Progrez
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- Jun 17, 2022
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Elizabeth Weir and Ronon Dex are prisoners of the Vanir, whose damaged ship is plummeting into the mountains of Sateda. Meanwhile, Atlantis is in lock down, infected by a virulent contagion, cut off from the rest of the galaxy. And time is running out...
Helped by Dr. Daniel Jackson, Colonel Shepherd's team fight not only to save their city and free their friends, but ultimately to save an entire species from extinction. As tensions rise between the Wraith, the Travelers, and the Lanteans, old enemies - and long lost friends - must unite to walk a third path if the fragile peace in the Pegasus galaxy is to hold.
In this riveting conclusion to the epic Legacy series, the destiny of Atlantis and her people will be decided.
This is the conclusion of the highly popular and successful STARGATE ATLANTIS Legacy series by Melissa Scott, Jo Graham and Amy Griswold. For a complete list of the Legacy books, click here.
Third Path
Elizabeth leaned forward from the seat behind the pilot's, her arms crossed around her middle. "Same old Rodney.""In some ways," Teyla said. Of course Elizabeth was not aware of the silent conversation. She knew nothing of Rodney's experiences with the Wraith, or of how they had left him with the residual Wraith telepathy that allowed him to speak privately with her.
"What's the date?"
Teyla looked around.
"The date," Elizabeth said firmly. "What day is it?"
"According to the reckoning of your people, today is February 24, 2010," Teyla replied.
Elizabeth sat back in her seat, nodding slowly. "February 24, 2010. The last things I remember were in June, 2007. Not quite three years."
"Yes," Teyla said. "That was when we lost you to the Asurans. You truly do not remember anything since then?"
"Not until a few weeks ago," Elizabeth said. "When I was on Mazatla." Her frown deepened. "I have no idea what happened between."
"A great many things," Teyla said ruefully. There were so many things Elizabeth had missed. The war between the Wraith and the Asurans. Atlantis' return to Earth. The war against Queen Death. She did not even know that Torren existed. "I do not know where to begin."
This is the first chapter
Chapter 1
“Damnit, McKay.” John Sheppard urged the damaged Puddle Jumper to
its best speed, ignoring the warnings flashing across his control boards. In
the distance, he could see McKay’s Puddle Jumper, and beyond it the
greater bulk of the Vanir ship that they were chasing. His own main
propulsion unit was damaged, yes, but everything else was holding
together, and there was no way McKay could stop the Vanir ship from
escaping without some help. And the Vanir had to be stopped: not only had
Ronon been caught up in their transport beam, but Elizabeth Weir had been
taken with him. Elizabeth… He had given her up for dead three years ago,
endured her return in a Replicator’s body, and thought he’d come to terms
with losing her. When Rodney had come back from his suicide mission
claiming to have been saved by an Ascended version of Elizabeth, John had
been skeptical, but there had been enough evidence to make it worth
pursuing. And then… He checked his altitude, urging the Puddle Jumper to
gain height as the ground grew rougher beneath them, rolling hills turning
to steeper foothills. And then, against all odds, they’d found her—as he
would have expected, she’d found them, worked the problem, gotten herself
to Sateda. He’d seen her, spoken with her just long enough to be sure it was
in some meaningful sense Elizabeth Weir, and then the Vanir had appeared
out of nowhere to snatch her away. He didn’t know why they wanted her—
didn’t care—but he was going to get her back.
In the distance, he saw a flash of light, and the Puddle Jumper reported
that McKay had fired more drones. John checked the auto-repair circuits,
and asked for more speed. The Puddle Jumper tried to answer, shuddering
under him, but warnings flared across his displays.
“All right, all right,” he said, and let the Puddle Jumper settle back into
optimum flight. McKay had to hold them, had to stop them from leaving the
atmosphere. “You can do it, Rodney,” he said, under his breath. “Just hold
them for me, that’s all you have to do—”
There was another flash in the sky, and a smudge that might have been
smoke, quickly whipped away by wind. The Puddle Jumper reported that
the other craft had slowed, that Sheppard was starting to gain on them.
“Come on, Rodney—”
A third flash, and he checked the telemetry, frowning at the sudden
deceleration. “Rodney…”
“No!” McKay’s voice was suddenly sharp in his earpiece. “No, no, no
—”
“What?” John checked his boards again. The Vanir ship had slowed still
further, and was losing altitude fast. “Jumper Two, what’s your status?”
“They’re going to crash,” McKay said.
John swore, but one look at the warnings already flickering on the
displays told him he was pushing the jumper to its limits. At least the
sensors had a good lock on McKay’s jumper; there would be no trouble
finding the crash. “Stay with them,” he said, and turned his attention to the
controls.
It wasn’t long before he saw the plume of black smoke rising from the
slopes ahead of him, but it seemed to take hours before he could bring the
jumper down beside McKay’s machine. McKay was already out, of course,
poking at the twisted metal of the Vanir ship, and as soon as the jumper’s
door opened he waved and shouted.
“Come on, Sheppard! We’ve got to find them!”
“Hang on,” John said. McKay already had one first aid kit, he was
pleased to see; he grabbed the second as he left the jumper, and then
stopped, studying the wreck.
“Come on!” McKay turned back toward the ship, but John caught his
arm.
“Wait!” He scanned the wreck, biting his lip as he took in the extent of
the damage. The smoke had cleared—presumably fire suppression systems
had done their work—but the forward quarter of the ship was buried deep in
the rocky ground. Buried and crumpled, he amended, wincing. Nothing in
that section could possibly have survived. If Ronon and Elizabeth had been
in the control section—He shoved that thought away. “How much do you
know about Asgard ships?”
“What?” McKay blinked, shook his head. “I’ve read papers, why? How
does that matter?”
“Do you know where they’d keep prisoners?”
McKay blinked again. “No. We haven’t exactly spent a lot of time as
prisoners of the Asgard, considering that they were kind of our allies.”
“What about when you and Jackson were taken prisoner?”
“Stasis pods,” McKay said. “They didn’t let us out until we got to the
planet.”
John bit his lip again. Stasis pods needed power and, from the look of
the ship, it would be running on back-ups if there was any power at all.
Surely stasis pods would have failsafes, he told himself, and looked back at
McKay. “Let’s go.”
