The Fall

by Wedjatqi

ALLIANCE FIC – 2 weeks after the events of 'Interlude 4' and Atlantis continues to search for Janus' secret lab; Teyla, still feeling slightly unwell, is aboard the Sythus on its way to hunt down the elusive Skerti out beyond the Alliance border. And in the Training Facility, Oneakka continues his recovery while struggling with new developments regarding Seeal.

36. Act 2 - Morning Briefing

ACT 2 – TRUTH

Chapter 36 – Morning Briefing

The battle for control of BreakAway One had taken hours – or more precisely four and a half hours by Oneakka's reckoning. They had been frustratingly broken hours as well, with the only means of communication from the battle-site via Fighters flying up to higher orbit to report directly to the Honos.

The Wraith had fought aggressively and had taken good advantage of the atmospheric interference, the thick depth of the night, and the planet's wide open landscape providing no shelter on the ground. They'd mounted a worryingly efficient strike and run attack approach on the BreakAway and on the wings of Fighters and Troop Transports that had tried to provide support to the battle. Given the lack of standard communications, that highly efficient strategy by the Wraith implied that they'd broken with their modern rule and had been using their telepathic network to coordinate with each other. However, there were currently no Seekers on the planet to confirm it, so it was just a theory for now.

Not that it had ultimately helped the Wraith. Though they initially had had the upper hand around the BreakAway, after enough hours and more Military support arriving, the Wraith had finally been defeated. Those Wraith who had landed and had been attacking the BreakAway on foot had all been killed, and the surviving Wraith Fighters had fled. There were currently several wings of Fighters pursuing them, hunting them down, and finally BreakAway One had been liberated.

But that had been two hours ago, and information had remained frustratingly slow in getting up from the surface to the Honos and then broadcast via the links. However, Military Engineers had now gotten into BreakAway One's Beacon on the tilted top of the section of the station and had commandeered the Beacon's former exclusive channel that cut through the static better than other communications. With the Honos in as low an orbit as it could risk, communications had now finally started flowing via the new Beacon relay frequency.

And one of the first pieces of information to be broadcast from BreakAway One had been the list of their over three thousand survivors…as well as a separate list of the dead.

Raven's name hadn't been on either list, but there were a number of unidentified bodies found on the BreakAway. Given she had a subdermal Beacon, the chances of her being classed as 'unidentified' were small, but he had no idea the state of the bodies. Perhaps some were too damaged, too broken up, or perhaps the tech on the BreakAway hadn't been able to detect her Beacon even close up due to the planet's interference. But now the Military Medics were assessing all the survivors and the found bodies, the list was being constantly updated.

And so, he'd kept the lists permanently up on one screen in front of him, and kept checking them constantly for any updates.

Her name still hadn't appeared, but there were a lot of people for the Medics to assess down there in just that one BreakAway. And the long stretch between the BreakAway's fall and its liberation had not been easy for those inside.

The theory that the Wraith Fighters had followed BreakAway One down to the surface had been confirmed by those onboard, and the very second the BreakAway had 'landed' partially crumpled on one lower corner, the Wraith had been on them, literally cutting in through the hull to get to the people, and the Portal, inside.

But the defence of BreakAway One had been excellent, in no small part due to the large number of Military and one Elite Warrior, Therfire, who had happened to be in the marketing halls when the Station had been hit. With so many excellently trained and experienced hands and minds at work to help the Station's Security staff, they had mounted a brilliant defence, having forced the Wraith to attack through limited bottleneck cut entry points, where it had been far easier to pick off the creatures. The Wraith had then changed tactic at some point in the middle of the night, and had focused on one entry point, tearing and cutting it wider. Therfire and some Military in uniform - and therefore dressed with the defuser tech able to counteract Wraith stunners - had literally held a line in that entrance and fought for hours holding back the Wraith.

Of those who had held that line, two were listed as dead. If Raven have been there helping behind the defuser line, someone would have known her name. And Therfire, an experienced Elite Warrior, would have recognised her and identified her had she been killed there.

So, the chances were low that she had been on that BreakAway. Though there were apparently still some small pockets of that section of the station that had been blocked off since the 'landing' and search parties were only now able to access and investigate them. He noticed that a few new entries had appeared in the deceased list, so perhaps were new findings from those formerly blocked locations on the BreakAway.

"…sunlight is increasing, they're almost through the outer hull," the now very familiar voice of the Honos' Commander reported above the constantly running overlapping audio links. "Those working from the inside have cut through the security bulkhead door into the former Portal Room, but report it is littered with debris and the far wall crushed in. They are unable to identify the Portal inside as yet, but believe it is lying within the debris and likely closer to the outer hull team."

"Understood, Honos," the voice from Deployment Station replied. The voice had changed a short while ago, a shift change to allow the male who had covered the incident to have a break.

Oneakka had had a couple of short breaks himself, mostly to use the bathroom, but he'd kept his personal electronic pad with him the entire time. Food had been delivered at some point in the last few hours, but he'd only picked at it. Massa had supplied more tea – again Raven's favourite, but Oneakka hadn't said anything. He'd just taken regular little sips.

"…latest on BreakAway Three is in, Deployment Station," the Honos Commander's voice sliced into Oneakka's awareness.

Though there were numerous Troop Transports, Engineers, and Military air support around the far more damaged BreakAway Three, there had been little by way of updates. Unable to access that BreakAway's Beacon yet to create better communications, the updates had been few and far between. Though, the initial reports had been somewhat positive; no Wraith had been seen anywhere near the still smoking BreakAway, and several hundred injured had been found sheltered in one relatively intact section inside. Those injured had reported that there had been large numbers of other survivors who had been able to escape to the local tunnels. However, those left behind had significant injuries and there were still fires raging in the most damaged areas of the BreakAway, presumably fuelled by the many chemicals and literal fuel stored in that former docking and repairs section of the station. Dealing with that was requiring careful and dangerous work.

"Three Medic Pods have been deployed and medical assessments of the injured survivors is ongoing. We have preliminary list of names, but there are some bodies found that will require further investigation to identify them."

Oneakka winced at the images that provoked – burnt twisted bodies, perhaps in pieces….

"List being transmitted now," the Commander added.

Oneakka leaned forward, watching the screen where the information would be received into the Facility. His job these long hours had been recording information in the Facility's separate firewalled database and providing other cover as needed when the handful of other on duty Elite took short breaks. He would be the first to open the list and save it to the database, so he hovered one hand up close to the controls on the display.

"Received, Honos," the Deployment Station's female Commander replied. "Transmitting now to Battle Station, Trader Saoka's Secondary Station, and Elite Facility."

The small icon appeared on the screen under Oneakka's hovering finger, the data being gradually received in, and then it blinked complete. He tapped it instantly open, directing the list to be saved and displayed on the main console. The second that was done, he pulled up the list alongside the BreakAway One lists in front of him.

To his left, Massa shifted closer to read the list as well, anxiety hanging in the air between them.

Oneakka ran his eyes rapidly down the list, each name accompanied by a description of either 'survivor' or 'deceased'.

Not her, not her….

The list kept running…and finished.

She wasn't on the list.

Oneakka heard Massa let out a breath that was part relieved and part frustrated disappointment. At least she wasn't badly injured on BreakAway Three, but they still had no idea where she was.

If she was alive.

If she had been one of the walking survivors in BreakAway Three who had managed to leave for the tunnels, then she was presumably safe. Saving any Wraith hunting them in the tunnels.

Or she could be trapped or lying dead already within the still burning sections of BreakAway Three.

"We also can report," the Honos Commander's voice added, "Survivor numbers on the relatively intact BreakAway Two number only fifty-one and, given the smaller number, we are organising bringing them up to the Honos for further treatment and assessment. Two Medic Pods have been dispatched to them for the most significant injuries. Troop Lead there reports there are known dead and some unidentified dead, and the lowest few floors of the BreakAway were crushed on impact. We do not yet have confirmation of who might have been in those areas. The surviving injured have confirmed significant large number of walking survivors did leave for the tunnels yesterday before dark fall, which has been confirmed via multiple footprints on the ground. Local entrance into the tunnel has been located and has been sealed from the inside, as per the Fall Protocol."

"Good news, Honos. Received. Do you have a list of those found in BreakAway Two?"

"List has been requested and will be sent once received."

"Understood, Honos."

Oneakka let out a frustrated breath.

"Hold, Deployment Station, we have incoming update from BreakAway One," the Honos' Commander added quickly.

"Understood, awaiting update."

Oneakka shifted his attention back to the two lists, doublechecking Raven's name hadn't appeared with any update. Her name still wasn't on the survivors list, but he found himself scrolling again through the three thousand names from BreakAway One just in case he'd missed her…he knew he hadn't, but what if she'd avoided having her name taken down originally. She might have done that, maybe busy focusing on helping against the Wraith…

He abruptly noticed Khepri' name in the list, grouped together with other names Oneakka's recognised as working for Khepri in his jewellery shop and workshop. That was some good news at least.

But her name still wasn't there.

He tapped into the deceased list. A couple of names had been newly added, previously unidentified now named. Neither were Raven.

