems if anything goes wrong." Despite the suggestion and explanation he was obviously nervous about it.
"And they agreed to this?" Weir frowned.
"Yes. Plus!" He raised a finger and started to search his pockets. "Now that we can freely beam stuff on and off their ships I've programmed this..." He produced an object not bigger than a lipstick. "To beam me out of there the second I activate it."
"Are you sure you wanna do this?" Elizabeth still couldn't believe her ears.
"Of course not! I just... think it should be done."
Sheppard raised his index finger to McKay.
"Ronon goes along."
"And I as well."
All three of them turned towards the ancient. She returned their looks, wondering what the surprise was all about.
"Why?" John managed to ask.
"I don't trust them."
"Neither does any of us." Weir ensured her.
"I understand at least as much about wraith technology as Dr McKay, perhaps even more. I would be an asset rather than a hindrance."
"It's not your competence I'm questioning. I just thought... Well you give the impression you don't like to leave Atlantis. And you are our best best if we need to defend Atlantis."
"The danger to Atlantis primarily rely on this missions success." Vera stated. "I believe I can be of best use on the hive ship. With McKay's beaming device it shouldn't be any trouble." That was a lie, and she knew it.
"Alright, if it is what you want.."
"It is."
"Very well. And I want you on the Daedalus." Elizabeth nodded to Sheppard.
"No place I'd rather be."
"Okey, good." Weir sighed. "Let's get this done. I'm about ready for our house guests to leave."
In one of Atlantis labs Dr Zalenka and some of his co-workers were busy studying the files that were sent over from the wraith. Having his elbow on the table he was resting his head in his hand. The screen suddenly flashed on and off for a couple of times. He mumbled to himself in Czech, his native language. After a moment it continued it's flickering and he straightened his back too check if anyone else had the same problem.
"Is your terminal?"
But there were no reason to wait for an answer. All the terminals were acting the same way. There were another flow of words in Czech. Suddenly the main screen turn completely black, the terminals soon followed. Another co-worker came up to him with a tablet.
"You need to see this."
Radek received the tablet and his eyes raced over it.
"Oh no." He said absent minded then turned to the assistant. "Tell me the Daedalus hasn't left yet."
Colonel Caldwell stood with his arms folded, looking out at the light spectacle that played while traveling in hyperspace. He heard footsteps behind him continued to stare outside as Sheppard joined him.
"Are we there yet?"
"Do you have any idea of how difficult these maneuvers are gonna be?" He questioned, still looking out.
"I'm guessing.. really difficult?"
"We're going to be flying so close to that hive ship, you'll be able to reach out and touch it." He turned to Sheppard. "I'm gonna insist on a few practice runs before we approach the enemy."
"I'm sure they're fine with that."
"Coming out of hyperspace." Caldwell's right hand man, Kleinman, announced.
They started to slow down and as they exited hyperspace Caldwell turned around to speak with Kleinman.
"Get McKay on radio. I want t-"
The colonel got cut off by a forceful shake of the ship. The very second they dropped out they were attacked by two hive ships. Caldwell just managed to stay on his feet and got himself into the chair in the center of the bridge. The alarm was sounding throughout the ship.
"Shields to maximum!" He shouted, though hopefully people were already working on it.
"Decks one to seven in the forward section have decompressed and are venting atmosphere."
"Seal off those sections get a damage control team down there."
John, who fell to the floor as the ship shook, had managed to scramble to his feet.
"Who's firing at us?"
"Two hive ships bearing down on our position, Sir. One of them is the friendly."
"Not anymore." He grumbled to himself and a console behind Caldwell erupted into sparks.
"All main weapons; fire at will on both ships. Hermiod: stand by to beam warheads to the nearest hive ship."
"It doesn't make any sense." Sheppard pondered. "Why break the alliance now? They don't even have the gas aboard, we do."
"That's not my concern right now." Caldwell pointed out and the flash on an explosion illuminated the bridge.
"Colonel Caldwell. This is Hermiod. The warheads are ready to deploy."
"Stand by 'til we reach optimal range."
"You got to give our people time to beam back aboard first!" Sheppard claimed, frustrated there wasn't anything he could do about the mess.