A side hatch had broken open in the crash, and John climbed carefully
through the jagged gap, trying not to burn himself on the hot metal. He
found himself in a narrow corridor, lit only by the light from the torn hull,
and he played the light from his P90 around the area as McKay clambered
in after him.
“Maintenance corridor, I think,” McKay said, after a moment. “Try to
your right.”
John moved carefully forward, hunching his shoulders as the ceiling
sagged toward him, but a few yards along, he found a hatch. It was
unlocked, the mechanism still moving smoothly, and he pushed it open, P90
at the ready. There was more light beyond the hatch, pale but definite, and
McKay gave a gasp of relief.
“All right. They’ve got emergency power, at least.”
“That’s a mixed blessing,” John said.
“It’s good if we want to find Elizabeth alive. And Ronon.” McKay
paused. “Of course, yes, it may mean that there are also some Vanir around,
which, no, that’s not so great.”
“Yeah.” John turned slowly. They’d come out into what was obviously a
main corridor, a weak band of emergency lighting glowing along the center
of the ceiling. The walls were smooth, gray, unmarked, the deck only a little
darker, though toward the ship’s bow the ceiling was cracked and caved in,
spilling a tangle of cables.
“There’s a hatch back here,” McKay said. “Hang on—I’ve got it.”
John turned, keeping his P90 ready. “Anything?”
“No sign of Vanir.” McKay peered cautiously through the opening. “No
sign of anything, but I think—yeah, if we go this way, we should hit a
central corridor. That should be the most efficient way to search.”
“Good enough,” John said.
The central corridor lay about thirty feet along, wider and taller than any
of the other corridors they’d seen so far. More compartments opened off of
it, some doors jarred open, some still sealed, and a string of lights in the
ceiling flashed alternately blue and orange, adding weird shadows to the
emergency lighting.
“Forward?” John said, after a moment, and McKay nodded.
“Checking the compartments as we go.”
“I’ll cover you,” John said.
The first two compartments were already open, doors fully retracted
into the bulkheads. Both contained only a few pieces of furniture that
seemed to be attached to the deck and bulkheads, and they moved on
quickly. The next door was jammed halfway open, but it was enough to see
that it held more of the same gray furniture. There was a scattering of
something that looked like they might be DVDs on the deck, if DVDs were
matte purple triangles. McKay gave them a covetous look, but John pushed
him on.
“We can come back for those.”
The rest of the compartments were empty, too, though their doors were
jammed and cracked and the deck underfoot was starting to make ominous
snapping sounds. “We must be getting close to the control room,” John said,
and adjusted his grip on the P90.
“Yes. Not that I think there’s going to be anything left that’ll be of use
to us—” McKay stopped abruptly, grimacing in disgust. “Ugh, do you smell
that?”
“Yeah.” It was coming from the bulkhead just ahead of them, an ugly
mix of hot metal and ash and an acrid, electric scent underlain with
something sickly and vaguely sweet. John made himself try the hatch, and
wasn’t surprised when it jammed. He slung his P90 out of the way and tried
again, using both hands, and this time the heavy metal slid sideways a few
inches, releasing another wave of the smell.
“Oh, that’s not nice,” McKay said.
John didn’t bother to answer, but adjusted his P90 so that he could shine
its light into the gap. He caught a glimpse of twisted metal and a few thin
curls of smoke, and what looked like a Vanir hand protruding from between
two fallen beams. It looked surprisingly vulnerable dangling there, and he
looked away, tasting bile.
“Ok, nothing there we can do anything about.”
“Are you sure?” McKay began, pushing past to look for himself, and
stopped abruptly. “Oh.”
“Yeah,” John said again. If Elizabeth and Ronon had been in the control
room, they were definitely dead, sliced to pieces and crushed by the weight
of metal. But there was no reason to think they were there, he told himself.
The rest of the ship was intact, and McKay and Jackson had been put into
stasis.
“That’s an Asgard hand,” McKay said. He looked a little green, but had
himself well under control. “Well, a Vanir’s, anyway. Not human.”
“We keep looking,” John said, and knew he sounded grim.
They made their way back down the main corridor. Once they passed
the cross corridor where they’d come in, they began searching the
compartments, but most of them were the same nearly-empty spaces they’d
seen before. One had been hung with viewscreens, a ring circling nearly the
entire compartment just below the ceiling, but all of them were cracked, and
one was just an empty frame, with a spill of something acid-yellow down
the compartment wall.
“Let’s not touch that,” John said, and for once McKay nodded.
The next compartment looked as though it might have been some sort of
lab, though the screens of the workstations were also shattered, and all the
loose material had been flung violently against the forward bulkhead.
“This has to be a good sign,” McKay said. “Right? Things are in a lot
better shape back here.”
It was true, but John didn’t dare let himself hope. “Stasis pods. Can you
find them?”
“If you can find me a working console, yes.”
John nodded. “Let’s go, then.”
The next two compartments were much the same, all the equipment
destroyed, but when John glanced into the third, he caught his breath. There
was a lot less trash on the floor, and no broken equipment; instead, the
consoles looked intact and at least one of the screens was dark but
undamaged. He put his shoulder to the door and pushed it back. “McKay!
Take a look at this.”
He stopped, so suddenly that McKay collided with him. The consoles
were mostly intact, all right, and on the floor between the two rows of
control boards lay an unconscious Vanir.
“What—oh.” McKay sounded just as shocked as John felt, and John
shook himself back to business.
“See if you can figure out what this all is, and if it’s safe to get it
working. I’m going to take a look at this guy.”
“Or whatever,” McKay said, and turned his attention to the nearest
console.
John went to one knee beside the Vanir. He’d forgotten how small the
Asgard were, just about three feet tall, gray and skinny with wrinkled skin
and oversized heads. This one’s eyes were closed, which made it look even
more fragile. John felt carefully along the thin neck, wondering if this was
where you found its pulse. He felt nothing, but as he moved his hand away,
he thought he felt the ghost of its breath against his wrist. He froze, and a
long moment later it came again, the faintest touch of air on his skin.
“I think this one’s alive,” he said, “but it’s not looking good.”
“I’ve found the stasis pods,” McKay said. “Damnit, I can’t operate them
from here—something seems to be wrong with the remote controls.”
“Then we’ll go to them,” John said. He pulled one of the Mylar blankets
from his first aid kit and tucked it around the unconscious Vanir, not daring
to do anything more. Once they’d freed Elizabeth and Ronon, someone on
Atlantis would probably be able to tell them the best way to treat a Vanir.