There were now more details listed against the unidentified though as the Military Troops more accurately assessed remains. There were four females listed as having dark hair, but two of them were too mature to be Raven, and a third apparently had colourful tattoos across both her arms. The fourth was listed as having long black hair, but she was described as having a "petite" body build, which was a term he couldn't imagine anyone would use to describe Raven's tall, elegant frame.

So, it wasn't likely to be her.

"Deployment Station, this is Honos," the Commander's voice returned and Oneakka lifted his attention up from the list.

"Receiving, Honos."

"Teams on the ground have located the Portal inside BreakAway One. Repeat, Portal has been located. It is buried within heavy debris and separated from its powercell which is significantly damaged. However, the Portal itself appears intact."

There was a rush of sound around the room and audible over the links, everyone letting out breaths of relief.

"Excellent news, Honos."

"Engineering Lead on the ground has requested haulage equipment to extract the Portal out of the BreakAway, and we are sending down a Power Hold ready to receive and independently power the Portal."

"Understood, Honos. Estimated time until Portal can be set in the Power Hold?"

"Engineering Lead has teams working on clearing and cutting through the debris to clear a path to pull out the Portal and they are widening the bulkhead cut. Sunlight levels are increasing, which is also assisting matters. Estimate at this present time is at least an hour."

Oneakka held in the impatient sigh he wanted to let out. It made perfect sense it would take that long, and realistically far longer if the Portal had to be cut free and physically pulled out of the crushed end of the BreakAway. Then, even once the Portal was extracted, getting the large Ancestral tech into a Power Hold and working would take some time. He'd helped set Portals in the Military tech several times, the Power Hold cradles designed to work as simultaneous power sources, dialling devices, and holders for the Portal worked well, but Portals were harder to move around than people realised. They were tall, heavy, and the large empty centre of them meant there was less to hold onto. Plus, the power-flow from the Power Holds could be slightly tricky, often having to be finetuned to power any particular Portal properly, which only added more time.

"Understood, Honos. We will prep matters this end ready to receive BreakAway One's survivors through the Portal and have Healing Bays on standby to tend the injured."

"Received and understood, Deployment Station."

It would take at least an hour to get the Portal out and get it working, and even then the over three thousand found in BreakAway One had to be sent through the Portal…that was a lot of people to move and some of them would be struggling to move quickly. Only once all that was done would the Portal then be relocated to the intended muster point, which would be when the Healer Transport he was assigned to could get to the planet. If Raven was in the tunnels on her way there, it would be hours yet until the Portal could be set up there.

And there were still Wraith loose in the air over the planet, using the planet's frustrating scattering interference to their advantage.

He dropped his gaze back to the long list of BreakAway One's survivors and scanned down through the list of dead again…nothing had changed.

He switched to the list showing those from BreakAway Three, but there was no change to that list either.

There was just more waiting…

0000

John had woken this morning feeling a little thick-headed from a dream about getting lost on the streets of Tjaru on Athos. Teyla had been there, somewhere in the Athosian city, but he'd not been able to find her. The streets had sometimes been thick with snow, as it was currently on Athos, while other streets had been raining or sunny as he'd run around, desperately trying to find her.

It had all been a bit too on the nose, and when he'd woken up he'd had to work to ignore the niggling anxiety that had joined forces with the constant worry always sat at the base of his stomach. Teyla would be okay…

He'd repeated that to himself as he'd gotten out of bed and triggered awake his tablet to check for new emails, only to see the fantastic news that finally there had been a breakthrough and Jackson had found Janus' Skerti info.

Carter had scheduled a meeting at 09:00, so John had had a shower, eaten a hurried breakfast in the Mess, and gotten up to the Conference Room early. Except, it seemed that everyone else was here early too, which included several in from the Alliance, most notably Silvar, the Elite's top Tech guy who was leading the Elite research into the Skerti Jump Drive. Though currently he, Tem-we-ya, Carson's mega-fan, Imseti, and Elite Skan were stood to one side of the Conference Room in deep discussion over the coffee jug. John wasn't sure if the discussion was about the coffee that Skan was holding, but he simply shared a nod with all of them, and headed towards a free seat near the front.

Jackson and Rodney were already here and were busying themselves stood around a laptop set on the end of the table. Behind them the large tv screen showed only the usual turning screensaver. As he took his seat, John considered the two brainiacs. The email about the meeting had mentioned the two and others in their team had been up through the night working on the translation of Janus' intel, and it was pretty obvious. Both men looked pale and there were a total of five coffee cups set around their laptop. Jackson's ever-present yellow legal pad was there too, along with several pens and, oddly, a whiteboard marker despite the fact that there wasn't a whiteboard in here. John guessed maybe they'd been using one earlier to…actually he had no idea why a whiteboard might be needed. The email this morning hadn't given away anything about the content of Janus' long-promised information.

But at least they'd finally found what Janus had promised him. Finally had some actual information on the Skerti.

He just wished Teyla was here to hear it alongside him.

Neither Rodney or Jackson had noticed him and they appeared deep in quiet conversation about something on the laptop, so John looked on around the rest of the table. Sumner was sat across from him, the Colonel looking pretty tired himself since he'd been on the nightshift in the Control Room, so he was probably really looking forward to getting some sleep. Beside him, Carson was in discussion with Imseti, who was now sitting down, Silvar, Tem-we-ya and Skan beside her. Behind John, several of Rodney's Janus Lab team were clustered around the snack table. Unsurprisingly, John spotted a big box of donuts and two cakes on one end of that table. The Mess were clearly still pushing the sweet goods, even at this time of the morning. But, then he guessed the pale-faced scientists probably needed the sugar to keep them going after a long night.

"Morning, everyone," Carter's voice arrived through the gentle chatter in the room and John glanced round to see her hurrying in, General O'Neill and Woolsey right behind her. "Sorry for the last minute scheduling," she added as she headed to the three chairs free at the end of the conference table. "Let's get started, Dr McKay, Dr Jackson?" She began formally, presumably for the visitors' sake.

"Morning everyone," Jackson was the one to take up the start of the presentation. "Thank you for coming," he added with a professional smile as if he was about to start a history lecture rather than a long anticipated military briefing. "As you already know, we were finally able to locate information on the Skerti in Janus' lab."

Yes finally.

"However," Jackson added with a pinched look that made John instantly worry, "it is something of a good news/bad news situation."

What?

There was some quiet whispering from the Elite scientists across the table, probably not having heard that Earth phrase before.

"Umm, by which I mean," Jackson added, clearly having noticed, "It's an Earth phrase, at least in American culture back home, where we mean that though there is good news-"

John wasn't sure why Jackson felt the need to explain it, because surely it made enough sense. "What's the good news?" He interjected towards Jackson.

Jackson turned to him, his eyes definitely looking red and tired behind his glasses, and he opened his mouth to answer.

"No, you always ask for the bad news first," Rodney interjected with a glare from where he was now sat near his and Jackson's collection of coffee cups.

"There's not a set rule, McKay," John glared back at him.

"Everyone wants the bad news first," Rodney argued though, his eyes as tired looking as Jackson's. "Then you can follow it with the better-"

"Let's just keep on point," Carter interrupted with a gentle, but firm tone.

"Right, yes," Jackson pointed to Carter as if she'd asked a question in his lecture. "So," he reached forward and tapped a button on the laptop and the big screen behind and between him and Rodney abruptly filled with lines of Ancient text. "The good news is that we have definitely found detailed information on the Skerti. Here," he moved to the tv screen and gestured to the indecipherable lines of text, "Janus details how the Ancients found the Skerti, the Skerti' basic characteristics, their societal structure, and how they ended up working together against the Wraith."

"Okay, that sounds good," John frowned, worried where the bad news was going to come in.

"The bad news," Jackson continued with a frown, "is that it's incomplete. In the entry Janus goes into significant detail in some areas, such as discovering the Skerti and how they first interacted; in fact, that part sounds more like an anthropological report. Whereas in other areas he's decidedly vague, and then the details cut off."

"So, it's nothing actually useful?" Sumner asked doubtfully.

"No, no," Jackson shook his head. "It's all useful, but incomplete. I found this information alongside two other encrypted entries, the three linked together in Janus' database. So far, we've not found any other example of that in his database so…"

"You think all three are about the Skerti," Carter was the one to guess.

"Exactly," Jackson nodded.

"Why separate the information within an already secure and encrypted database?" Silvar asked with a frown.

"I'm not sure," Jackson replied. "Perhaps to limit how much someone could find by accident?" He suggested with a shrug. "We're still working on getting into the other two entries, so hopefully we'll crack those soon, but for now we do have some really interesting information on the Skerti."

It didn't sound like the answers to their most burning questions were going to be in this section of the information then, and John wrestled with a flash of grumpy disappointment, but made himself focus on what Jackson was saying.

