Stargate SG-1 & Atlantis - Far Horizons (36 page)

“I can sense the Wraith. And surely we can dodge the human parties.”

Dr. Chandrapura nodded slowly. “That makes sense. And I’m the only one who can fly the jumper. So if somebody’s staying it has to be me.” She gave Lt. Draper a firm smile. “Ok. I’m staying. Good luck, everyone.”

They let the gate down and exited carefully into another darkened corridor, this one quite small and confined with only one door at the far end.

“Nice trap,” Lt. Draper said.

“I was just thinking it was really defensible,” Jinto said.

“The Chair room?” Radek prompted.

Lt. Draper put one hand on the door release. “Clear?” she asked T.J.

“Clear,” he said.

She punched it. Nothing happened. She punched it again.

“The power must be out,” Radek said. “The city has taken multiple hits from Darts and there has been a firefight in and out of the buildings. We haven’t even had time to check for damage in uninhabited parts of the city.”

“Fantastic,” Lt. Draper said.

Radek pushed past her. “I can probably open it manually. Let me get to the panel.” He knelt down beside the door, reaching for the ever-present multitool in his pocket.

“You’re the best, doc,” Jinto said. He grinned at Lt. Draper. “Always has been.”

“Yes, well. Thank me when I have opened it.”

Fortunately it was a standard door, the kind that seemed most prevalent throughout the city, though there were at least eight designs in use in different areas. As of course one might expect of a city rather than a military installation. There were different kinds of doors and different kinds of locks for public and private areas, and they seemed to have been installed over a long period of time, with old ones only being replaced when they malfunctioned. This was an ordinary one used for public areas that weren’t high security. It only took a few minutes to release the lock manually.

“There,” Radek said. “Now put your shoulder to it and it should open.”

T.J. did just that, and the door slid jerkily open wide enough for them to pass through.

“Excellent,” Lt. Draper said. “Jinto, which way?”

“Down to the left,” Jinto said. “And then when we reach the first stairwell we need to go up two levels.”

They hurried along the corridor, Jinto in front followed by Lt. Draper, then Radek and T.J. bringing up the rear. The stairwell was right before them, and they started up, Radek more slowly than the ones in front of him.

He was one turning behind them when he heard a familiar voice above. “Halt! Who are you?”

T.J. grabbed his arm, pulling him back into the shadow of the flight above. They could hear but not be seen yet. T.J’s mouth was at his ear as he whispered, “Who?”

“Lt. Ford,” Radek whispered back.

He could hear Ford on the stairs above, the footsteps of the Marine team. “Who are you?”

“Usten of Athos,” Jinto said. “We got separated from our party who were hunting Wraith. You know Dr. Draper, of course?”

Radek held his breath. Ford had never seen Jillian Draper before in his life. But would he admit that? Or would he think she was one of the scientists he’d never paid any attention to?”

“Right,” Ford said. “Ok, you guys had better come with us. There are Wraith in this sector.”

“We just came up from the lowest level,” Jinto said. “And we didn’t see anything. I’m glad we ran into you, Lieutenant.”

“Cool. Just stick with us.” Ford raised his voice a little. “Ok, people. Let’s head up the pier on this level and see if we can get this Wraith between us and Major Sheppard’s unit.” The sounds of their footsteps receded into the distance.

“This is not good,” Radek said.

“Jinto will talk his way around,” T.J. replied. “Remember, he was already here in this period. He knows everybody. The only problem will be if he runs into other Athosians, because they’ll know there’s no such person as Usten. We’ll go on to the Chair room. If they don’t get loose after I’ve dropped you off, I’ll go find them. But I expect Jinto and Jillian can figure out how to get separated. We just have to do our jobs and trust them to do theirs.”

Radek smiled.

“What?” T.J. asked.

“You sound like your mother, is all.” Radek shook his head. “I will truly see you for the first time four years from now as a newborn baby?”

“You will,” T.J. said. “And you’ll insist that you don’t like children and you won’t watch me for any money. And then you will.”

Radek looked at him, a young man like and unlike his friend, familiar and strange at once, dark eyes on a level with his own. “I expect I will,” he said.

They waited in silence until the last sounds of Lt. Ford’s patrol were gone and then waited two minutes more for good measure.

“Up two levels,” Radek said. “That was what Jinto said. And then down the pier?”

