A/N: Hi everyone. It's been a while! But this might be my longest chapter ever so...worth it? Maybe?

HUGE, massive thanks to Sourlander for being a sounding board and for helping me talk out all my issues with what was blocking me in this chapter. Go check her stuff out if you haven't already, especially if you're a Lorne fan. :)

Hope you enjoy!

"Are they alive?" Sheppard asked over the radio.

"Yes, sir," Lorne replied. "At least for now."

"They'll want intel," Coughlin whispered to the major, to which he nodded in agreement.

"Do you need backup?" asked Sheppard.
Lorne took a moment to look over his shoulder and assess his team. Two Wraith assassins and a large, well-trained marine. "We should be fine for now," he eventually answered. "You've got an important task to complete."

"Copy that. We'll place the charges, then rendezvous with you near the dart bay once we've got it done. Keep a low profile and don't engage unless our people's lives appear to be in immediate danger."

"Yes, sir."

"Maintain radio silence unless there's another emergency."

The low static of the radio went dead and stifling silence fell over them.

"Let's get a little closer," Lorne suggested.

The rest of his team followed as he led them through the entrance of the dart bay and toward the captured puddle jumper. They came to a halt near an interior wall and pressed themselves flat against it. Standing on the tips of her toes, Eva got a better look at Miller and Simpson, kneeling in front of a troop of Wraith drones, commanded by a single soldier.

"Why are you here?" it asked its prisoners.

"To destroy your hives," Miller replied, his voice holding steady despite whatever fear he must have been feeling. "Managed to get one of 'em, but you guys shot us down before we could hit this one."

The soldier took a lap around the puddle jumper, running its spindly fingers over the metal hull. "Your vessel appears to be undamaged." Its yellow-green eyes shifted from the ship back to the captives. "No scorch marks and, with some coercing, you were able to fly it into our bay without issue."

"One of the drive pods was hit," Simpson spoke up. "You can't see the damage, but it's there."

"And you came…alone? One Lantean ship manned by a skeleton crew to cripple two hives?"

"We knew it was dangerous and wanted to risk the fewest resources possible," Miller said. "Looks like we may have been overconfident in our abilities."

"Resources?" the Wraith echoed. "Is that all you two are to your people?"

Miller looked down to the ground, whether to feign hurt or to hide the truth, Eva didn't know.

"Forgive me, but I find it hard to believe that such a vital mission would be left to only two individuals in a miniscule ship." It bent low so that it was eye-to-eye with Dr. Simpson. "How many more of you are in the forest?"

"None," Simpson answered. "We were the only two out there."

It narrowed its eyes and hissed at her, so close that its breath disturbed the limp strands of hair framing her face. "How many?"

"I told you! We were the only ones out there." Unlike Miller, Simpson's voice shook with emotion.

"Lies," the Wraith said under its breath as it raised its feeding hand, ready to strike.

"She tells the truth," came a low, sibilant voice from the entrance. "I can sense it."

Eva felt her heart shoot into her throat as the hive's queen glided across the floor and toward the rest of the Wraith. She had never seen a queen before. She found her oddly beautiful, ethereal almost, in the elegance of her movements and the softness of her speech.

"Step aside," she said, her voice taking on a harsher tone of command as she brushed past the soldier.

He bowed low and created a wide berth to let her pass. "Yes, my Queen."

The queen stopped in front of Miller and Simpson and, to Eva's surprise, crouched down to their level. With a flourish of her long sleeve, she brought the backs of her fingers to Simpson's cheek. The woman recoiled but the queen was persistent.

"You were the only two humans in the forest," she cajoled, her voice a sinister lull. "I believe you."

Simpson's eyes flew open and met those of the queen, who leered down at her.

"But I sense another presence aboard my ship…"

Lorne's team all exchanged worried glances and Eva watched Ronon make sure his magnum was set to kill.

The queen seized Simpson's chin so aggressively, her fingernails dented the flesh of the woman's cheeks. "How many came with you through the Ring?"

A strangled gurgling sound rose through Simpson's throat until the words spilled out of her mouth. "Two other teams. Eight others."

The queen's eyes widened so large that even from their distance, Eva caught the whites of them.

"Eight?" she hissed. "All safe on their own ship, trying to find a way to rescue you?"

Simpson blinked back at her, lips pressed tightly together.

The queen's fingers moved from Simpson's chin to her throat and squeezed.

This time, Simpson's answer came out as a thin wheeze. "They're here."