"Janus starts by talking about a dark time in the battle between the Wraith and the Ancients, the Ancestors," Jackson amended with a glance towards Skan and the others from the Alliance. "The Wraith had left their planet and had spread throughout the galaxy, significantly outnumbering the Ancients. All attempts to find a peace failed and there was a huge loss of life on Human worlds, but also among the Ancients as they tried to defend those planets. They were also starting to lose a large number of hyperspace-able ships and most of the Ancients were starting to retreat here to Atlantis. So, the Ancients, as Janus already mentioned to Colonel Sheppard, decided to come up with some alternative ideas on how to deal with the Wraith. One of them involved studying how they evolved in greater detail. The Ancients sent an expedition to the original homeworld of the Wraith to find some of the Iratus bugs, the insects from which the Wraith's non-Human DNA came from."

Even though a decent amount of time had passed since John had had a run in with a live Iratus, and the whole accidently turning into a bug himself thing, he still couldn't stop himself from shuddering at the mere mention of the things.

"It is possible," Imseti put in from the other side of the table, "then that the Ancestors were looking to develop a biological weapon against the Wraith, or perhaps looking to alter them on a genetic level as we are developing with the retrovirus research."

"And if that's true, that speaks to the desperation of the Ancients at the time," Jackson nodded, his words speeding up now so that they were almost falling over each other, "as it was against their core beliefs to interfere with the development of a species, and especially the development of a biological-"

"SO, they went to the Wraith homeplanet to find some Iratus Bugs…," O'Neill interrupted pointedly, waving his hand in a circular 'get back on with it' gesture.

"Right, yes," Jackson continued without batting an eyelid, "and Janus says that the expedition ventured into a dense forest looking for an Iratus nest."

John really wished Jackson would stop using that word.

"But when they found one, they became aware – and here Janus uses an interesting word," Jackson tapped on the laptop and the big tv shifted into a close-up of a line of Ancient text, "'sensed', which I've only seen used in Ancient texts relating to ascension, so I think he's talking about sensed as in telepathically or something like that. They follow this 'sense' down into what Janus described as a small crack in the depths of an Iratus cave which led into a hidden underground cave system."

Jackson tapped a key on the laptop moving the big screen through various images of tunnels and caves, then paused on one of the inside of a large cave with a strange light glowing across the walls and weird alien plants rising up from the cave floor. And among the alien plants, stood Ancients and, towering over them, Skerti.

"Where they found the Skerti," Jackson continued. "And here," Jackson keyed up another image of Ancient text, "Janus uses a very interesting turn of phrase." Suddenly the whiteboard marker was in Jackson's hand and was being pointed to an Ancient sentence on the screen. "He says that this discovery was a surprise as, and this is the fascinating part," Jackson looked round animatedly before turning back and pointing his impromptu pointer to one indecipherable word at a time as he translated, "it had been understood - or that could be translated as 'believed' - that the other offspring of the originally birthed hybrids had not survived." Jackson looked round like that was supposed to mean something really important.

There was a quiet pause in the Conference Room, which John hoped meant that no one else got the point either.

"In that we already know that the Skerti are a relative of the Wraith?" Imseti was fortunately the one to break the moment, but even she didn't seem all that sure.

"Well, yes," Jackson agreed. "But the word usage is fascinating-"

"Yes, you mentioned the fascinating bit," O'Neill put in sarcastically. "Why exactly?" He added.

"The language Janus uses," Jackson replied as he turned back to the screen and pointed to the Ancient words with the marker again. "Of the originally birthed hybrids. He isn't referring to the Wraith or the Skerti as the hybrids, but as their offspring, and the term here," the marker was jabbed against one word, "birthed. The word he's used here isn't the same as the batch birth phrase that the Ancients use elsewhere in the Atlantis database when talking about how the Wraith procreate. This word literally means birthed, as in what us Humans do."

"Not in the batch procreation process the Wraith use," Imseti was again the one to join in the discussion.

"Exactly, we had always assumed that the first Wraith were formed by people being bitten by Iratus Bugs and their DNA mixing, essentially mutating those poor people into the first hybrids of Iratus and Human DNA. But the way Janus describes it here, suggests that the actual first hybrids were 'birthed'," Jackson said in his fast eager voice. "That perhaps that is how the DNA of both Human and Iratus were able to be merged, as babies born from bitten Human parents?"

There was another silent pause, but this one full of a more worried and very clear understanding now of what Jackson was saying.

John abruptly had horrific images of what kind of reaction that would have caused; women giving birth to the first Wraith!

"It has been a possibility we have considered before," Imseti put in with an almost cautious tone. John glanced round at her to see her glancing aside towards her Alliance colleagues and Skan. The Elite Warrior though had a pretty good poker face going and John couldn't tell if the guy was surprised by the news or not.

"What else is interesting," Jackson continued, drawing all eyes back to him, "is the word 'hybrids'," he jabbed at another word on the screen. This time he turned back towards his audience, the marker still against the word. "Janus uses the Ancients' superplural here. It doesn't mean just two, the first Wraith and Skerti hybrids, or even a few hybrids, but far more. This suggests that there were perhaps multiple types of the first mixing of Iratus and Human DNA, the hybrids, at first, not just the Wraith and the Skerti."

"And why is that important for us right now?" O'Neill asked pointedly.

Jackson shifted his attention to the General. "Because it implies that there were originally far more of these Iratus/Human hybrids on that planet."

"Right, and again, I ask why is that important?" O'Neill pushed. "Are you saying there are more types of hybrids on that planet?"

"No," Jackson replied as he quickly shook his head. "Janus says further on that the Ancients, so surprised that the Skerti had survived, that they had checked the rest of the planet thoroughly."

John had to hold in his smile as he watched O'Neill's face go through a twitchy sort of frown.

"And still, I have to ask, why?" O'Neill repeated, gesturing with both hands towards the screen behind Jackson and John heard a few sniggers.

"Because its interesting and important," Jackson replied a little tetchily now. "Up until now, we've found absolutely nothing in the Ancient database about how the Wraith came about, though the best theories are that it was a mistake on the Ancients part. This is the first thing we've found that-"

"Which is fascinating, I agree," Carter interjected. "And important for our understanding of how the Wraith developed and," she glanced down the table towards Carson and Imseti, "useful for us to know for the genetic understanding and development of the retrovirus." Carson and Imseti both nodded, though perhaps only to help move things along. "But going back to the Ancients meeting the Skerti…" Carter prompted Jackson with a smile.

Jackson let out a faint sigh that suggested that his 'students' weren't taking his lecture seriously, but forged on again. "The Ancients made contact with the Skerti, who were originally very defensive and shocked at the arrival of the Ancients into their hidden home. But," Jackson added, his face and voice having quickly returned to his former eagerness, "it soon came to light that neither were a threat to each other. In fact, they had an enemy in common."

"The Wraith," John put in. Janus had already told him that part.

"Exactly," Jackson pointed at John with the whiteboard marker. "Because it turned out that the Skerti had been almost all but wiped out by the Wraith and they had been forced to retreat underground into, what Janus described as, a massively extensive cave system with localised culture and traditions. And the reason why," he glanced towards O'Neill, "is very important here. The Skerti are immune to Wraith feeding."

There were some surprised murmurs from around the table.

"But," Jackson continued, seeming to be enjoying himself again, "as we've already seen, the Skerti can feed on Wraith blood."

"Natural enemies indeed then," Skan uttered.

"But there was one area where the Wraith had a distinct advantage," Jackson added. "Technology. They were far more technologically advanced than the Skerti and they used that to their advantage. From what Janus says here, the Skerti had been living hidden underground a long time, having become a," another screenshot of Ancient text appeared on the screen and Jackson began translating a section, "seemingly dead and distant memory to the first Wraith that had now left the planet and were out claiming Feeding Grounds."

"What are the lights in the image of the cave you showed?" Skan asked. "They looked like powered lights; were they technology?"

"Not in the way we would conceive of it," Jackson shook his head as he returned to the laptop and tapped away on it until the cave picture was back on the big screen. "Janus says that where the Wraith had developed their technology from various spores and crustaceans on the planet, the Skerti had instead used plants and some basic organisms. These vines you see here," Jackson ran the lid of the marker over the glowing wall in the photo, "are a plant that the Skerti cultivated to cling to the inside of the caves and tunnels to provide light and breathable air. For the power used in other areas, the Skerti had utilised something else." Jackson was back at the laptop and abruptly a large multi-legged slug creature appeared on the screen.

"That looks somewhat familiar," John grimaced.

"It is related to the creatures inside the Slug Robots?" Imseti asked.

"Yes," Jackson nodded. "It seems the Skerti lived in a sort of balanced coexistence with these slugs, kind of like pets with a use. I guess the closest thing we have on Earth are working dogs. Janus says that the Skerti seemed to have considerable affection for the…slugs…and that these creatures naturally produced bioelectricity that the Skerti used for basic functions such as heating. Janus describes the best translation of the Skerti' actual name for the slugs was 'living power being'. Which brings us to the next important fact about the Skerti. As the Elite and Imseti," Jackson smiled at her at the table, "ascertained from the dead Skerti Queen, the Skerti are unable to talk out loud. Instead, they use a from of telepathy that Janus described as," this time Jackson referred down to his notes on his legal pad. "Overwhelmingly powerful transmissions that opened up all thoughts and feelings to their knowing."