“Which should be a left, I think,” T.J. replied quietly. “If we find a window I can orient us to the rest of the city.”

“I think we are still several levels below the windows,” Radek said. “This is still substructure lighting rather than living area lighting. As well as we can tell, these levels were storage and manufacturing when the Ancients lived here. The areas that people lived in, and spent time in for pleasure, were above sea level and incorporated natural light.”

“Makes sense,” T.J. said.

“The Chair room is on the first level below the surface,” Radek said. “So I think we need to go a little further. I do not see any useful markings on the walls. Sometimes the Ancients had signs just as we do, especially in public areas, and some of them have survived.”

“You mean like how it says ‘Welcome to Atlantis Watch Your Step’ in the gateroom?” T.J. asked with a small smile.

“Like that,” Radek said. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask if the young man read Ancient, but he might have grown up in the city. And that was a new thought — Atlantis not as a distant military outpost, but as a city again, a place where people were born and grew up and went to school. “Have you lived here your whole life?” Radek asked instead.

“Mostly. Here and Athos. I’ve never lived on Earth, if that’s what you mean, though I’ve visited a few times.” T.J. was scanning the walls as they went along, a slightly distracted expression on his face as though he were also listening to another conversation somewhere else.

“There.” Radek pointed at a group of symbols at a corridor conjunction. “That says exit. So the way we are going will take us up onto the pier. We want the cross corridor then.”

“There’s a Wraith that way,” T.J. said. “He’s far down, but he’s coming this way. We could backtrack and go upstairs and try to cross above him.”

“And run into Lt. Ford?”

T.J. winced. “Ok. We could get into a room somewhere ahead and wait for him to go by.”

“I am with you on that,” Radek said. “And I can jam the doors from the inside since the power is out. Even if he wanted to check a room he would not be able to.”

“Sounds good. Let’s go.”

There were a number of rooms off the corridor. Radek glanced up and down, considering. The power was still out in this section, and most of them were sealed shut with heavier duty locks. He swore to himself. He should have thought of that. There was one that was only a palm lock, probably a storage closet or something. He could crack that one fairly quickly.

“You’d better hurry,” T.J. said. “He’s getting closer.”

“I shall,” Radek said, making himself not hurry at all. The surest way to make mistakes that would take twice as much time would be to hurry.

“Dr. Zelenka,” T.J. said more urgently.

“Almost.” With a twist, he released the wire that engaged the locking mechanism. “There.” He got to his feet. “It’s probably a storage closet…” he began as they shoved the door back.

It wasn’t. It was an equipment closet full of some part of the city’s HVAC system, probably a dehumidifier. Given that these passages were below sea level and couldn’t be vented, it was entirely logical. It also took up nearly the entire closet. There was room for one person if he squeezed.

“That is not good,” Radek said.

“Get in,” T.J. said. “He’s nearly here.”

“But…”

“Get in!” He shoved Radek into the tiny space and put his shoulder to the door, nearly closing it with one push.

The Wraith came around the corner. Through the two inch gap between the door and frame, Radek saw him stop and smile, his teeth showing in a feral grin.

T.J. stood in the middle of the corridor, his hands at his side, perfectly placid and calm for all that he had no weapon except a knife at his belt. But then the Wraith was unarmed too. If he’d had a stunner, it was gone. He would not need it, Radek thought. Not against one man. He had the advantage of strength and he would simply close and feed.

And he, Radek, would what? Watch? Cower in the closet while the Wraith killed Teyla’s son? If he pushed the door open, if he ran, the Wraith might pursue him instead…

With a snarl the Wraith stepped forward, feeding hand outstretched as he reached for T.J.

Who wasn’t there. He was actually six feet away, knife in hand, turning to slash at the Wraith’s leg, the point scoring a long gash that would have hamstrung a human.

Radek blinked. He was certain he had seen T.J. in the middle of the corridor. He couldn’t possibly have moved that fast.

The Wraith looked equally bewildered, whirling on its wounded leg with a roar.

And T.J. was gone again. He was standing twenty feet down the corridor watching calmly.

The Wraith charged toward him. He grabbed the front of his shirt with his feeding hand, lifting him off his feet…

… as T.J. sunk the knife almost to the hilt in his back, twisting it free brutally as he jumped back from the Wraith who clutched at nothing. Blood spurted for a moment, then ceased as the Wraith healed.

T.J. backed away, his profile to Radek as he stood his ground.