"Shit," Lorne uttered in barely a whisper.

"She's gonna kill them," Eva said into Ronon's ear. "We have to do something."

He nodded and nudged Lorne in the side. He held up four fingers, signifying that there were four of them, then five fingers twice to represent the other Wraith and the queen. The odds weren't great, but if they could each take down two or three, then they could potentially free Miller and Simpson. Ronon pointed to himself, then to the queen, indicating that he would charge himself with taking her out, allowing the other three to deal with the rest of her contingent.

Lorne hesitated for a moment as he weighed the pros and cons of Ronon's plan, but in that short time, the queen had acted. Her hand slipped from Simpson's throat to her chest and she began to feed.

It didn't take as long as Eva thought it would. Mere seconds. Simpson's final scream of terror was still reverberating against the walls of the dart bay by the time her lifeless, shriveled husk fell to the floor.

Ronon reacted immediately and charged toward the queen, his only instructions to Eva being to "stay cloaked." Lorne was right on his heels, providing cover fire and Coughlin, in turn following his commanding officer's lead, shoved the invisibility device into Eva's hand and sprinted after the major.

The thought that Eva should do the same did pass through her mind. But, heeding Ronon's order, she realized the advantage the invisibility still provided, especially now that she was alone under the cloak. Without three or more additional bodies huddled underneath, she now had incredible stealth but also her full range of motion and speed back.

Ronon, Lorne, and Coughlin were all gathered near the puddle jumper, ranks tight and fighting off the considerable resistance formed around the queen. Seemingly out of thin air, more had come to protect her, increasing their numbers to at least three Wraith for every one of them. Her subjects wouldn't let her be brought down so easily.

The entrance to the dart bay was unmanned. That had to be the only way the reinforcements were getting in. Eva ran to the archway and lay in wait, like a lion in tall grass.

Though it hadn't made much of a difference earlier in the dead quiet, she was now grateful for her silencer. The renewed screeching of the hive's alarms was enough to cover the twenty or more rounds she fired into the skulls of the soldiers and drones who had been summoned to save their queen. Corpses began to stack on top of one another beneath the mist, so that new arrivals stumbled and fell over the shrouded bodies of their comrades before receiving the fatal bullet between the eyes themselves.

"Look out!"

Her head snapped toward the direction of Ronon's voice. He was grappling with two Wraith drones, not so much fighting them to defend himself, but to break free and make his way toward someone else. Eva's gaze tracked his to see Lt. Coughlin spin around just in time to block the descent of a large soldier's knife-edge with the side of his semiautomatic, and the two fell into hand-to-hand combat. With no time to draw his own blade, Coughlin used his firearm as a blunt-force weapon, trying to land hits to the head or kidneys whenever he could.

Realizing he had to be out of ammunition, Eva raced toward him to help. But it was too late. The soldier had lunged at Coughlin with its knife, and stabbed him through the gut.

A blank expression, almost of surprise, appeared on his face as his lips moved like those of a fish out of water, struggling to breathe. A wet bubbling sound rose through his chest and he coughed, spurting blood from his mouth. The wraith removed its blade and Coughlin fell to his knees, before tipping forward onto his front, dead. Eva pictured the photograph in his locker in her mind's eye. The two teenage girls, laughing and smiling. The fish, hanging limp and dead from the line.

A faint white screen descended over her vision, and she heard nothing else but a faint buzzing in her ears as she careened toward the Wraith who had killed him.

Large hands gripped her shoulders and pulled her backward, but she wriggled free and attacked the Wraith again, the nerves in her hands stinging as her blade hit bone. She switched the knife to her left hand and kept swiping.

The hands returned to the sides of her arms, loose at first.

"Let go!" she shrieked through thrusts of her knife.

The hands tightened and began to haul her away, so she turned backward and aimed a punch at his face. With a dull pop, her fist made contact and he was stunned enough that she managed to break free once more. She only made it a few paces before he swung his leg out in front of her and she tripped, falling face first to the ground. She lost her knife during the fall and, before she could locate it, was being dragged to her feet.

The hands were back, but this time arms followed, pressing her own to her sides so that she couldn't strike.

"Eva!" a voice called in her ear.

She planted her feet and tried to gain traction, but she didn't move an inch.

"Eva, you gave me your word!"

An inhuman howl reverberated through her chest, throat, and mouth as she fought against him.

"Your word, dammit!"