McKay led them down a side corridor, past compartments that showed
even less damage than before, and John allowed himself to hope that they
might find the stasis pods similarly undamaged.
“Here,” McKay said, and shoved at a stubborn door. John put his
shoulder to it as well, and it slid back to reveal a narrow room dominated by
a row of translucent cylinders. Three were empty, their lights all out; the
remaining two showed a steady pattern of blue at top and bottom.
“Elizabeth and Ronon?” It was impossible to be sure through the
clouded glass, but certainly the one on the left was big enough to be Ronon.
“Uh-huh.” McKay was already busy at the nearest console. “Ok, they
have power, and plenty of it—looks like there’s a separate back-up source
for this whole system, probably some sort of battery. Life signs check out,
so we should be—Oh.”
“Rodney…”
McKay looked up, his face stricken. “The main computer is dead. I
can’t find any preprogrammed routine to get them out of here.”
“Ok, that’s not good.” John looked at the pods, wondering how long this
battery would last, and made himself look back at McKay. “Can you figure
out how to do it?”
“Well, probably—I mean, yes, of course, I can, but we’re talking
bringing a human being out of Asgard-induced stasis without any help from
the computers or an instruction manual. I can’t even read most of what the
screens are telling me. So, yes, I can probably deduce which things do what,
eventually, but I’d really like not to experiment on friends. On Elizabeth.”
McKay took a breath. “Which means, and I can’t believe I’m saying this—
Dr. Jackson is likely to know more about how to get them out safely. He’s
had more experience with the Asgard.”
John considered the question, but he knew McKay was right. The
sooner they got Ronon and Elizabeth out, the better, and there was the
injured Vanir to consider—he knew he personally had a few questions he
wanted to ask that being. “All right. I’m going to take your jumper back to
the Stargate and pick up the rest of the team. It’s going to take me about an
hour to get there and back. Will you be all right that long?”
Will they be all right, he meant, and McKay seemed to pick up the real
question. “This battery-like object should last several days, so that’s all
right. But the sooner the better, Sheppard.”
“Right,” John said, and turned away.
* * *
Teyla Emmagan stood in the center of the new Satedan gate square,
trying to concentrate on the discussion between Ushan Cai, Margin Bri, the
woman Cai had introduced as his head scavenger, and Daniel Jackson. At
least, at the moment it was staying within the bounds of what she would
consider a discussion, and it was important to keep it there, but her eyes
kept straying to the horizon beyond the Stargate. John and Rodney had
taken off in pursuit of the Vanir ship, and so far they had heard nothing. If
they had lost the ship, John would have radioed, she told herself, for the
hundredth time. If they had rescued Ronon and Elizabeth, they would have
radioed. So they were still somewhere in between, still chasing or still
trying to break the others free. Or they were dead, of course, but she would
not let herself think of that possibility. Instead, she fixed her smile more
firmly on her face, and forced herself to pay attention.
“So are these trade goods contaminated or not?” Cai demanded. A
couple of his men had already pulled the newly arrived supplies into a shed
and were now stripped naked under the nearest pump, hosing themselves
down.
“We don’t know,” Jackson said. “This is a precaution. I think it’s a
smart precaution, because if this bug is as bad as it sounded, you don’t want
it loose here. Even if you don’t use a lot of petroleum-based plastics, it
would mean you couldn’t trade with us, or with anyone else who did, and
eventually you’re going to want to get to that level of technology—”
“We’ve gone to a lot of trouble to salvage things that we can’t replace,”
Bri said, grimly. “I think we have to assume the worst.”
“We will, I hope, have more information for you from Atlantis,” Teyla
interjected. “Both as to whether this material was exposed and how best to
deal with the underlying problem.” She hoped that was true: neither Major
Lorne nor Dr. Zelenka had sounded anything but harried when they’d
reported the problem. Contamination between worlds was not common—
the Stargates themselves destroyed many commonly dangerous microorganisms
as people passed between worlds—but it was not unknown.
There were terrible stories of diseases carried from one world to another, of
gate addresses that had had to be forbidden, the worlds shut off for months
or years until the disease burned itself out and left them more empty than
the most ferocious Culling. And then there was the nightmare that was
Banissar, which had simply vanished, its Stargate no longer functioning.
Seventy years later, a Traveler ship had landed, looking to trade, only to
find everyone dead. The people of Banissar had removed crystals from their
DHD to keep anyone from dialing in—or escaping to carry the plague—and
had left written warnings sealed in multiple containers. The Travelers had
fled as soon as they had understood what had happened, but even seventy
years later the disease was present, and the Traveler ship had broadcast its
warning and then driven itself into a sun rather than spread it further. And
that was something else she didn’t want to think about, any more than she
wanted to think about the empty sky.
“It probably couldn’t hurt to disinfect anyone who handled the boxes,”
Jackson was saying. “I mean, more than just washing them down, though
that’s a good start. If you have any sort of medical disinfectant, something
for surgery or things like that?”
Cai looked at Bri, who shrugged. “We found some, yes—it was one of
the things I was looking for. But there’s so little. I really don’t want to waste
it.”
“Perhaps cleaning fluid?” Teyla said. “Of course there is plenty to spare
on Atlantis, but that does not help you here.”
“Not so much,” Cai said, with the flicker of a smile.
“Industrial cleaners aren’t easily come by, either,” Bri said. “What
we’ve got is good lye soap.” She looked at the men still under the pump,
rubbing soap in their hair. “That kills most things, it’s just hard on the skin.”
Something moved in the sky beyond the Stargate, a dark fleck against
the blue, its motion unlike any bird. Teyla’s breath caught, and the others
turned to see.
“That’s one of the jumpers,” Jackson said, and Teyla’s radio crackled.
“—Teyla. Come in, Teyla.”
Teyla touched her earpiece. “I hear you, Colonel Sheppard.”
“Good news. We stopped the Vanir ship, and Elizabeth and Ronon are
both alive. But they’re in stasis pods, and Rodney says he thinks Dr.
Jackson has a better chance of opening them safely than he does.”
Teyla felt her eyebrows rise at that. “Very well.”
“We’ve also got one injured Vanir on our hands, and no first aid kit.
Contact Atlantis and see if they can send someone through to help it.”
“I will do that,” Teyla said. “But, Colonel, we do not yet know if the
gate room has been cleared.”
“I know. Do what you can. Sheppard out.”