"Very poetic," someone muttered from behind John.

"This presented something of a problem it seems," Jackson continued. "The Ancients had to limit those who interacted with the Skerti to the most telepathically gifted, so that they could shield their thoughts and emotions from the Skerti. But after several visits and some trust building, the Ancients began to share knowledge with the Skerti, and it seems the Skerti were very quick learners. Several Skerti visited Atlantis itself initially and the Skerti began to share some of their own knowledge about fighting Wraith. Though they had managed to escape and hide from the Wraith, they had been very vicious if encountering any Wraith. Apparently there had been one Hive that had stayed on the original homeplanet, but the Skerti had killed them all. They even had a law that should a Skerti ever be seen by a Wraith that the Wraith in question had to be killed, even if that required the Skerti to give up its own life in hunting and executing that Wraith. Janus describes the Skerti Warriors' fighting style as 'brutal'. The Skerti community was organised rather like bees in a hive in that they had very set functions within the whole. It seems that the Skerti Queens were able to select what functions her offspring were to have, and Janus lists, as well as the Warriors, also Builders, Workers, Tamers – which referred to those working with the slugs and the plants – and Thinkers, which Janus described as the scientist/engineers of the Skerti.

"As the coalition between the Skerti and the Ancients developed, the Skerti Queens began to birth more Thinkers and a large group of them underwent training with the Ancients. Janus appears to have been personally involved at this point in helping develop tech that combined both Skerti organic plant tech and Ancient tech."

"As in the Drive we are testing?" Silvar uttered eagerly.

"Yes," Rodney abruptly entered into the briefing again, "Janus waffles on for quite a while about all the different ideas they had about installing tech in the cave systems for the Skerti, but the Skerti wanted off their planet."

"Janus described the Skerti," Jackson added quickly, "as having a burning hatred for the Wraith and they felt that not having ships and weaponry like the Wraith was what made them vulnerable."

"They wanted out of their caves and into the light," Carson commented.

"Yes, but not sunlight," Jackson noted. "As Imseti and her team had surmised, the Skerti are negatively affected by direct sunlight. It doesn't kill them, but it does hurt them."

"Given they seem to have been at home in a cave system deep underground," Imseti noted, "that would make sense. They clearly do not require exposure to sunlight for nutrient development and regulation of sleep cycles as we do, and they are instead highly sensitive to the radiation in most forms of sunlight."

"Having ships of their own would allow them to leave the planet where they had been persecuted," Jackson continued the story, "and perhaps find a planet of their own that had little or no sunlight."

"So, the Ancients thought they'd help them out by giving them ships and weapons," O'Neill stated grimly.

"Yes," Rodney was the one to answer that. "Stupidly so. The Ancients made several very basic shells of ships for the Skerti to use and adapt. The Skerti grew their own plant vine thingies inside the ships to provide oxygen and light they could tolerate, while Janus and two other Ancients helped develop a way to harmlessly capture the bioelectricity produced by their slug pets into powercells."

"And then they came up with a plan to work together to deal with the Wraith," Jackson took up the tale. "The Skerti had shown the Ancients that fast, rapid gorilla-style tactics were the best way to fight the Wraith. Ambushing being the most effective attack approach the Skerti had utilised."

"Which would make sense for a cave dwelling species," Carson considered thoughtfully.

"Dropping down on their victims from the ceiling," Imseti nodded, sharing a smile with Carson.

John couldn't remember a huge amount of precise detail from the horrible days of when he'd almost turned into a Bug, but he could remember climbing walls and flashes of dropping down from high up onto some of his own team.

"The Ancients and Skerti devised a plan to lure small groups of Wraith ships to an isolated location in space using either a limping ship on the run, or Ancient SOS broadcasts. Then, once the Wraith ships arrived, the Skerti and Ancients would attack them en mass," Jackson explained. "However, for that to work well, they needed an advantage that the Wraith hadn't seen before."

"This feels like the point in the movie where you start shouting at the characters for making bad decisions," John muttered.

"Yes," Rodney was the one to agree. "In their infinite wisdom," he stated sarcastically, "the Ancients provided the Skerti with a way of travelling large distances without using a Stargate. Janus doesn't give any helpful specific details here, but he mentions Skerti/Ancient tech that allowed them to ambush the Wraith out of nowhere and leave without the Wraith being able to track the ships."

"And he makes it clear in his notes," Jackson added, the two working well together in telling the tale, "that they made sure that only a ZPM could power this system, namely the Jump Drives."

"Thereby ensuring the Skerti could not use the technology without their supervision," Skan stated.

"Yes, but that backfired spectacularly," Rodney replied.

"Whatever this new travelling system was," Jackson continued, "it was hugely successful, and a significant number of Hives and Cruisers were destroyed using this ambush technique. But then things started to get out of hand."

"Surprise, surprise," O'Neill muttered.

"By this point," Jackson said as he finally set his whiteboard marker down on the conference table, "more ships had been created for the Skerti and Janus records a date where the very last Skerti left their homeworld, now free to go wherever they wanted in the galaxy. But it turned out that the Skerti were learning considerably faster than the Ancients realised. Hidden away on their own ships now, the Skerti were adapting and developing the technology the Ancients had shared, and they came up with a way of powering the Jump Drives without a ZPM. This came to light when one of the Ancient ships that had been thought destroyed during an ambush on a Wraith Hive, was found to have been commandeered by the Skerti and they had been using it for their own missions."

"By which he means the Skerti were off killing Humans," Rodney put in.

"Removing the Wraith's food source, as the Ancestor Janus told Colonel Sheppard?" Skan asked.

"Yes," Jackson nodded. "But Janus also notes that there had been a growing resentment among the Skerti towards Humans, perhaps seeing them as the favoured descendants of the Ancients. And, as it turned out, the Skerti started using Humans for food as well."

"They do not require blood all the time?" Imseti asked.

"No," Jackson shook his head. "Janus says that they had been eating and cultivating various insects, fruits, and fungi growing in the caves, which seemed to have sustained them fine, and initially it had been thought that the Skerti only had a taste for Wraith blood."

"Until they tasted Human blood," John sighed. "I've definitely seen this movie."

"Now free of relying on the Ancients for transport by ship or ZPMs for the Jump Drives they had commandeered, the Skerti began taking out entire Human populations across a number of planets. And then they turned on the Ancients when they tried to stop them."

"And so another war kicked off, now between the Ancients and the Skerti," Carter mused grimly.

"Exactly," Jackson nodded. "And the Skerti were apparently as brutal against Humans and Ancients as they were against the Wraith. So, the Ancients realised they were going to have to come up with a new tactic to deal with them."

"Lock them away somewhere," John recalled from Janus' visit.

"Not that he says where or how anywhere in this database entry," Rodney uttered grumpily.

"But that information could be in the other two sealed entries in his database, yes?" Silvar pressed.

"Yes, I believe so," Jackson nodded.

"Where do the Seed Ships come into it?" John asked. "They were Ancient/Skerti tech too?"

"No," Rodney answered. "Dreamt up by the Skerti all by themselves."

"Janus mentions 'egg-shaped' attack vessels that were one of several purely Skerti inventions developed without the Ancients' knowledge," Jackson added more detail. "He isn't all that clear on them, but I think that is more to do with not actually knowing. Whereas Janus has specific detail on other systems and technology the Skerti had developed in the caves, he only has a few images of the Seed Ships, so I think the Ancients never actually got their hands on one."

"From our limited experience with these Seed Ships," Skan noted, "they appear to self-detonate easily."

"Perhaps unstable power systems inside," Rodney wondered out loud.

"Or designed that way," John recalled that theory from when the first one had exploded near the Sythus. "Cover their tracks, hide their secret tech from their enemies."

"But why so eagerly destroy valuable technology?" Imseti asked.

"Because they're grown, not built," Rodney answered that. "The ships have no windows, no entrance or exits, and it's possible they're solely piloted by a basic computer system or even remotely for all we know. Janus points out that these Seed Ships were designed specifically to damage Hive ships, the razor top apparently perfectly shaped to cut into the lower hulls of Hives, so maybe them exploding when up close under a Hive was all part of the point. And onto these ships, the Skerti seeded another tech development of their own: the Slug Robots. They somehow developed an organometallic shell for the slugs in their smallest germ form, utilising the slug's own bioelectrical nature to feed and grow the thing ridiculously fast. I mean I have no idea how they managed to do that, it's ridiculous."

"We do know," Jackson added, "that the Skerti Queens started producing a vast number of Warriors, and the language Janus uses to describe them as compared to the Thinkers or Builders or other types of Skerti workers is very telling. They are described," Jackson consulted his legal pad again, "as filled with bloodlust and almost mad with violent aggression."

There was a silent pause again, this one filled with nervous worry at that description.

"That would certainly fit with the victims' remains we found on that Salvager processing ship," Imseti commented solemnly.

The big Salvager ship that had sent Teyla off her on her mission to go track down the Skerti…violent aggressive Skerti filled with murderous bloodlust…

John realised he was squeezing the arms of his chair so tightly his hands were hurting.