He shook her until she stopped screaming and something within her shattered. Suddenly the arms weren't a restraint, but a haven. Plane by plane, the room came back into focus. Words took on meaning again.

"Dad?" she breathed.

There was a pause.

"I'm here," he said from behind her, catching her weight as her knees buckled underneath her.

One of his arms disappeared from under her body and she felt him fire a series of shots into the distance.

"Pull yourself together," he said into her ear. "It's just you and me left. We won't make it out of here with you like this."

"This is all my fault," she whispered.

"I promised I would keep you safe. I promised I would bring you back to your mother." He fired off another three shots. "But I can't bring either of us back home if you don't get your shit together right now and help me out."

"I can't."

"You will."

And like that, he dropped her. She fell to her knees and stayed there, swaying like a reed in the wind, as stun blasts and magnum fire flew over her head. Ronon's figure appeared in front of her again, and handed her a P-90.

"There's a keypad near the entrance of the bay. Close the door, lock it if you can. Pile the bodies high enough to block the entrance in case they open it back up."

Still in a daze, she looked up at him as he reached his hand out to her to help her up. She took it and he hauled her to her feet.

"Go."

Somehow, she got her legs under her and found her way to the door. The majority of the remaining Wraith were too focused on Ronon to pay any attention to her, but a couple detected her and followed. Without being fully cognizant of her own movements, she lifted her weapon, aimed, and shot. And they fell.

She made it to the keypad. To her surprise, most of the markings on the keys looked familiar – legible, even. Almost like Ancient, written in calligraphy.

She read the first key aloud. "Ouf – i – something. Don't know what that means." Next key, in red. "Allarme. Definitely not."

She glanced over her shoulder to see another Wraith coming straight for her. A regular occurrence now, she shot it in the head and returned to the key pad.

"Chiuder. Yes!" she exclaimed under her breath. "Chiuder!"

She hit the button and the door closed.

"What are you?" she wondered, looking at the last button. "Serrar."

Process of elimination. It was worth a try. Closing her eyes, she hit the button until she heard an odd sound. Tentatively, she opened one eye to see a series of fleshy tendrils sprouting from the touching edges of the doors. They unfurled, then entwined themselves around each other, effectively sealing the doors from entry on the other side.

Wasting no more time, she began dragging and piling the bodies of the drones she had sniped earlier. Each one had to weigh three times more than she did, but adrenaline, now back in her system, was an incredible thing. Still, she could only stack them so high.

Feeling like she was reaching her limit, she chanced a glance back at Ronon. He stood bloodied and alone, surrounded by total carnage. Bodies littered the floor and the usual white mist had taken on a reddish gleam. He had holstered his firearm, and had drawn his sword instead.

The queen was the only Wraith still standing. She opened her mouth in a snarl and raised her feeding hand to him. Ronon swung backward and with one swift, forward movement, lopped her head from her neck. It rolled a short distance, parting the mist, the terrifying grimace still on her face.

His shoulders slumped and, for a brief instant, she witnessed his exhaustion. He allowed himself one breath before wiping the queen's blood from his blade on her cloak and sheathing it.

"Eva!" he called to her.

She ran as quickly as she could to him, hurdling over the bodies of dead soldiers and drones in her path.

By the time she got to him, he was already kneeling at Major Lorne's side, feeling for a pulse.

"Open the cargo door." He gestured with his head to the Puddle Jumper behind him.

She ran to the ship and pounded on the door release.

"Is he…?" she asked, fearing the answer.

Ronon was already dragging Major Lorne's unconscious form into the cockpit before he answered. "Stunned."

Eva felt a tiny release in her stomach. At least they still had Lorne.

"We have to bring back the fallen," he declared. "You grab…" He hesitated, looking at the almost mummified husks that were Simpson and what had to have been Miller; the Queen must have fed on him, too. "You grab them. I'll get Coughlin."

Eva fought back the tears burning at the back of her eyes as she first went to retrieve Simpson's body. It was horrifically light and it took her next to no effort to lay it on the floor of the cargo hold. Miller's was the same.

Ronon had just laid Coughlin between the two scientists when a pounding sound came from the entrance to the fighter bay.

"We gotta get outta here," Ronon said, making his way to the front of the jumper.

"What if it's Sheppard's team?" she asked.

Ronon shook his head. "There was a change of plan." He touched his earpiece. "Sheppard, you in the air?"

Eva realized she couldn't hear his reply; her radio must have gotten lost at some point during the fight, along with the personal cloaking device. "I don't have my –"

"Take Coughlin's," Ronon cut her off, an odd expression on his face.