“How did you do that?” the Wraith demanded. “Speak, human!”

“You could answer your own riddle if you would,” T.J. said. A white mist began to rise about him, smoke filling the corridor, dense and almost opaque.

Radek took a breath before he thought better, but it did not burn in his lungs. It had no smell. Almost as if it were not there.

“What are you?” the Wraith bellowed again somewhere in the mist.

T.J’s voice came from far down the corridor. “A Wraith named Michael killed to find that out. What makes you think you can guess?”

The Wraith screamed, fury and pain intermingled, and Radek guessed that T.J. had stabbed him again.

“What’s your lineage, Wraith?” T.J.’s voice was almost beside him, just outside the door. “Not Osprey, or you would see through the mist. Illusions are the Gift of her children.”

There were scuffling sounds, another grunt as though the Wraith had taken a body blow. Radek could see nothing except vague shapes moving in the smoke. Perhaps they were fighting? Perhaps T.J. had struck and moved away again.

“What are you?” the Wraith shouted.

“I am an impossible thing. I am a blade of Atlantis.”

“There is no… such… thing…” The Wraith’s words came in gasps. Another grunt, another scuffle in the smoke.

“There is.” T.J.’s voice was far off to the right, echoing in the corridors. Or was it? Perhaps it was to the left. “The son of a human Queen, inheritor of the Gift from both parents alike. I am what Michael wanted. I am what the Ancients sought — a human with all the gifts of a Wraith save longevity — who never has to feed.”

Another blow, a scream, the sound of someone falling. Radek strained to see, pressing the door a little further open.

The Wraith’s voice was thready. “You… are… not… possible.”

“I am.” T.J.’s voice was serene. “Mercy.”

And then there was silence.

Radek shoved at the door, tumbling out into the corridor.

The mist cleared suddenly as if it had never been. The Wraith lay dead on the floor, T.J. kneeling beside him, head bent.

“Are you…” Radek began.

“I am uninjured.” T.J. got to his feet heavily, looking down at the dead Wraith by his feet. “I don’t like to kill.”

“He’s Wraith!” Radek said.

“And I am not?”

Radek took a sudden, uncertain breath. T.J. held a bloody knife in his hand, his long, dark hair straight as the Wraith’s, pulled back in a clasp of steel flowers, his dark eyes shadowed.

“He was a brave man, and he would have killed me if he could have, so it had to be done. But there are fine lines between us and our enemies.” T.J. met his eyes. “You told me that again and again, Dr. Zelenka. You told me there are lines on a map, lines like curtains of steel that divide us, but when we look into the heart of the Other what we will see is ourselves.” T.J. glanced back at the body on the floor. “We are more alike than different, this scout, this blade of Night who took this mission behind enemy lines. It had to be done. And I have done what I had to do.” He wiped his knife on the hem of his shirt and sheathed it. “So let us go on and do what we came to do.”

“Yes,” Radek said, and turned away to follow him.

They came to the Chair room a few minutes later, Radek entering the code cautiously to open the door, just as he’d set the code before the last time he’d left. It was empty as he had hoped, the naquadah generator and the rest of the equipment clustered near the open floor panels. Radek took a deep, relieved breath.

“Everything in order?” T.J. asked. He was looking down the corridor outside, that listening expression on his face again.

“Yes,” Radek said. “And now I may turn my radio back on and get to work.” He paused. “Are there Wraith near?”

“No. But I hear footsteps.” He backed into the room, letting the door close and lock automatically behind them. “If it is your people, I am simply one of the Athosians.”

“Of course,” Radek said.

The door did not open. No one knocked.

Radek looked at T.J. “Wraith?” he asked.

T.J. shook his head. “No.”

“Then I will open it.” Radek keyed the door open.

Jinto and Lt. Draper were standing just outside, apparently conversing in furious whispers.

“Hi,” T.J. said.

They scurried inside. “We hoped you’d made it,” Draper said. “If not, we were going to backtrack.”

“We are here and quite alright. You have accomplished your mission,” Radek said.

“What mission?” Rodney McKay popped out of a side door to the Chair room wiping his hands on his pants.

Jinto boggled.

Rodney looked at Lt. Draper, and Radek gulped. Any second now Rodney was going to realize that he didn’t know her and he should know all the science personnel. Any second now Rodney was going to guess there was something wrong. The best defense was a good offense.