“They are alive,” she said, to the others, and even Bri cracked a smile.
“That’s good to hear,” Cai said, and shook his head. “To lose your
friend so soon after you’d found her—”
“She’s a tough one,” Bri agreed. “Smart. I’m sorry she wasn’t one of
ours.”
“Thank you,” Teyla said, and took a deep breath. “If you’ll excuse us,
Dr. Jackson and I need to arrange some things before Colonel Sheppard gets
here.” She took Jackson’s elbow and walked him away before anyone could
protest.
“So what does Sheppard want us to do?” he asked, when they were
more or less out of earshot.
“Dr. McKay says Elizabeth and Ronon are in Vanir stasis pods, which
he is reluctant to open.”
“That’s got to be a first time.” Jackson waved a hand. “Sorry, go on.”
“He seems to think you have more experience with such devices,” Teyla
said. “Also, one of the Vanir has survived, but is injured, and John would
like us to bring a medic from the city.”
“I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
“No. Not unless they have made much more progress on this eater-ofplastics.
But we must ask.”
It didn’t take long to make contact with Atlantis and relay John’s
request, but Teyla could hear the worry behind Lorne’s careful answer.
“I can send someone through, but we haven’t knocked down the
contamination problem. I’m reluctant to do that unless it’s absolutely
necessary. You said Dr. Weir and Ronon are all right?”
“They are in stasis pods, and seem unharmed,” Teyla answered.
“Though Dr. McKay has requested Dr. Jackson’s help in opening them.”
“I think what Dr. McKay probably meant is that I should collect any
information you’ve got on Asgard stasis devices,” Jackson interrupted.
“I’ve had some—contact—with the devices, but I’m not by any means an
expert.”
“Copy that,” Lorne said, after a moment. “I’ve got Dr. Ando searching
the databases right now.”
“I see that sending Dr. Beckett would be unwise,” Teyla said. “Perhaps
you could also send us any information you have on Asgard physiology?”
“Can do,” Lorne answered. There was a long silence, and Teyla turned,
shading her eyes again to track the approaching jumper. It was much closer
now, only a few minutes away, the familiar boxy shape dark against the
bright sky.
“At least Elizabeth and Ronon are ok,” Jackson said. “If we can help the
Vanir, that’s great, but they’re our first priority.”
“Yes.” Teyla nodded. “But I for one would like to ask that Vanir a few
questions. There are many things it could tell us that we might find
helpful.”
“You know, if I had to pick one word for the Vanir, ‘helpful’ wouldn’t
be it.”
Teyla smiled in spite of herself. “That’s true, your previous experiences
with them have not been pleasant.”
“I liked the Asgard,” Jackson said, abruptly serious. “They really liked
Jack—General O’Neill—which shows a certain amount of good taste, and
they did try to help us, for some definitions of ‘help,’ anyway.”
“And yet they destroyed themselves,” Teyla said. It was something the
other Lanteans didn’t like to talk about, and she had never heard the full
story.
Jackson nodded. “They were dying off as a species. They had ceased to
reproduce sexually, and millennia of cloning had degraded their genetic
material past the point where even they could repair it. They didn’t want to
linger like that, dying slowly and in pain, and they didn’t want to risk their
knowledge falling into the hands of people who’d make bad use of it. They
gave us, us Tau’ri, a library computer containing—well, I don’t know if it’s
all their knowledge, but it was everything they were willing to trust us with,
anyway. And then they blew up their planet. No more Asgard, no more
Asgard technology, gone, just like that.” He shrugged. “Or so we thought.
Except that some of them seem to have made it to the Pegasus Galaxy, and
they weren’t planning on going quietly. Whatever they’re up to, it’s
probably got something to do with preserving their species.”
“Yes, I see.” Teyla turned to look for the jumper, not sure she could hide
her feelings. Surely it would have been better for the Asgard to fight, to
protect what they had—and that, she thought, was surely Osprey’s blood
speaking. But it was also Athosian. How many times had they been Culled
to the bone, and brought themselves back as a people? Perhaps it was
simply the way things were in Pegasus, as opposed to the Milky Way.
“Teyla, Dr. Jackson.” Lorne’s voice crackled through the radio. “We’ve
got your files ready to transmit.”
Jackson’s fingers moved on his laptop, and he nodded.
“Go ahead, Major,” Teyla said. That was good: they would waste no
time on the ground this way.
“Hang on,” Jackson said. “Major, this—there’s hardly anything there.”
“It’s what we’ve got,” Lorne answered. “You know they don’t give us
access to that fancy library, that’s all on a need-to-know basis.”
“Well, at the moment, we really need to know it,” Jackson said.
“Sorry, Dr. Jackson. You have everything we do.”
“Thank you, Major,” Teyla said, smoothly. “We will contact you as soon
as we know anything more.”
* * *
It wasn’t a long flight back to where the Vanir ship had crashed. Daniel
used that time to brace himself on the bench seat behind Teyla and
Sheppard and read and re-read the material Lorne had sent to his laptop. At
least there were some notes on Asgard stasis devices, and specifically on
the controls, though he thought he could have handled that for himself. The
memory of Jack on Thor’s ship, held in failing stasis while he used the
knowledge of the Ancient database to try to figure out some way to stop the
Replicators, rose unbidden in his mind, and he shoved it away. That had all
worked out in the end; no point in thinking about it now. The main thing
was to get their people out of stasis and find out if they’d guessed right
about the Vanir’s plan to repair their damaged DNA by stealing genetic
material from the Ascended Asgard who had helped Elizabeth to ascend in
the first place. It was the only thing that made sense. And it wasn’t all that
surprising that someone had come to Elizabeth’s rescue, just as Oma Desala
had come to his all those years ago. It seemed to be something the
successfully Ascended were prone to doing, no matter what the rules were
supposed to prevent. And no matter whether it was truly wise or not. Daniel
grimaced at the memory of Oma locked forever in combat with Anubis.
Everything he tried to do on this mission seemed to lead back to something
else he didn’t particularly want to think about.
Right, he told himself. Asgard first aid. Unfortunately, that file was
painfully short, and dominated by a crude drawing indicating little more
than gross anatomy. The note said it had been done in Area 51, and Daniel
decided he didn’t really want to know any of the details. What they really
needed was a doctor, somebody who could turn those notes into something
like treatment.