"They've got until we reach weapons deployment range. If they can't activate their emergency transceivers by then, there's nothing we can do about it."
Within the formerly friendly hive ship McKay, Ronon and Vera were being led down a corridor when the whole ship lurched. The party stopped and McKay instantly went into half-hysteria mode. Ronon drew his weapon and Vera calmly observed.
"What was that?" Rodney looked about. "Activate your transceivers!"
Ronon pressed the device around his wrist. Rodney desperately searched for it. Vera pulled up her weapon, raised it and took out two of the guards who just rounded the corner behind them. Ronon turned towards the scientist, who now had an escort of several guards. Before he had time to fire he was hit by their stun-guns. Vera was given the same treatment and fell to the ground, unconscious.
The transceivers had failed them.
"What are you doing?!" McKay shouted in his panic. As if accusations could solve the situation.
"I am sorry doctor McKay." The wraith scientist said, clearly not sorry at all. "There has been a... change in plans."
The guards grabbed him and gathered up the two others while the scientist strolled away down the corridor.
They were steadily approaching the two hive ships, and eventually came the time when Caldwell had to take the decision.
"That's time."
"You gotta give them a few more seconds!" Sheppard pleaded, not at all comfortable with loosing any of the three.
"Sorry Colonel, I can't do that. Hermiod. Deploy warheads when ready."
"Colonel Caldwell. Dr McKay's code has failed to breach the wraith counter measures. I am attempting another series of codes."
"Work as fast as you can. This shield aint gonna hold up forever."
"With some 302s we might be able to take out the hyperdrive, -save us some time." Sheppard suggested, to which Caldwell instantly replied:
"Do it!"
John started towards the hanger but his footing was thrown off as the ship shook. Kleinman announced that shields were down to 60%, and John quickly got up on his feet and took off.
Only moments later Sheppard exited Daedalus hanger in formation with three other 302s. Relieved that there finally was something he could do about the situation.
"Delta Two, on my lead. Get ready to hit their stardrive."
"I've got incoming." The pilot replied.
Sheppard gave a glance and furthered his orders.
"Deltas Three and Four, try to keep these darts off our six."
"Roger that."
He plunged into a series of evasive maneuvers, but keeping his course steady towards the hive ships.
"Half the boogies are pursuing Daggers Three and Four. We've got the other half hot on our tail." The co-pilot of Dagger Two informed.
"Taking fire, I've lost the generator!" The pilot called in.
"Stand by to break left on my mark... Mark!"
Dagger Two broke off from the course and while the Dart kept on flying Sheppard readied one of his missiles and fired. The Dart was blown apart, the fire terminated instantly due to the lack of oxygen in space. He continued through the wreckage and kept on flying.
"We're in the clear. Continue to target."
In the hive ship a half conscious Ronon and Vera was put into food storage chambers by unkind hands. Another pair of guards placed McKay in a third chamber.
"Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa! Hold on! We're supposed to be allies!" He protested, still clinging to common sense.
"I'm afraid the alliance has been dissolved." The wraith scientist said with a mockery of a smile.
"Do you have any idea of how much time I've put into this?!" He raged now, his sense refusing to accept the situation. But the wraith just looked at him. "I haven't slept for 36 hours!"
"Perhaps it is better if you rest." The wraith said and took a weapon from one of the guards and shoot McKay.
"Colonel Sheppard, get your flight back to the ship. We need to jump out of here as soon as possible."
It was Caldwell's voice that came over the radio. But John was still focused on his task. Continuously dodging threats he was almost at the hive ship by now,
"Two minutes. I can shut down their hyperdrive."
"Unless you can shut down their weapons it's not gonna do us much good."
The ships computer warned him about two threats from behind. He swore and dodged. It probably wasn't a good idea, but he disconnected the signal from Colonel Caldwell anyway. He needed to focus on his maneuvers right now. With two dart's chasing him he needed to focus.
"Dammit!" He hissed. "Dagger Two, I could use some cover on my attack run to the target hyperdrive."
"Roger that leader. I'm on my way."
The 302 appeared behind the Darts and effectively took them out. It stayed on Sheppard's tail.
"The remaining Darts are returning to the hives."