Teyla had faced thousands of Wraith, who were obviously awful too. He was sure she could face bloodlust-filled manic Skerti okay…

He made himself unpeel his clawed fingers from his chair's armrests.

"So, there's nothing yet about where the Skerti are?" He pressed Jackson even though he knew that, of course, Jackson would have included that. "Not even a hint?"

"Nothing, but there are the other two entries we've yet to unlock," Jackson replied.

And how long had it taken Jackson to break into just this one entry?

"So, we've got nothing to actually go on here?" Sumner summarised gruffly.

"We have some more information on the Skerti' sensitivities to some substances and sunlight," Jackson replied. "I'm pretty sure one of the plant bulbs Janus mentions is garlic, and that would certainly be backed up by Imseti' research."

"Our hunt mission out looking for the Skerti have sunlight frequency torches and garlic-infused sprays with them," Skan stated. "They should be able to report back on their effectiveness if they encounter the Skerti."

Which sounded good, but since that was Teyla's mission, John really hoped she didn't find any Skerti.

Violent blood-seeking Skerti who clearly had no problem killing Humans.

She would be okay.

She was his warrior princess, she'd be okay…

"For now, we have plenty to study in Janus' first database entry and we can compare this to Imseti' latest research into the Skerti Queen's body to hopefully provide some new insights," Jackson added. "And we'll hopefully crack the other two encrypted entries soon."

"There's an awful lot of 'hopefuls' going on," Sumner stated.

"The biological information the Ancestor Janus provides here may be invaluable to the retrovirus research," Imseti put in, clearly an optimist by nature. No wonder her and Carson got on so well.

"And we can now focus our investigations on the Wraith/Skerti homeworld more precisely," Skan added. "Find the original cave system the Skerti abandoned. That could provide further information for us."

Yeah, that sounded like fun. John remembered the Iratus nest that had ultimately helped save him, but he'd survived that only because the Bugs hadn't thought him a threat at the time. Getting through an Iratus nest to find the Skerti' old front door didn't sound like a mission John wanted anything to do with!

"Well, thank you Dr Jackson, Dr McKay," Carter stated. "Brilliant work. We'll make a copy of everything we have for the Elite," she glanced to Skan, who nodded to her with a polite smile. "And have a team focus on this initial block of information," she added, shifting her attention to Carson. "Hopefully it can help us with the retrovirus."

"We'll get on trying to unlock the next two entries on Janus' database," Jackson repeated with a smile, though, beside him, John saw Rodney's rather tired pained look.

Any other day, John would speak up that the two of them should probably just go to sleep for the rest of the day, but given they had been personally instrumental in finding Janus' Lab and now finding the Skerti info so far, it seemed highly likely that the duo would be the ones to break the two further Janus puzzles. Unless…

"Are either of the two remaining encryptions maths puzzles?" John asked hopefully, wondering if he could help with them.

"No," Jackson replied with a shake of his head. "In fact, one of them is…pretty unclear."

"As in beyond vague and probably impossible to crack," Rodney complained.

"I doubt that," Jackson glanced to Rodney. "Janus sent us looking for this information so…"

"Yeah, and maybe he didn't want us to know it all," Rodney argued. "Maybe that's why it's all separated out."

That was a worrying thought.

"He honestly seemed like he wanted to help us," John put in regarding his brief conversation with the Ancient.

"Maybe everything we require is in this entry we have already opened?" Imseti suggested. "Perhaps we just do not see it yet."

"It's possible," Jackson nodded with a hopeful yet tired smile.

"Well, let's keep working on those two other entries," Carter stated. "Hopefully, all it needs is a bit more time to access them."

John glanced to Jackson and Rodney, their briefing now done, the two were looking like the air had gone out of them.

"And maybe some breakfast?" He suggested to the Doctors.

"That sounds good," Jackson smiled tiredly as, next to him, Rodney picked up one of the five abandoned coffee cups and frowned down at it, the coffee inside either all gone or cold now.

John just wished the whole 'finding all the intel' mission didn't feel like it had gone just as cold.

Surely Janus would have left far more information on what had eventually happened with the Skerti, and how that damn Jump Drive worked.

Something more that would actually provide actionable intel.

Surely…

00000

It had felt like a really long night on Saoka's planet, but Seeal had no way of tracking time beyond the forward motion of the line of fellow survivors. The pace had been reasonably good during the darkest point of the night when the raging battle above the hole-scattered ceiling of the tunnel had been so obvious.

As the tunnel had wandered through several more bends and time had dragged on, the sounds of battle had vanished until only the shuffling of tired feet, coughing, and the occasional whispered conversation had been all that filled the tunnel.

Those with some control of the situation in the tunnel had wisely decided to keep the wall lights off, and though there was some starlight coming in through the holes in the roof to vaguely see what was going on, the tunnel had remained in deep gloom for endless hours.

She'd rewrapped her hand wrappings when the line had stopped at a well point, the slight whiff of the basic toilet facilities lingering in the tight packed, stressful air of the tunnel. Fortunately, the line had progressed on again, slower in the dark quiet from above, but still slightly faster than it had before the battle outside.

Then, some time ago, she'd realised the gaps in the roof had started to get faintly lighter. Sunrise had followed with deep oranges and into pale yellow, the air slowly brightening down into the tunnel, and she'd noticed that people had stopped huddling into their coats and blankets as they walked. Presumably that meant it wasn't so cold, not that she could overly tell, or it could also be that the arrival of sunlight was enlivening people a bit.

Of course, that didn't change anything about the long steady walk.

She'd eaten her second rations packet during the pause at the well, the same 'all you could need' strips of reconstituted something. It had given her another boost of energy though, her legs feeling a bit stronger under her, but she could feel the muscle exhaustion kicking in. The Human body wasn't meant to keep walking this long without a decent break, but sleeping was not safe right now.

Every step forward was a step away from the BreakAway and that Wraith vs. Alliance Military battle in the night, and, of course, towards the prospect of getting off this crappy planet. She'd asked Nanuet again how far he thought the muster point would be, but he'd given another one of his "still some way to go" responses that lacked any clarity or confidence. She'd not pushed for more, because, frankly, he had as much access to intel right now as she did.

Still, she'd let herself inwardly mutter about that as she kept walking, pushing the trolley's thick handle and listening to the breathless coughing around her.

If she'd been in charge of setting up these tunnels, she'd have set up some information points along the way. Perhaps a cache of extra weapons and a chart to help you know where you were on the long, endless, boring, tiring trek to the supposed promised Portal.

It had better be there too, after all this.

She had some niggling worries about that, such as what if the Military were engaged in a full on battle up above the planet that was keeping them distracted? What if another Skerti window had opened up there, disgorging more Wraith and Skerti out into Alliance space? The Military would be focused on dealing with that. Maybe they were even overwhelmed and struggling to cope up there. For all she knew, there could be a full-scale invasion of the Alliance going on, and she and those struggling around her were going to be left down here for days in the planet's dangerous air…maybe never to be rescued at all!

Okay, she was letting herself get caught up in her fears now; it was just tiredness and the constant pushing, walking, and breathlessness.

The muscles in her shoulders and upper back were grumbling at her from all the constant pushing of the trolley, so she slowed her pace enough so that her arms were outstretched to the trolley's handle and dropped her head down between her arms as she pushed, letting her upper back flex downwards. Several things clicked loudly in her back with a really satisfying feeling, and she let her head hang down further, letting her neck stretch out a bit. That had helped.

She flexed her back a couple more times, trying to get some movement and blood flowing through her tired muscles and ligaments. Shoulder fatigue had been a big problem in the pits, keeping your arms up and striking and defending off attacks for hours through the various fights through a single competition event had led to you having to find a way to keep your shoulders relaxed as much as possible even while keeping your fists up. Her trainer had taught her several techniques to get through that, but his main approach had been to make her just repeatedly do that for hours on end, forcing her body to find a way to relax while working so hard. She'd seemed to be able to take it a lot longer than others and she'd put that down to all the tree climbing she'd done on the Glisi world. But climbing and fighting felt different to this endless pushing. The trolley was starting to feel heavier than it had earlier, which she knew wasn't actually possible.

She straightened back up and glanced at Nanuet pacing along beside her. Despite his size and strength, her fears of his endurance were showing a bit. His own shoulders were hunched forward slightly, his head angled down slightly, though he rarely took his eyes off Saoka for more than a few seconds.

She shifted her attention to Saoka's head, the only part of him visible above his blanket-covered body. When the sunlight had first started pouring into the tunnel, the time had fortunately finally arrived for Saoka to be given his next dose of the strong pain killers and they had clearly helped. He had stopped the faint groaning edges of his breathing and he'd fallen asleep pretty quickly after taking the medication. She watched his head jostling with the movements of the trolley, clearly deeply asleep…and hopefully nothing else. It was difficult to tell from walking behind him and his body entirely covered with the blanket and straps. Nanuet was regularly checking on him, and clearly the deep sleep would help Saoka's body deal with the significant leg fracture and blood loss.

She really wished she could sleep right now.