He looked up, feeling the jumper pitch down toward landing, and for
the first time saw the Vanir ship where it had arrowed into the hillside.
“Wow, that’s—final.”
Sheppard shot him an unreadable glance. “We couldn’t exactly let them
get away, could we?”
“No, but I would have thought you might have done a bit less damage,
you know, brought it down gently or something.”
“I’ll keep that in mind for next time,” Sheppard said, and brought the
jumper to a stop beside its twin. “Let’s go.”
He led them into the bowels of the wrecked ship, Teyla at his back,
heading, Daniel was glad to see, for the stern. The emergency lighting was
still working, casting faint shadows—another good sign, he thought, and
hoped there would be enough power left to open the stasis pods.
The system on this ship had diverged from the ones Thor used. He hid
his immediate worry, and made himself look over the consoles carefully,
identifying each of the control systems. They were all there, just laid out in
a different order: no surprise, really, if the Vanir had diverged from the
Milky Way’s Asgard thousands of years ago.
“Well?” Sheppard demanded.
“Damnit, McKay.” John Sheppard urged the damaged Puddle Jumper to
its best speed, ignoring the warnings flashing across his control boards. In
the distance, he could see McKay’s Puddle Jumper, and beyond it the
greater bulk of the Vanir ship that they were chasing. His own main
propulsion unit was damaged, yes, but everything else was holding
together, and there was no way McKay could stop the Vanir ship from
escaping without some help. And the Vanir had to be stopped: not only had
Ronon been caught up in their transport beam, but Elizabeth Weir had been
taken with him. Elizabeth… He had given her up for dead three years ago,
endured her return in a Replicator’s body, and thought he’d come to terms
with losing her. When Rodney had come back from his suicide mission
claiming to have been saved by an Ascended version of Elizabeth, John had
been skeptical, but there had been enough evidence to make it worth
pursuing. And then… He checked his altitude, urging the Puddle Jumper to
gain height as the ground grew rougher beneath them, rolling hills turning
to steeper foothills. And then, against all odds, they’d found her—as he
would have expected, she’d found them, worked the problem, gotten herself
to Sateda. He’d seen her, spoken with her just long enough to be sure it was
in some meaningful sense Elizabeth Weir, and then the Vanir had appeared
out of nowhere to snatch her away. He didn’t know why they wanted her—
didn’t care—but he was going to get her back.
In the distance, he saw a flash of light, and the Puddle Jumper reported
that McKay had fired more drones. John checked the auto-repair circuits,
and asked for more speed. The Puddle Jumper tried to answer, shuddering
under him, but warnings flared across his displays.
“All right, all right,” he said, and let the Puddle Jumper settle back into
optimum flight. McKay had to hold them, had to stop them from leaving the
atmosphere. “You can do it, Rodney,” he said, under his breath. “Just hold
them for me, that’s all you have to do—”
There was another flash in the sky, and a smudge that might have been
smoke, quickly whipped away by wind. The Puddle Jumper reported that
the other craft had slowed, that Sheppard was starting to gain on them.
“Come on, Rodney—”
A third flash, and he checked the telemetry, frowning at the sudden
deceleration. “Rodney…”
“No!” McKay’s voice was suddenly sharp in his earpiece. “No, no, no
—”
“What?” John checked his boards again. The Vanir ship had slowed still
further, and was losing altitude fast. “Jumper Two, what’s your status?”
“They’re going to crash,” McKay said.
John swore, but one look at the warnings already flickering on the
displays told him he was pushing the jumper to its limits. At least the
sensors had a good lock on McKay’s jumper; there would be no trouble
finding the crash. “Stay with them,” he said, and turned his attention to the
controls.
It wasn’t long before he saw the plume of black smoke rising from the
slopes ahead of him, but it seemed to take hours before he could bring the
jumper down beside McKay’s machine. McKay was already out, of course,
poking at the twisted metal of the Vanir ship, and as soon as the jumper’s
door opened he waved and shouted.
“Come on, Sheppard! We’ve got to find them!”
“Hang on,” John said. McKay already had one first aid kit, he was
pleased to see; he grabbed the second as he left the jumper, and then
stopped, studying the wreck.
“Come on!” McKay turned back toward the ship, but John caught his
arm.
“Wait!” He scanned the wreck, biting his lip as he took in the extent of
the damage. The smoke had cleared—presumably fire suppression systems
had done their work—but the forward quarter of the ship was buried deep in
the rocky ground. Buried and crumpled, he amended, wincing. Nothing in
that section could possibly have survived. If Ronon and Elizabeth had been
in the control section—He shoved that thought away. “How much do you
know about Asgard ships?”
“What?” McKay blinked, shook his head. “I’ve read papers, why? How
does that matter?”
“Do you know where they’d keep prisoners?”
McKay blinked again. “No. We haven’t exactly spent a lot of time as
prisoners of the Asgard, considering that they were kind of our allies.”
“What about when you and Jackson were taken prisoner?”
“Stasis pods,” McKay said. “They didn’t let us out until we got to the
planet.”
John bit his lip again. Stasis pods needed power and, from the look of
the ship, it would be running on back-ups if there was any power at all.
Surely stasis pods would have failsafes, he told himself, and looked back at
McKay. “Let’s go.”
A side hatch had broken open in the crash, and John climbed carefully
through the jagged gap, trying not to burn himself on the hot metal. He
found himself in a narrow corridor, lit only by the light from the torn hull,
and he played the light from his P90 around the area as McKay clambered
in after him.
“Maintenance corridor, I think,” McKay said, after a moment. “Try to
your right.”
John moved carefully forward, hunching his shoulders as the ceiling
sagged toward him, but a few yards along, he found a hatch. It was
unlocked, the mechanism still moving smoothly, and he pushed it open, P90
at the ready. There was more light beyond the hatch, pale but definite, and
McKay gave a gasp of relief.
“All right. They’ve got emergency power, at least.”
“That’s a mixed blessing,” John said.
“It’s good if we want to find Elizabeth alive. And Ronon.” McKay
paused. “Of course, yes, it may mean that there are also some Vanir around,
which, no, that’s not so great.”
“Yeah.” John turned slowly. They’d come out into what was obviously a
main corridor, a weak band of emergency lighting glowing along the center
of the ceiling. The walls were smooth, gray, unmarked, the deck only a little
darker, though toward the ship’s bow the ceiling was cracked and caved in,
spilling a tangle of cables.