"Can you go to max thrust?"
"Negative."
"Head back to the Daedalus."
"Roger that."
And Dagger Two broke off the pursuit.
"Sheppard? Sheppard?" Caldwell shouted, wanting the man to come to his senses and return to the Daedalus.
"I'm not getting anything sir." Kleinman informed.
"Prepare to jump on my mark."
"Sir! The hives are opening hyperspace windows!"
The colonel looked out the windows, stood up and made his way forward. Not quite understanding what just happened, or more accurately, why.
"Why the hell did they do that?"
"Three of our 302's are returning, Sir." Kleinman kept updating his command.
"Sheppard?"
"His fighter isn't one of them." He shook his head. "The only contacts I have on screen are... wreckage."
"What about his locater beacon?"
"No, nothing Sir. He's just... gone."
"Understood." Caldwell turned his eyes toward the scene outside. He couldn't say that he was surprised that this was the result of forming an alliance with the wraith. But it wasn't an 'I told you so' he wanted to say. "Set course for Atlantis."
Zalenka sat in Elizabeth's office. Not preparing to defend what just happened. It was too grave for apologies. How were they going to stop what was about to happen?
"We got hacked." He admitted. "Within the hive ships schematics there was a worm-like computer virus."
"Your people went over the data.."
"I know. We thought it was clean, but this virus was entirely different."
"What did it do?"
"It very selectively probed out systems without damaging them or exposing itself."
"I don't understand." Weir frowned. "If you didn't find it and it didn't reveal itself.."
It was frustrating that he couldn't just explain how sophisticated the virus was. They certainly weren't ever expecting anything like it from the wraith.
"Once the hive left Atlantis, the worm began to destroy all the data they had sent down."
"Then this was their plan all along.." She shook her head. "What did they get?"
"This is one of the reasons we didn't detect it. They only uploaded two pieces of information. One: The Aurora mission reports..." It was the second thing that was worse. So much worse.
"Okay, and two?"
"The location of every world in our database."
There was no words to explain the devastation that was plain in Elizabeth's face.
The streaking lights of hyperspace travel was reflecting on Sheppard's 302's windshield. He unhooked his oxygen mask and took a look around.
"Okay.. This is new."
He hadn't been quick enough in his attempt to take out the hyperdrive. And when he noticed a hyperspace window was opening he went with the only solution he could think off.
Which resulted in the current situation. He was stuck to the belly of the 'friendly' hive ship, traveling in hyperspace along with it.
It only took seconds after Ronon had woken up properly until he started to struggle in his cocoon.
"You okay?" Ronon asked and McKay started hyperventilating.
"No! No, I think this is the most not okay I have ever been!"
"I wasn't talking to you." Ronon answered him.
"Oh..." McKay had the face of a hurt child.
"I'll be fine." Vera responded in a low tired voice. She breathed slowly and barely moved.
The wraith scientist walked up to them again, stopped in front of the struggling Ronon who tried to lunge himself towards him. Without result.
"I see you have awakened."
"Really? I was sort of hoping this was all just a nightmare!" McKay's sarcastic sense got the better of him.
"Why aren't we dead?" Ronon asked with frustration.
"The Queen wants you to live long enough to witness the fruits of your labor. If it wasn't for you, Doctor McKay, we would never have been able to get there."
"What are you talking about? Get were?"
The wraith slowly leaned forward, piercing Rodney's eyes. Carrying mock on his lips.
"Earth."
Vera said the word unanimously with the wraith.
The End
Authors notes: Hurr-dee-hurr. I know, boring chapter, sorry about that.
Soooo... My brain is kinda.. dead it seems. It might have something to do with the release of the PS4. (I've spent the entire weekend playing ac4)
I thought I would be done with part 3 by now, but I'm not. Had planned to post it next Sunday, but I'm not.
Next part is going to be about the people around the wraith ship.
Seriously. I'm crapped out, so dunno when next part will be out. Hopefully before the end of the year. At least I can say it's gonna be good! Well.. I'm gonna like it, can't tell about you. x3
Peace out!
(ps. If you wanna help me get my mojo back, tell me something nice XD [yes, i love attention, sorry:b])