The wondrous idea of just stopping, of lying down even on this dusty dry tunnel floor and curling up to sleep was so tempting. She rarely had ever been able to sleep properly around people she didn't know and trust, but right now, she knew she would be able to fall into a deep glorious sleep.

Just like she was going to do when she got home, into her own bed. She replayed the fantasy of getting back there again, of taking a nice long hot shower in her own private bathroom, drying her hair, and then climbing into her bed. Her bed with its amazing soft, but weirdly supportive mattress and just curl up under every single layer she could find. She had a nice thick duvet and that new blanket she'd bought recently on Bakhau…

She'd really enjoyed that day visiting Jin with Oneakka, then the two of them shopping together. That little girl giving him those flowers. She chuckled at the memory. She still had those flower stems in her quarters. The flowers had started drying out, but she'd not wanted to throw them out, so she'd lain them on a space on a shelf to naturally dry out so she could keep them. It was stupidly sentimental and she knew The Feelings had something to do with that, and it wasn't like he, or anyone else, had given them to her. He'd just asked her to carry them for him, clearly uncomfortable at the prospect that more of the locals there might start giving him flowers. Given those on Bakhau clearly loved the Elite, she imagined Oneakka would end up buried in a mountain of flower offerings. She smiled at imagining what that might look like.

It had been such a nice day on Bakhau with him, walking in the warm sunshine and enjoying their usual bantering back and forth. But then all the arguments had started, the shouting and confusion.

If she could travel back in time, she might go back and relive that day on Bakhau with him, maybe even stay there longer. Walking around the bizarrely clean and spacious city. She had already scheduled a day to go back and visit Jin herself, assuming Oneakka wouldn't have been-

A scream cut through the air, and she spun round to the tunnel behind her.

She knew that horrific long hollow scream of pain and terror.

Someone was being fed on by a Wraith.

You never forgot that sound.

But she couldn't see any Wraith, nothing but all the other survivors who were also looking behind them in shocked fear.

Then loud rapid shouting, cries of panic, and blaster fire kicked in alongside the first now dying away scream.

People started rushing towards Seeal, panic written all over them as they shoved past her and Nanuet in their desperation to run away. She could barely see past them, see where the Wraith was. She realised the Litan blaster was in her hand without her being aware of pulling it out of her waistband and she stretched her free arm out ahead of her, working to navigate those coming at her to instead go around her as she forged forward, struggling to see around everyone…

Until she could finally see there was a turn in the tunnel behind them, which she vaguely remembered negotiating the trolley around, and she saw blasts of at least two types of energy weapons slamming into the right hand wall of the tunnel opposite that turn. She pushed forward through the now thinning panic towards the lightshow, registering that the angle and rapid repeating blasts suggested that someone was shooting either half-blindly or they were wrestling over the weapon with someone…probably a Wraith.

At which point she realised that there was a second colour and sound among the blasts: Wraith stunners alongside the Alliance energy weapons.

Wraith crap!

She pulled up, worried for a second about the stunners, and saw at the turn of the tunnel several people falling, Wraith stunner light dancing over them-

Then something dark dropped down through her view, dark clothing and a roar of fury in an abrupt rushing blur as a Wraith landed on people right in front of her. It had come down through a roof hole!

Wraith shitting crap!

She staggered back away from the Wraith as it stood up, one arm lifting towards her with a stunner in its hand. Behind it, more Wraith stunner fire was raining down from somewhere above, slamming into people who had been caught behind the Wraith.

Still stumbling backwards, Seeal fired the Litan blaster at the Wraith at near point-blank range before it could lift its stunner. In the split second that she fired, she remembered that the blaster was only on its default safety stun setting, but there was no time to think beyond that.

Her stunner fire hit the Wraith in the middle of its chest, clearly having caught it by surprise, and it staggered back, the crackling of energy dancing over its dark thick clothing. She fired again and kept firing as she took another long step backwards, trying to get some distance from the monster and its own stunner and-

"Down! Everyone down!" Nanuet's deep voice boomed loudly from somewhere back behind her before several heavy energy bolts blasted past her and tore into the Wraith; Nanuet's big canon of a gun.

Seeal dropped aside down to one knee and winced at the further passing loud powerful blasts from Nanuet's big blaster that ripped into the Wraith, dropping it lifelessly to the floor just in front of her.

But it wasn't over.

Ahead of her, she could now see two Wraith moving into view round the turn in the tunnel. One was blasting a long slim stunner weapon down the tunnel with rapid steady fire, while the other already had someone in its hands and there was another long hollow scream from the struggling victim.

Seeal fired towards the feeding Wraith, Nanuet's big blasts tearing through the thick smelling air again.

But the two Wraith quickly scattered to both sides of the tunnel with shocking speed, and stunner blasts fired back towards her and Nanuet.

She threw herself sideways down to the ground of the tunnel, dusty soil flying up around her as she landed on her left arm with a jolt of pain. The body of the first dead Wraith was now something of a shelter against the oncoming stunner blasts, but she flattened herself further to the floor as she heard more weapons blasts flying overhead.

"Move! Move! Get down!" More voices were commanding from somewhere far further down the tunnel behind Nanuet – Station Security backup presumably.

She saw flashing blasts of more energy weapons fire hit the tunnel walls, the ceiling, and then into the Wraith with the slim stunner. She saw Nanuet's blasts slam into the same Wraith, seemingly setting its entire shoulder on fire and it shuddered on its feet and dropped to the floor.

The other Wraith appeared into view behind its fallen fellow Warrior, but she saw it wrench up a stunned person from the floor, holding the unconscious male up high against itself as a Human shield. Nanuet and Security's weapons fire stopped immediately, not wanting to kill the stunned Human.

Then there was a sudden almighty crash from somewhere not far behind Seeal, dirt and pebbles scattering through the air in a loud rushing cloud down the tunnel.

Part of the tunnel roof had fallen in!

She wrapped her left arm up over her head against the dry debris peppering down over her, but, above the noise, she could hear more hissing roars and screams of people panicking again.

More Wraith were in the tunnel!

But right now, all she could focus on was the Wraith with the Human shield who was now only a few of metres down the tunnel from her and getting closer. Everyone else's attention was distracted by the collapsed roof and the arrival of more Wraith, and the Human shielded Wraith was clearly taking advantage of the moment. She saw it dip down to one side, one arm extending out down towards the floor to where she could see the end of its dead fellow Warrior's stunner. She fired at the outstretched Wraith arm, blasting rapidly down the tunnel, having to shoot around the dead Wraith in front of her. She saw her blasts hit the creature's outstretched arm, her shot surprisingly accurate given she could barely see through the dusty air and the stupid angle she was lying at, and she saw the Wraith's hand and arm spasming with the energy blast.

She kept firing at the arm, missing a load of times, but she just kept firing, vividly aware of the massive noise of overlapping shouting, screaming and other unidentified sounds worryingly close behind her in the tunnel. She couldn't risk looking round though, this one Wraith still a massive threat.

Said spasming-armed Wraith dropped to its knees, its entire arm still locked in a strangely contorted position, but she could see that its other arm was losing its grip around the unconscious male. She paused firing for a seemingly long yet tiny beat as the innocent male fell forward and she reached forward with her finger to the power setting on the Litan blaster. She clicked it into maximum power as the Human shield dropped away, finally revealing the whole of the Wraith, and she fired several rapid hopefully killing blasts right at the monster's upper chest.

It shook with the hits and immediately slumped backwards onto the floor of the tunnel and stilled.

The second after it had collapsed, she snapped her head round to look over her shoulder at the loud fight going on behind her.

The air in the tunnel flared with weapons fire, made more obvious through the dust hanging in the air from the once smallish hole in the roof that was now a wide gaping space up to the sky. The back of a Wraith was obvious to her within the glowing dust, its shape dodging rapidly to one side and then the other, only to be hit by the electric light of focused weapons fire from further down the tunnel. She saw it collapse down into the scattered ruins of the former section of the roof littering the floor.

But as it fell, she could see there was still one more Wraith and it was moving forward down the tunnel, its arms swirling as it ducked and hissed. She sat up from the floor, weapon focused up at the creature's back but it was pushing its way through the heavy throng of people who couldn't get away from it in the tight press of that part of the tunnel. It was using them all as shields while also simultaneously slashed at them, its fast moving arms flashing metal. Blades? Since when did Wraith fight hand-to-hand like that?

She frowned past that worrying question and shifted her blaster, looking for a clear line of fire at the thing's back, but in their panic to get away from it, people were all crushing up against the walls of the tunnel and then flooding around behind the Wraith as it passed, getting in her line of shot.

A flash of blaster fire closer to the Wraith caused it to abruptly dart to one side of the tunnel and Seeal heard a new cry of pain among the chaos, saw blaster fire rapidly hit one upper section of wall of the tunnel, and then a Security member was falling to one side in the crush, clutching at her bloodied side as the Wraith shoved past her. It wasn't feeding on anyone, instead seemingly enjoying the fight.

Seeal blinked against a rush of breathlessness in the dusty bad air of this crappy planet as she tracked the Wraith, waiting for a single moment of a clear line of fire…

"Down! Everybody DOWN!" She heard loud voices commanding from far further down the tunnel ahead, and people immediately started cowering down and against the walls, abruptly opening up space around the Wraith, but the damn thing was clever and dropped to a crouch too down among its potential victims.