“There’s a hatch back here,” McKay said. “Hang on—I’ve got it.”
John turned, keeping his P90 ready. “Anything?”
“No sign of Vanir.” McKay peered cautiously through the opening. “No
sign of anything, but I think—yeah, if we go this way, we should hit a
central corridor. That should be the most efficient way to search.”
“Good enough,” John said.
The central corridor lay about thirty feet along, wider and taller than any
of the other corridors they’d seen so far. More compartments opened off of
it, some doors jarred open, some still sealed, and a string of lights in the
ceiling flashed alternately blue and orange, adding weird shadows to the
emergency lighting.
“Forward?” John said, after a moment, and McKay nodded.
“Checking the compartments as we go.”
“I’ll cover you,” John said.
The first two compartments were already open, doors fully retracted
into the bulkheads. Both contained only a few pieces of furniture that
seemed to be attached to the deck and bulkheads, and they moved on
quickly. The next door was jammed halfway open, but it was enough to see
that it held more of the same gray furniture. There was a scattering of
something that looked like they might be DVDs on the deck, if DVDs were
matte purple triangles. McKay gave them a covetous look, but John pushed
him on.
“We can come back for those.”
The rest of the compartments were empty, too, though their doors were
jammed and cracked and the deck underfoot was starting to make ominous
snapping sounds. “We must be getting close to the control room,” John said,
and adjusted his grip on the P90.
“Yes. Not that I think there’s going to be anything left that’ll be of use
to us—” McKay stopped abruptly, grimacing in disgust. “Ugh, do you smell
that?”
“Yeah.” It was coming from the bulkhead just ahead of them, an ugly
mix of hot metal and ash and an acrid, electric scent underlain with
something sickly and vaguely sweet. John made himself try the hatch, and
wasn’t surprised when it jammed. He slung his P90 out of the way and tried
again, using both hands, and this time the heavy metal slid sideways a few
inches, releasing another wave of the smell.
“Oh, that’s not nice,” McKay said.
John didn’t bother to answer, but adjusted his P90 so that he could shine
its light into the gap. He caught a glimpse of twisted metal and a few thin
curls of smoke, and what looked like a Vanir hand protruding from between
two fallen beams. It looked surprisingly vulnerable dangling there, and he
looked away, tasting bile.
“Ok, nothing there we can do anything about.”
“Are you sure?” McKay began, pushing past to look for himself, and
stopped abruptly. “Oh.”
“Yeah,” John said again. If Elizabeth and Ronon had been in the control
room, they were definitely dead, sliced to pieces and crushed by the weight
of metal. But there was no reason to think they were there, he told himself.
The rest of the ship was intact, and McKay and Jackson had been put into
stasis.
“That’s an Asgard hand,” McKay said. He looked a little green, but had
himself well under control. “Well, a Vanir’s, anyway. Not human.”
“We keep looking,” John said, and knew he sounded grim.
They made their way back down the main corridor. Once they passed
the cross corridor where they’d come in, they began searching the
compartments, but most of them were the same nearly-empty spaces they’d
seen before. One had been hung with viewscreens, a ring circling nearly the
entire compartment just below the ceiling, but all of them were cracked, and
one was just an empty frame, with a spill of something acid-yellow down
the compartment wall.
“Let’s not touch that,” John said, and for once McKay nodded.
The next compartment looked as though it might have been some sort of
lab, though the screens of the workstations were also shattered, and all the
loose material had been flung violently against the forward bulkhead.
“This has to be a good sign,” McKay said. “Right? Things are in a lot
better shape back here.”
It was true, but John didn’t dare let himself hope. “Stasis pods. Can you
find them?”
“If you can find me a working console, yes.”
John nodded. “Let’s go, then.”
The next two compartments were much the same, all the equipment
destroyed, but when John glanced into the third, he caught his breath. There
was a lot less trash on the floor, and no broken equipment; instead, the
consoles looked intact and at least one of the screens was dark but
undamaged. He put his shoulder to the door and pushed it back. “McKay!
Take a look at this.”
He stopped, so suddenly that McKay collided with him. The consoles
were mostly intact, all right, and on the floor between the two rows of
control boards lay an unconscious Vanir.
“What—oh.” McKay sounded just as shocked as John felt, and John
shook himself back to business.
“See if you can figure out what this all is, and if it’s safe to get it
working. I’m going to take a look at this guy.”
“Or whatever,” McKay said, and turned his attention to the nearest
console.
John went to one knee beside the Vanir. He’d forgotten how small the
Asgard were, just about three feet tall, gray and skinny with wrinkled skin
and oversized heads. This one’s eyes were closed, which made it look even
more fragile. John felt carefully along the thin neck, wondering if this was
where you found its pulse. He felt nothing, but as he moved his hand away,
he thought he felt the ghost of its breath against his wrist. He froze, and a
long moment later it came again, the faintest touch of air on his skin.
“I think this one’s alive,” he said, “but it’s not looking good.”
“I’ve found the stasis pods,” McKay said. “Damnit, I can’t operate them
from here—something seems to be wrong with the remote controls.”
“Then we’ll go to them,” John said. He pulled one of the Mylar blankets
from his first aid kit and tucked it around the unconscious Vanir, not daring
to do anything more. Once they’d freed Elizabeth and Ronon, someone on
Atlantis would probably be able to tell them the best way to treat a Vanir.
McKay led them down a side corridor, past compartments that showed
even less damage than before, and John allowed himself to hope that they
might find the stasis pods similarly undamaged.
“Here,” McKay said, and shoved at a stubborn door. John put his
shoulder to it as well, and it slid back to reveal a narrow room dominated by
a row of translucent cylinders. Three were empty, their lights all out; the
remaining two showed a steady pattern of blue at top and bottom.
“Elizabeth and Ronon?” It was impossible to be sure through the
clouded glass, but certainly the one on the left was big enough to be Ronon.
“Uh-huh.” McKay was already busy at the nearest console. “Ok, they
have power, and plenty of it—looks like there’s a separate back-up source
for this whole system, probably some sort of battery. Life signs check out,
so we should be—Oh.”
“Rodney…”
McKay looked up, his face stricken. “The main computer is dead. I
can’t find any preprogrammed routine to get them out of here.”
“Ok, that’s not good.” John looked at the pods, wondering how long this
battery would last, and made himself look back at McKay. “Can you figure
out how to do it?”
