Stargate Atlantis: Halcyon Read online

  o, how we going play this, Sheppard? You let them bottle us up, and-"

  "I'm working on it," Sheppard replied, cutting Ronon off. "We miss our call-in and Atlantis will send out Lorne and a rescue team."

  "That's not much of a plan."

  "Hey, I'm making this up as Igo."

  Rodney snorted. "No change from normal there, then."

  "I see one," said Bishop. "End of the street, he's scoping us.

  "They won't try to wait us out," said Dex, "that's not how they do it. They'll rush us." He sneered. "Wraith like the direct approach."

  "Couldn't be more than a dozen of them clowns out there," noted Hill, "even counting those we put down."

  Sheppard looked around. "Ammo check. Anyone low?" He got a chorus of negatives from everyone except Teyla. The Athosian woman was stock still, sighting down the length of her gun. "Teyla, you with us?"

  She shuddered, and he saw the distant, fearful look in her eyes that he knew meant trouble. "John. There are more Wraith out there. A lot more. They know-"

  Teyla's words were drowned out in a howling chorus of blaster bolts as the aliens opened up on the stone building from all sides.

  "Return fire!" barked Sheppard. "Targets of opportunity!"

  JAMES SWALLOW

  For Jo and Dave, for Adam, Sarah, Sam and Emma - my favorite Goa'ulds.

  Special thanks to Mum and Dad and Mandy, Barry and Karen and Nicola, Colin and Brenda and Kathy, John and Christine and Vicki and Andrew, Darren and Mandy and Callum and Regan, Sue and Carole, Darren and Emma and Harry and Matthew, Philip and Mary, and Aunt Glad.

  Tips of the hat to Steve and Jo, Ming, Ian and Diane, Pete and Mike, Pete and Nicola, Jon and Sophie and Alex, Mark and Suzanne, Paul and Jo, Jackie and Paul, Andy, Rhianna, Ashley and Jane, Adam and Liz and Isabel, Alison and Jeff, Dennis, Karen, Tom and Max, Ave, Jonno, Big Al, Cathy and Paul, Sue, Win and Cat, Sean, Stewart, Kathy and Martin, Gary, John and Jack, Nick, Dave and Vicki, Tony and Jane, Piers, Christine and Ian, Andrew, Tina, Joan and Mike and Alison, Rachel, Paul and Judie, Jim and Chris, Wil and Sue, Viv and many more who know who they are.

  Thanks also to Karen Traviss, Dave Bishop and the gang at Novelscribes, to Sally and Tom for coming back, and finally to Keith Topping and David Howe for going Beyond The Gate.

  The events depicted in Halcyon take place in the second season of Stargate Atlantis, between the episodes "Runner" and "The Lost Boys".

  he phenomenon was wholly alien to her. She tried to quantify it, to find an antecedent from her life that could compare. Nothing suggested itself; the sensations churned inside her body, fighting for some form of expression, for a way to get out. They manifested themselves in the motion of her limbs, the powerful pumping of her legs. On some instinctual level, she understood that if she allowed it, the heady rush of these new feelings would overwhelm her, take her beyond rational thought and into a realm of pure, animal reflex. In its own way, it was enticing.

  The terrain was difficult and it did not lend itself well to stealthy movement. The rolling gray-white landscape shifted underneath her boots with each footfall, at times putting her off balance and threatening to tip her from her feet. There was little cover from the howling winds that scoured the shallow valley ranged around her. The hard, knobbed growths of stocky trees protruded from the hillside, hunched low against the weather. They were capped with spindly branches in spiked crowns, the thin twigs clattering against each other as the gusts caught them. In the dull light of the planet's sunset, the trees cast strange shadows that jumped and moved. They played tricks on her eyes, suggesting the forms of pursuers when in fact there was nothing there.

  She took a moment to rest, her breath panting out of her mouth in chugs of vapor. She pressed herself into the lee of a larger tree and took stock of her situation, desperately ignoring the constant tingle of the new sensations. The chill was nothing to her; she was no stranger to the cold, but the drifts of frozen precipitation were an unpleasant hindrance, dragging at her, slowing her down. Worse still, she left a trail that only the sightless would not have been able to follow. The flakes of snow were falling constantly around her, and she hoped that they would smooth out her footprints before the hunters caught up.

  Crouching, she drew her clothing around her, sinking into the shadows. She sniffed the air and attempted to fathom the scents of the planet, sorting them into signals she could understand; but this place was too different, too alien. She would have to rely on other senses to find her way.