Her throat constricted, but she did as she was told, and gingerly removed his earpiece. His ear was still warm.

"Looks like the bay's forcefield is down," she caught Sheppard saying, "so you shouldn't have any difficulty getting out."

"How are we on enzyme?" Ronon asked.

"Depending on how much you guys harvested after we split, I'd say we'd be lucky to have even two thirds of what we need."

Ronon looked over his shoulder. "We didn't have time. But there's a whole room of dead Wraith. Ten minutes and we could –"

The pounding at the bay doors got louder.

"Charges are set to blow in…three minutes," McKay's voice said. "You don't have time."

Ronon stood from his seat and marched out of the Jumper, back into the dart bay. Albeit a bit bewildered, Eva followed.

He went assiduously through the sea of corpses, kicking each body in the stomach as he passed.

"What are you doing?" Eva hissed.

"Looking for survivors," he answered in a dark voice.

As if in answer, a stun blast whizzed past his ear. They both looked to the source – a Wraith soldier propped on its elbow, pistol-sized stunner in hand. He fired another half-aimed shot, but they both ducked and dodged it. Ronon sneered and walked over to the Wraith, taking his own weapon from its holster, and shot two blasts of red energy straight at the creature's head.

"You stun me, I stun you."

Quickly, he grabbed the Wraith by one arm, Eva took the other, and they lugged it back to the ship. Ronon shut the rear door behind them, closed the partition between the cargo hold and cockpit, and took the passenger seat. Eva hesitated at the back of the cockpit, frozen.

"Sit down. You're driving," he said to her, gesturing to the empty pilot's seat.

"One minute, thirty," McKay said to them over their coms.

"But I –" Eva stammered.

"We have no other option."

She carefully stepped over Lorne's unconscious form, and took her seat. The controls came to life at a mere thought. Taking a deep breath, she imagined the jumper flying out of the dart bay. Before she even had time to think about lift or propulsion, they were already in the open air under a smoky, black sky.

"Cloak," Ronon said in a low voice.

"Shit. Right."

"You know where the gate is?"

She shook her head.

"Head east."

Once they had set a cruising altitude, she glanced at him where he sat, his head tipped back as he stemmed a thick flow of blood from his nose.

"Did you break your nose?"

"You broke my nose," he answered tartly.

"I – oh…" she breathed. Tattered memories of massacring the Wraith that had killed Coughlin came to the surface of her mind. "Sorry."

He didn't say anything in reply.

"Thirty seconds to detonation," McKay said.

"Remaining darts will guard the gate as soon as that C4 goes off, if they aren't there already," Sheppard said. "We might have to shoot our way out. Lorne, you copy?"

"Ummm…Major Lorne is unconscious," Eva replied.

"Unconscious?" came Teyla's voice. "Ronon told us he lost his radio."

There was silence over the coms for an instant, eventually interrupted by the explosion of the hive behind them.

"Dammit, Ronon! This whole time, you haven't had a pilot?" Sheppard shouted.

"We're flying, aren't we?" Ronon countered.

Sheppard growled with frustration. "Eva, you remember how to access drones?"

"Yes," she answered.

"To aim, picture the drone hitting its target."

"Okay."

"Stay cloaked until the last possible moment. Remember to take down your cloak before going through the gate –"

"How do I go through the gate?" she asked, suddenly alarmed. That was a small target to fit through, no room for error.

"It's like threading a needle."

Eva released a sigh of exasperation as Sheppard continued to give orders.

"I'll dial when we're ready. Your ship will go through the gate first. We'll be right on your tail, providing cover fire."

"Got it."

"Head south," Ronon said, lifting his head so he could see through the windshield.

Eva turned the ship and within a short amount of time, the gate became visible. Sheppard had been right – the air was rife with darts.

"All right," the colonel began, "we're going to dial out now before the Wraith have a chance to do the same and block us from leaving. As soon as that gate opens, start firing drones to clear a path. Employ evasive maneuvers before they're even necessary."

"I don't know any evasive maneuvers," Eva muttered under her breath.

"Pretend you're sparring. You'll do fine," Ronon said through a wad of bloody fabric pressed to his nose.

A flash of bright blue in the dark, and the gate was open. Eva immediately released her first drone, and it met its mark, incinerating a dart nearby. She let out a short breath.