“Well, probably—I mean, yes, of course, I can, but we’re talking
bringing a human being out of Asgard-induced stasis without any help from
the computers or an instruction manual. I can’t even read most of what the
screens are telling me. So, yes, I can probably deduce which things do what,
eventually, but I’d really like not to experiment on friends. On Elizabeth.”
McKay took a breath. “Which means, and I can’t believe I’m saying this—
Dr. Jackson is likely to know more about how to get them out safely. He’s
had more experience with the Asgard.”
John considered the question, but he knew McKay was right. The
sooner they got Ronon and Elizabeth out, the better, and there was the
injured Vanir to consider—he knew he personally had a few questions he
wanted to ask that being. “All right. I’m going to take your jumper back to
the Stargate and pick up the rest of the team. It’s going to take me about an
hour to get there and back. Will you be all right that long?”
Will they be all right, he meant, and McKay seemed to pick up the real
question. “This battery-like object should last several days, so that’s all
right. But the sooner the better, Sheppard.”
“Right,” John said, and turned away.
* * *
Teyla Emmagan stood in the center of the new Satedan gate square,
trying to concentrate on the discussion between Ushan Cai, Margin Bri, the
woman Cai had introduced as his head scavenger, and Daniel Jackson. At
least, at the moment it was staying within the bounds of what she would
consider a discussion, and it was important to keep it there, but her eyes
kept straying to the horizon beyond the Stargate. John and Rodney had
taken off in pursuit of the Vanir ship, and so far they had heard nothing. If
they had lost the ship, John would have radioed, she told herself, for the
hundredth time. If they had rescued Ronon and Elizabeth, they would have
radioed. So they were still somewhere in between, still chasing or still
trying to break the others free. Or they were dead, of course, but she would
not let herself think of that possibility. Instead, she fixed her smile more
firmly on her face, and forced herself to pay attention.
“So are these trade goods contaminated or not?” Cai demanded. A
couple of his men had already pulled the newly arrived supplies into a shed
and were now stripped naked under the nearest pump, hosing themselves
down.
“We don’t know,” Jackson said. “This is a precaution. I think it’s a
smart precaution, because if this bug is as bad as it sounded, you don’t want
it loose here. Even if you don’t use a lot of petroleum-based plastics, it
would mean you couldn’t trade with us, or with anyone else who did, and
eventually you’re going to want to get to that level of technology—”
“We’ve gone to a lot of trouble to salvage things that we can’t replace,”
Bri said, grimly. “I think we have to assume the worst.”
“We will, I hope, have more information for you from Atlantis,” Teyla
interjected. “Both as to whether this material was exposed and how best to
deal with the underlying problem.” She hoped that was true: neither Major
Lorne nor Dr. Zelenka had sounded anything but harried when they’d
reported the problem. Contamination between worlds was not common—
the Stargates themselves destroyed many commonly dangerous microorganisms
as people passed between worlds—but it was not unknown.
There were terrible stories of diseases carried from one world to another, of
gate addresses that had had to be forbidden, the worlds shut off for months
or years until the disease burned itself out and left them more empty than
the most ferocious Culling. And then there was the nightmare that was
Banissar, which had simply vanished, its Stargate no longer functioning.
Seventy years later, a Traveler ship had landed, looking to trade, only to
find everyone dead. The people of Banissar had removed crystals from their
DHD to keep anyone from dialing in—or escaping to carry the plague—and
had left written warnings sealed in multiple containers. The Travelers had
fled as soon as they had understood what had happened, but even seventy
years later the disease was present, and the Traveler ship had broadcast its
warning and then driven itself into a sun rather than spread it further. And
that was something else she didn’t want to think about, any more than she
wanted to think about the empty sky.
“It probably couldn’t hurt to disinfect anyone who handled the boxes,”
Jackson was saying. “I mean, more than just washing them down, though
that’s a good start. If you have any sort of medical disinfectant, something
for surgery or things like that?”
Cai looked at Bri, who shrugged. “We found some, yes—it was one of
the things I was looking for. But there’s so little. I really don’t want to waste
it.”
“Perhaps cleaning fluid?” Teyla said. “Of course there is plenty to spare
on Atlantis, but that does not help you here.”
“Not so much,” Cai said, with the flicker of a smile.
“Industrial cleaners aren’t easily come by, either,” Bri said. “What
we’ve got is good lye soap.” She looked at the men still under the pump,
rubbing soap in their hair. “That kills most things, it’s just hard on the skin.”
Something moved in the sky beyond the Stargate, a dark fleck against
the blue, its motion unlike any bird. Teyla’s breath caught, and the others
turned to see.
“That’s one of the jumpers,” Jackson said, and Teyla’s radio crackled.
“—Teyla. Come in, Teyla.”
Teyla touched her earpiece. “I hear you, Colonel Sheppard.”
“Good news. We stopped the Vanir ship, and Elizabeth and Ronon are
both alive. But they’re in stasis pods, and Rodney says he thinks Dr.
Jackson has a better chance of opening them safely than he does.”
Teyla felt her eyebrows rise at that. “Very well.”
“We’ve also got one injured Vanir on our hands, and no first aid kit.
Contact Atlantis and see if they can send someone through to help it.”
“I will do that,” Teyla said. “But, Colonel, we do not yet know if the
gate room has been cleared.”
“I know. Do what you can. Sheppard out.”
“They are alive,” she said, to the others, and even Bri cracked a smile.
“That’s good to hear,” Cai said, and shook his head. “To lose your
friend so soon after you’d found her—”
“She’s a tough one,” Bri agreed. “Smart. I’m sorry she wasn’t one of
ours.”
“Thank you,” Teyla said, and took a deep breath. “If you’ll excuse us,
Dr. Jackson and I need to arrange some things before Colonel Sheppard gets
here.” She took Jackson’s elbow and walked him away before anyone could
protest.
“So what does Sheppard want us to do?” he asked, when they were
more or less out of earshot.
“Dr. McKay says Elizabeth and Ronon are in Vanir stasis pods, which
he is reluctant to open.”
“That’s got to be a first time.” Jackson waved a hand. “Sorry, go on.”
“He seems to think you have more experience with such devices,” Teyla
said. “Also, one of the Vanir has survived, but is injured, and John would
like us to bring a medic from the city.”
“I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
“No. Not unless they have made much more progress on this eater-ofplastics.
But we must ask.”