But with everyone else lower and leaning away to the sides, Seeal abruptly had a clear shot at the Wraith's back and she fired two rapid blasts at it. The energy danced over it as the Wraith snarled loudly in fury, turning partly round towards her. But Security now had aim on it too, and more blasts tore down through the dusty air, slamming into the Wraith with such sudden concentrated fire that she could see its face burning red and then crispy black from the energy onslaught. And then finally it collapsed to the floor, landing in an awkward half folded pile, it's head turned towards her, it's still smoking face locked in a half scream of defiance.

The sudden silence that followed was almost as shocking and as loud as all the former chaotic noise had been.

She was panting hard as she kept the Litan blaster pointed forward towards the Wraith bodies.

The roof holes!

She snapped the weapon up towards the gaping open wound to the sky, waiting for something else to drop in, to see a shadow moving up there…

"Are there anymore?" A male voice shouted down the tunnel, his voice moving closer as he and Security were presumably hurrying through the thick press of cowering survivors.

Seeal guessed they were talking to her. "I don't think so," she called back breathlessly, switching her attention quickly around to behind her and the other gaping holes in the ceiling. "They came in through the roof," she warned in case Security were late to the party of that foreseeable event. Damn roof hole death-traps! "There could be more of them up there," she added.

She squinted up at the patches of sunlight shining down into the tunnel, aware of people stirring in the immediate area of the tunnel around her now; not everyone had been stunned then at least. But no one else was talking yet, too afraid and cautious in case there were indeed more Wraith up there.

"All eyes up," the Security voice warned everyone, noticeably closer behind her now. "Watch the air above."

She kept her eyes on the roof holes without that warning, scanning the limited view she had from here, fearing at any second she'd see movement up there.

But nothing was stirring up there, and she couldn't hear anything worrying, not that she could probably hear over her own panting and the Security voices.

"Firing!" A voice shouted and she heard several blasts of weapons fire.

She snapped her head round, but saw immediately that the Security male was simply firing extra shots down at both Wraith bodies making sure they were most definitely dead.

Because Wraith could reanimate, couldn't they?!

She switched her worried gaze down to the Wraith lying just in front of her. It was lying at such an unnatural angle that it surely had to be dead…but it was moving!

She scooted backwards on her backside, opening her mouth to shout a warning, but a more logical part of her brain now registered that there was a female trapped under the dead Wraith who was now trying to wriggle out from under it. The elder female who had been keeping close to the trolley!

"Are you okay?" Seeal asked worriedly, while glancing quickly back up at the closest hole, pointing her blaster back up towards it.

The elder female looked round, her eyes massively wide, her hands up by her face, panic and shock obviously taking over.

"You're okay," Seeal adjusted her question to a reassuring statement. "You're okay. Can you get out?" Seeal wasn't all that keen on touching a Wraith, so she lifted a leg and shoved at the Wraith body with her boot, helping make space for the elder female to begin shuffling herself out from under it.

"We need medics down here!" The male Security voice was calling, getting closer, and Seeal glanced up from the elder female to see the tall male stepping around them, a female Security member just behind him, their weapons pointed forward towards the other Wraith Seeal had shot.

"The Wraith used that male as a shield, while I had to shoot at it. Can you check he's okay?" Seeal pointed with her free hand down towards the unconscious body lying face down in the centre of the tunnel near the Wraith in question.

"On it," the female Security replied as the two moved onwards, eyes up on the holes as they carefully stepped around stunned people.

"I think there's going to be at least another fed on around the corner," Seeal added to them as she got one hand around the elder female's shoulder, helping pull her further out from under the dead Wraith.

"Firing!" The Security male called again and several rapid bursts of fire was him making sure those other Wraith were definitely dead as well.

With decent backup now here and taking over watching the open patches of air above, Seeal finally lowered her blaster, her right arm registering as aching now. The elder female was almost out from under the Wraith. She had what looked like a few scrapes on her cheek with a freshly spreading bruise down to her jaw, but otherwise all her limbs were working okay.

"Where is my Husband?" The female asked anxiously as she finally pulled her feet out from under the Wraith, her face pale and afraid.

Seeal glanced round the littered tunnel, some people pushing themselves up off the floor, but plenty were stunned and lying over each other in heaps against the tunnel walls. "He's probably stunned, I'm sure he's okay." But he'd looked pretty frail even before a Wraith had started firing at them and perhaps had partly landed on him.

"The male used as a shield is just stunned, he doesn't appear to be any further hurt," the female Security reported from where she was crouched down next to the former Human shield. Seeal let out a slightly shaky breath; she hadn't been sure if she'd killed the male with all the shots fired at the arm of the Wraith holding him and then the Wraith dropping him to the tunnel floor. But he was apparently okay.

"One fed on here," the male Security noted as he reached the turn in the tunnel and peered cautiously around it.

"Saoka? Are you okay?" A voice registered behind Seeal.

She turned as she supported the elder female still, looking worriedly back down the tunnel towards the trolley. Were Saoka and Nanuet okay? She realised she hadn't seen Nanuet's big blaster firing through the end of that fight…

"Neigal? Neigal?" The elder female began calling anxiously for her husband.

Seeal though focused down the short distance of the tunnel to where the trolley was easy to spot as it was currently the tallest thing beside the few Security. One male of which was leaning over the trolley…at least she assumed he was Security, because he had a blaster and clearly new Saoka. But he wasn't in any sort of uniform, his patterned trousers in varying shades of bright red obvious below his Station-branded coat.

"I'm okay," she was relieved to hear Saoka answer him. "Where's Nanuet?"

"Neigal?!" The Elder female called louder from against Seeal.

"Your husband is here," a groaning voice replied abruptly from the left and Seeal pulled her eyes away from Saoka on the trolley to see that the Engineer with the headwound was pushing himself up from a pile of stunned people. It looked like the male's headwound might have opened up again though, his formerly bloodstained but dried bandage around his forehead now showing fresh blood again.

"Neigal!" the elder female began crawling towards the Engineer and her husband somewhere in the pile of people.

"He seems just stunned," the Engineer replied.

Seeal glanced past the crawling elderly female to see that the two Security had now disappeared around the bend in the tunnel, in the direction where the first Wraith had attacked.

"Nanuet's down here, Saoka," she snapped her head back round to see the red-trousered male was crouched down beside the trolley. "He's breathing fine, he's just stunned."

Okay, Nanuet was okay too, that was good.

"Seeal?" Saoka called. "Where is Seeal?" He added, sounding actually worried about her.

"I'm here, Saoka," she called back. "I'm okay."

She turned her attention back towards the currently unwatched bend in the tunnel and pushed herself up off the floor, her left hip and elbow both feeling slightly bruised from having fallen on that side. But everything was working, and her ankle didn't feel any worse than it had before. All more pluses.

Lifting her Litan blaster back up towards the roof gaps, she headed down the tunnel, pausing by the still deeply unconscious male she'd possibly hit multiple times along with the Wraith. She dipped down and rested her hand against his middle back, and felt the reassuring movement of his breathing. Okay, he really was alive. She shifted her attention to the Wraith bodies close by, both of them very dead, especially with the extra blasts from Security to make sure.

Conversation was starting up at a louder volume in the tunnel behind her, people waking up who hadn't taken a full stunner blast presumably, Security checking injuries and she heard the bloodied Security female reporting painfully about what had happened to her thanks to that blade-wielding Wraith. Seeal though continued on towards the bend in the tunnel, pausing at the crest of its turn to peer round it.

Both Security were a short distance down the tunnel after the turn, one crouched down by one of their colleagues, while the other was pointing her weapon up at what looked like another newly widened big gap in the roof. Seeal moved forward to help.

Most of the survivors here were all stunned and Seeal could see blackened scorch marks across the walls from the firefight. She wondered if some of the survivors had been hit by friendly fire as much as Wraith stunner fire, but she could see chests moving.

There were also two very dead Wraith here and one shrivelled up body of a fed upon female. The victim who had let out the first hollow cry that had alerted everyone.

Seeal winced as she stepped over the body and reached the end of the line of stunned people. The two Security males who had been at the very back of the long line were here, one unconscious on the floor but the other one was sat a metre away, hunched up and holding his side as his male colleague talked to him.

No immediate threat in view, Seeal switched her attention back up to the closest hole above her.

There was still no movement up there, no more stunner fire raining down on them. Just the bright sky far above.

"…they came down on us from behind, knocked me aside like I was nothing," the injured Security male was reporting from the floor, pain obvious in his voice. She glanced down from the sky to him; from the way he was holding his side and breathing, Seeal suspected he had at least one cracked rib. She knew how painful those could be and she didn't envy him, but considering what had happened to that poor female, everyone appeared to have gotten off surprisingly lightly considering.

"They attacked the back of the line," Seeal uttered as she processed what she was seeing. "Probably assumed those at the back were the weakest," she added as she reached level with the female Security who was keeping her eyes and weapon trained up on the gaping hole above them.