"Atlantis, this is Sheppard. Raise shield immediately and do not lower it until I give the signal. We've got two jumpers, coming in hot. We'll need a medical team standing by in the jumper bay."

"And a security team," Ronon added.

"Dare I ask why?" Sheppard was, without a doubt, annoyed.

"Best not to."

"Fine. Jumper 2, make a beeline for the gate. We'll cover you from behind."

"Got it," Eva said as she increased the speed of the ship, and fired another drone into a dart in her path.

"See if you can do more than one at a time," Ronon suggested.

Concentrating hard, Eva took the ship below two fighters and released two drones simultaneously. One hit its target square in the center, but the other only grazed the side of the remaining dart. Still, it was enough to send it into a fiery tailspin toward the surface of the planet.

The glowing blue portal grew larger and brighter as they drew closer. With about twenty meters distance between them and the ring, Eva dropped the cloak. Sensing the pull of the event horizon, the ship began to draw in its drive pods.

"Atlantis, lower shield," Sheppard's voice distantly said.

A red warning flashed across the screen in Ancient, but was too technical for Eva to completely understand.

"Yoke up!" Ronon yelled, getting out of his chair and standing behind hers. "Pull up!"

Without thinking, she did as he commanded and shot straight up into the night sky. The drive pods returned to their normal position, and the warning disappeared.

"Cloak!"

Wraith weapon fire flashed along their port side, narrowly missing them, as she recloaked the ship.

"Jumper 2, what's going on?"

"I don't know," Eva said in a panic. "There was a warning on the HUD –"

"The damaged drive pod," Ronon interrupted, "it won't retract all the way. We can't fit through the gate."

Sheppard cursed. "McKay, any ideas?"

"About a million, but none that I can focus on with that on our tail!"

Eva turned the ship around to see that reinforcements were arriving from their scouting missions.

"Shoot it off!" Ronon shouted into his com.

"Why is it that every solution of yours involves blowing something up, Chewie?"

"Because it usually works. You got any better ideas?"

There were a few seconds of silence.

"There's nothing I can do without actually being inside their jumper," McKay said, sounding resigned.

"You are placing a lot of trust in my abilities," Sheppard said in a raised voice

"Wouldn't be the first time," Ronon rebutted.

"Which pod is it?"

"Starboard," Ronon said.

"All right, let's do it," Sheppard conceded.

"So what the hell do I do?" Eva asked, shooting at another dart headed their way.

"Fly as close to the gate as you can, so that the drive pod retractors activate," McKay said. "Sheppard, fly over her and aim your shot from above so that you avoid hitting the gate or shooting a drone into the gate room. The force of knocking the drive pod off will likely cause your jumper to spin, Eva, so if we hit you from above, you'll at least start spinning along your vertical axis, rather than the horizontal. Hopefully the pull of the event horizon will be enough to stop you from losing control entirely."

"Like threading a needle," Sheppard reminded her.

"Yeah! Like threading a needle with a goddamn rattlesnake!" she shouted back.

"Can you do this or not?" he asked, frustration rising in his voice.

"Can you?" she challenged.

"We're about to find out, aren't we? Eva, make your second pass at the gate."

"Fine," she growled through gritted teeth. She engaged propulsion and sped toward the gate, firing Ancient missiles at any darts in her way. As she approached the gate, she slowed the ship down, eventually coming to a complete stop.

"Should I go fast or slow through the gate?" she asked through the radio.

"As slow as you can," McKay advised. "You'll be less likely to totally spin out, and it will give Sheppard more time to aim."

She took a deep breath. "Okay. I'm about fifteen meters from the gate. You guys in position?"

"In position," Sheppard confirmed.

Darts exploded around her as Sheppard's jumper continued to fire openly on them.

"Do you think he can do it?" Eva asked Ronon.

"I wouldn't have brought it up it if I thought he couldn't."

Eva nodded and swallowed. "Decloaking in 3…2…1."

She closed the remaining distance between themselves and the gate as fast as she dared to avoid dart gunfire, but skidded to a halt as soon as the drive pods began to retract.

"Eva, you've done it. It's all John from here," Teyla's voice said over the radio.

The gravity of the event horizon began pulling them toward the Stargate, all while the same warning from before appeared on the HUD. There was a crunching, mechanical groan as the broken drive pod tried to retract itself, and the flashing on the HUD intensified in both color and rapidity. A deafening roar and the sound of shearing metal emanated from the right-hand side of the ship, and everything turned upside down.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed! Let me know your thoughts. :)