It didn’t take long to make contact with Atlantis and relay John’s
request, but Teyla could hear the worry behind Lorne’s careful answer.
“I can send someone through, but we haven’t knocked down the
contamination problem. I’m reluctant to do that unless it’s absolutely
necessary. You said Dr. Weir and Ronon are all right?”
“They are in stasis pods, and seem unharmed,” Teyla answered.
“Though Dr. McKay has requested Dr. Jackson’s help in opening them.”
“I think what Dr. McKay probably meant is that I should collect any
information you’ve got on Asgard stasis devices,” Jackson interrupted.
“I’ve had some—contact—with the devices, but I’m not by any means an
expert.”
“Copy that,” Lorne said, after a moment. “I’ve got Dr. Ando searching
the databases right now.”
“I see that sending Dr. Beckett would be unwise,” Teyla said. “Perhaps
you could also send us any information you have on Asgard physiology?”
“Can do,” Lorne answered. There was a long silence, and Teyla turned,
shading her eyes again to track the approaching jumper. It was much closer
now, only a few minutes away, the familiar boxy shape dark against the
bright sky.
“At least Elizabeth and Ronon are ok,” Jackson said. “If we can help the
Vanir, that’s great, but they’re our first priority.”
“Yes.” Teyla nodded. “But I for one would like to ask that Vanir a few
questions. There are many things it could tell us that we might find
helpful.”
“You know, if I had to pick one word for the Vanir, ‘helpful’ wouldn’t
be it.”
Teyla smiled in spite of herself. “That’s true, your previous experiences
with them have not been pleasant.”
“I liked the Asgard,” Jackson said, abruptly serious. “They really liked
Jack—General O’Neill—which shows a certain amount of good taste, and
they did try to help us, for some definitions of ‘help,’ anyway.”
“And yet they destroyed themselves,” Teyla said. It was something the
other Lanteans didn’t like to talk about, and she had never heard the full
story.
Jackson nodded. “They were dying off as a species. They had ceased to
reproduce sexually, and millennia of cloning had degraded their genetic
material past the point where even they could repair it. They didn’t want to
linger like that, dying slowly and in pain, and they didn’t want to risk their
knowledge falling into the hands of people who’d make bad use of it. They
gave us, us Tau’ri, a library computer containing—well, I don’t know if it’s
all their knowledge, but it was everything they were willing to trust us with,
anyway. And then they blew up their planet. No more Asgard, no more
Asgard technology, gone, just like that.” He shrugged. “Or so we thought.
Except that some of them seem to have made it to the Pegasus Galaxy, and
they weren’t planning on going quietly. Whatever they’re up to, it’s
probably got something to do with preserving their species.”
“Yes, I see.” Teyla turned to look for the jumper, not sure she could hide
her feelings. Surely it would have been better for the Asgard to fight, to
protect what they had—and that, she thought, was surely Osprey’s blood
speaking. But it was also Athosian. How many times had they been Culled
to the bone, and brought themselves back as a people? Perhaps it was
simply the way things were in Pegasus, as opposed to the Milky Way.
“Teyla, Dr. Jackson.” Lorne’s voice crackled through the radio. “We’ve
got your files ready to transmit.”
Jackson’s fingers moved on his laptop, and he nodded.
“Go ahead, Major,” Teyla said. That was good: they would waste no
time on the ground this way.
“Hang on,” Jackson said. “Major, this—there’s hardly anything there.”
“It’s what we’ve got,” Lorne answered. “You know they don’t give us
access to that fancy library, that’s all on a need-to-know basis.”
“Well, at the moment, we really need to know it,” Jackson said.
“Sorry, Dr. Jackson. You have everything we do.”
“Thank you, Major,” Teyla said, smoothly. “We will contact you as soon
as we know anything more.”
* * *
It wasn’t a long flight back to where the Vanir ship had crashed. Daniel
used that time to brace himself on the bench seat behind Teyla and
Sheppard and read and re-read the material Lorne had sent to his laptop. At
least there were some notes on Asgard stasis devices, and specifically on
the controls, though he thought he could have handled that for himself. The
memory of Jack on Thor’s ship, held in failing stasis while he used the
knowledge of the Ancient database to try to figure out some way to stop the
Replicators, rose unbidden in his mind, and he shoved it away. That had all
worked out in the end; no point in thinking about it now. The main thing
was to get their people out of stasis and find out if they’d guessed right
about the Vanir’s plan to repair their damaged DNA by stealing genetic
material from the Ascended Asgard who had helped Elizabeth to ascend in
the first place. It was the only thing that made sense. And it wasn’t all that
surprising that someone had come to Elizabeth’s rescue, just as Oma Desala
had come to his all those years ago. It seemed to be something the
successfully Ascended were prone to doing, no matter what the rules were
supposed to prevent. And no matter whether it was truly wise or not. Daniel
grimaced at the memory of Oma locked forever in combat with Anubis.
Everything he tried to do on this mission seemed to lead back to something
else he didn’t particularly want to think about.
Right, he told himself. Asgard first aid. Unfortunately, that file was
painfully short, and dominated by a crude drawing indicating little more
than gross anatomy. The note said it had been done in Area 51, and Daniel
decided he didn’t really want to know any of the details. What they really
needed was a doctor, somebody who could turn those notes into something
like treatment.
He looked up, feeling the jumper pitch down toward landing, and for
the first time saw the Vanir ship where it had arrowed into the hillside.
“Wow, that’s—final.”
Sheppard shot him an unreadable glance. “We couldn’t exactly let them
get away, could we?”
“No, but I would have thought you might have done a bit less damage,
you know, brought it down gently or something.”
“I’ll keep that in mind for next time,” Sheppard said, and brought the
jumper to a stop beside its twin. “Let’s go.”
He led them into the bowels of the wrecked ship, Teyla at his back,
heading, Daniel was glad to see, for the stern. The emergency lighting was
still working, casting faint shadows—another good sign, he thought, and
hoped there would be enough power left to open the stasis pods.
The system on this ship had diverged from the ones Thor used. He hid
his immediate worry, and made himself look over the consoles carefully,
identifying each of the control systems. They were all there, just laid out in
a different order: no surprise, really, if the Vanir had diverged from the
Milky Way’s Asgard thousands of years ago.
“Well?” Sheppard demanded.
This is excerpt from the book, you make your own opinion. I didn't like SGU - I felt it was pretty boring to watch.
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