"Well, we proved them wrong," the cracked rib Security stated gruffly.

"But are there more up there?" The Security female asked worriedly.

Seeal glanced from the hole to her.

"We should probably go up and check," the female suggested, clearly not enthusiastic about the idea.

"Probably should," Seeal winced with a nod as she looked back up at the hole and then along to the next far smaller hole closer to the turn in the tunnel. "That one looks more stable," she pointed.

"Like we trained, Mendez," the uninjured male Security brushed past as he waved to the female. "When we had to free that cable."

"My team failed that test," the female Security, clearly now named Mendez, replied as she followed, sliding her weapon into her holster.

"No, you just weren't the fastest," the male replied with a grim smile as he stopped under the smaller hole, assessing it cautiously. He then interlinked his fingers and lowered them down towards Mendez' knees.

Seeal edged closer to them, keeping her weapon on the hole, as Mendez put her boot on the male's hands and there was a grunt as he lifted her up. Seeal kept her blaster trained on the space above them to provide cover, but glanced back to the other gaping space near the cracked rib Security male. He was still on the floor of the tunnel, but he had his weapon and attention up on the bigger hole, adding backup still despite his clear pain. Impressed, Seeal turned her full attention back to the other two.

Mendez had gotten up onto her colleague's shoulders, balancing awkwardly on her knees with nothing to hold onto.

"If you sit on his shoulders, I can climb up you both," Seeal suggested, abruptly reminded of that footage Massa had shown her of younger Oneakka and his Recruit friends forming that human pyramid to retrieve a throwing knife from the ceiling.

"That might work better," Mendez grunted.

Seeal glanced round and the cracked rib Security male was up on one knee and he nodded silently that he'd provide cover.

Reluctantly sliding the Litan blaster into the back of her waistband, Seeal waited as Mendez got settled on the male's shoulders. Mendez then reached down. Seeal took the female's hands in hers as the male Security held out an arm for her to use as a step up. The male grunted as Seeal pushed up and Mendez pulled, the three of them wavering slightly, but then the male got them stabilised. It was easy enough to climb up the two, just a little personally awkward, but Seeal ignored all that, as she set one knee on one of Mendez' shoulders and straightened up towards the hole above her.

The air was immediately fresher even up just this small distance, and Seeal drank it in for a moment as she listened carefully to what was above. Further down the tunnel she could hear people talking more loudly again, retelling what had happened and tending to injuries, but she focused her attention upwards.

Pushing up further, she stretched up the fraction needed to peer up through the hole and into the open.

Open, empty air was all she saw as she quickly turned her head, scoping out as much as she could as quickly as possible.

But she couldn't see anything, though the ground seemed to rise behind her, forming a ridge…could there be something behind that? She lowered back down a bit and glanced down at the two under her.

"I need to go up out there to be sure," she whispered down to them.

"Okay," Mendez nodded, her hands around Seeal's lower thighs and strain showing on her face.

The quicker they got this done the better.

Seeal reached back to her Litan blaster, making sure she knew exactly where it was in case she needed it instantly. Taking a breath, she straightened up again, poking her head back up out of the hole again, checking all directions were still clear.

Again, nothing seemed to move except a flowing breeze through the dry air.

Dropping her attention to the edges of the hole around her head, she considered the thickness of the ground. This hole was smaller than others she'd seen in this flimsy tunnel ceiling, not even the full width of her shoulders, but she could easily get up through it. Hopefully the small hole meant it was more stable. She gripped each side of the hole, pulling to test its strength. It didn't give, so she stretched up through the hole a little further so she could get her elbows up onto the stony soil, then pushed herself up out of the hole. She leaned forward immediately, spreading her weight to try to reduce the pressure on the ground around the hole. The soil felt knobbly with pebbles, digging into her as she shuffled herself further forward on her belly and forearms, feeling her legs lifting from Mendez' shoulders. Then she was pretty much out on the surface, so she lifted her head and shoulders up off the ground just enough to again quickly peer up and around in all directions.

Nothing moved; no Wraith abruptly appeared out of nowhere to kill her.

She slid one knee under her and pushed herself further up off the ground, peering around cautiously as she slowly stood up.

Nothing fired at her, leapt at her or anything else.

There was nothing but empty orange-brown landscape stretching away in all directions.

Though there was that ridge in the ground she'd seen, which she could now see ran directly above the tunnel under it. It was also obvious, now she was stood up, that the ridge wasn't all that high. She doubted it could provide much shelter for anything to hide behind it, but to be sure…

She reached to her waistband, pulling out the blaster and moved slowly and carefully around the hole and up over the low ridge, peering cautiously over it, but there were no Wraith lying flat on the ground on the other side. There were just a few small brown dry shrubs and more of the orangey brown stony soil.

Turning on the spot, she took in the dull endless almost entirely flat landscape that stretched out in all directions. There was nothing to see…except a tall plume of dark smoke rising in the distance against the horizon.

To her right, some grunts and shuffling of dirt was Mendez now also climbing out of the hole.

Seeal headed the few steps back to it and reached down to help Mendez up, aware of more voices and eyes now looking up from down inside the tunnel.

"I can't see anything worrying," Seeal reported to Mendez and those below as the female got upright. "Except that," she pointed off towards the distant plume.

"That's a big lot of smoke for just downed Fighters," Mendez uttered breathlessly. "One of the BreakAways most likely."

That didn't sound good.

Seeal moved away, shifting her attention back to the few dry-looking shrubs over the ridge again, just to make absolutely sure none of them were concealing a dip in the ground in which a Wraith could be hiding. It really wasn't likely, but they were the only things that were anything vaguely like cover.

"It's mostly in the direction we're headed," Mendez noted of the plume of black smoke. "Which would put that BreakAway near the muster point."

Seeal edged around the brown shrubs, but there was obviously nothing but more stony soil behind them.

She straightened and frowned round at the open landscape. There were a few scatterings of the same low dark shrubs across the vast openness, and one sole tree some distance out, which had no leaves and looked so broken and dry that it had probably been entirely desiccated an age ago. Outside of the shrubs, which looked barely alive themselves, there was nothing living here. Just endless stretches of ground, only occasionally altered with more faint ridges, all running parallel to the one over the tunnel.

She'd never seen a landscape without even the hint of distant mountains or some raised ground before. But this place was just empty nothingness, that distant tall plume of dark smoke, and the dry wind. It was a sharp-edged breeze too, warm but slightly uncomfortable to be out in. She guessed without hills or mountains here there weren't any obstacles to help curb its speed.

"Boot prints here," Mendez' voice arrived from the left.

Seeal turned from the bleak view down to where Mendez was pointing. Seeal considered the collection of thinly pressed boot prints. "They came this way," she noted as she headed along the line of the dry dusty prints. "I make out all six, doesn't look like any more from what I can see."

"Mmm, that's promising," Mendez agreed as she followed.

Seeal nodded as she followed the prints back along the ridge. "They were running at this point given the spacing, depth of the prints."

"Moving in for their attack."

Seeal stopped and look off down the line of prints.

"There's nothing up here," Mendez voiced what Seeal was thinking. "No landed or crashed Fighters in view." And they could see a good distance given the empty barren landscape. "They must have been tracking us from above ground for a while."

"Maybe since the battle last night?" Seeal considered. "Perhaps some of them landed after they'd spotted the tunnel lights before we turned them off."

"Or they could have been tracking us since we left the BreakAway? Might have gotten down into the tunnels early on, following along behind the end of our line, and then climbed up and out to attack us from above."

"Maybe," Seeal replied, but she struggled to imagine why the Wraith would have waited so long to attack. But if they had spotted the tunnel lights last night, landed away from the fight and found the trail of holes…

"Neither way," Seeal commented, shielding her eyes against the low hanging sun as she looked along the long line of the ridge. "If there were more of them out here, we'd be able to see them from here."

"Unless they're down in the tunnel further back," Mendez voiced the worrying thought. "We'll need to have extra Security at the back of the line for the rest of the way."

"We could bring everyone up here," Seeal suggested the possible option. "We would see anything approaching then." Though they'd not be able to bring Saoka and his trolley up here.

"But we'd be visible from above," Mendez argued as she hung her head back, looking up at the sky.

Seeal did the same. The clouds were the same thin but staggered layers as yesterday evening, and she squinted at them, looking for any little moving shapes up there.

But there was nothing.

No Fighters locked in battle, but also no rescue ships descending from the sky either.

No Elite arriving to save the day.

Just empty sky to match the bare empty land around her.

At least the air was fresher up here in the cutting breeze, only then she remembered that the air was bad on this damn planet.

Bad air and an endless dead landscape.

But at least it wasn't snowing.

"Come on, we need to see to injuries and get moving again," Mendez stated as she moved away, her boots crunching on the stony soil.

Seeal nodded and followed, her gaze shifting off the sunny sky to that tall dark plume of smoke. If that was the kind of distance still to the muster point, there was still a long way to walk today.

A long time until rescue, and a disturbingly worrying amount of time that more Wraith could find them.

And an especially long time until she could get back home, get to her bed, and see the big Oaf again.

0000
TBC