  She listened for the presence of her fellows and heard nothing. The constant snow coated everything with a layer of heavy silence. She wondered if the stillness was a sign that they had fled; the alternative was something she did not wish to contemplate. In an unconscious gesture of solidarity, she brushed a thin finger over the tribal tattoos visible on the bare skin of her neck; she shared the same pattern there as all of her kindred, and now she touched it as if it were a talisman, a fetish that would keep her safe. The valley snaked away beneath her vantage point, past the blinded windows of the crude township to the north. She knew that salvation lay just beyond that collection of domiciles and sties. If she could just get close enough, then escape was within her grasp. The silver ring was out there, silent and waiting. She knew the symbols for home as well as she knew the faces of her clan. If she could keep one step ahead of the strident, foul hunters, if she could make it to the podium at the foot of the ring-then she could call on the device to transport her away from the frozen wasteland. Perhaps that was what the others had done. Yes, she wanted to believe that, she hoped it would be so. It was hard to hold on to that possibility, however; after they had been separated in the first attack, the keening wind had brought her the sounds of sporadic weapons fire and cries of agony.

  Her teeth bared, a little in bravado, a little in anger. There was fury mixed in with the strange new feeling, and she clung on to that. Rage was something she could fully understand, something she could take hold of and make her own. There was already a part of her thoughts spinning ideas of vengeance. Once she was safe, she would come back with a dozen, a hundred-

  Movement.

  She did not dare to breathe. Yes, she was not mistaken. There, coming out from the tree line, three of them in a wary formation, long rifle-like weapons held at their hips, the blunt maws of the guns sweeping the path before them. They were, as far as she could tell, males; but then these creatures all looked alike to her. Two were identical to her eyes, faces concealed behind the blank shutters of masks, garbed in clothing that might perhaps have had some military rationale in the hunter hierarchy. The one that lead them was clear by the way it moved, a stark arrogance in every step. Even from this far away, she could tell the one in the long dark coat was the leader just from the way the other two showed it deference.

  They spoke to one another in guttural, atonal sounds that were hard on her senses. It seemed more like the squealing of animals or the chatter of insects. She felt revulsion at the sight of them, a deep-seated loathing that bubbled up into a snarl in her throat; and there it was once more, the new emotion, coiling at the pit of her stomach. It made her veins sing and her nerves tingle. Her muscles bunched with the need for fight or flight. In that instant she had the measure of it.

  Was this... Could this be real fear? The roiling flutter in her torso, the pressure against the inside of her ribcage? The novelty of the experience faded like smoke. No. She refused to give these creatures such a hold over her, she denied it to them. How dare they have the temerity to strike at her people, what right did they think they had to attack her kindred?

  New strength borne of wrath flowed into her, and she rose slowly, keeping the bole of the tree between her body and the thre
e figures. If she kept her silence and let them pass, they would never know she was there, and then she could move on to the ring; but what sort of an epitaph was that for the others, killed-or worse, captured-by these freakish beasts?

  The weapon tucked into her pocket was only a short-range pistol, its effectiveness reduced in anything but close quarters, and there were three of them, all well armed; but she bared her teeth in a feral smile as she contemplated them. She would leave this frigid world, but before she departed she would pass on a message for these creatures. They were lucky here today, that was all, they had caught her kindred by surprise. She would end the lives of these three in a most bloody manner and do it alone. Then it would be their turn to feel fear and jump at the flicker of every shifting shadow.

  She drew the gun and coiled her fingers around the knurled grip, taking the weight of it, feeling the warmth as it became active, sensing the threat of imminent violence. She waited until they had drawn past her, listening to them bleat and squawk. Her smile widened as she watched them make a mistake. They were completing the arc of a patrol sweep through the woodlands, and in sight of the village they had relaxed their guard, keeping their eyes off their backs.

  You are overconfident, she told them silently, and you will pay for that conceit with your lifeblood.

  The anticipation of the attack was sweet, but now she threw off her concealment and leapt into the air, spinning into a jump that brought her down right behind them.

  The two masked ones reacted, one shoving their leader aside in a gesture of protection, the second spinning the rifle-weapon around to attack. She was too quick for them. Her pistol shrieked and white fire engulfed the second hunter, throwing it back into the snow with a shattering crash of displaced air. The other discharged its weapon with a bark of sound, but she was moving, still moving. With a handful of claws she raked at the leader and tore through layers of clothing, her sharp nails coming away with dark fluid on them. The first hunter tried to club her with the butt of its rifle and she ducked, the blow slipping over her head. She jammed her claws into right side of its ribcage and tore. The hunter howled and liquids frothed from the grille of its mask. The scent of fresh blood bloomed in the cold air as it collapsed into the white drifts and died.

  The leader moved, the wound she had inflicted bringing a snarl to its face. This creature had a peculiar weapon of its own, a hybrid of handgun and short sword that came up so quickly she felt the blade point strike home in her stomach. The pain made her furious and she backhanded the weapon from the leader and kicked it to the ground. The flood of aggression fuelled her hunger, and she leapt on the winded creature, her tongue flicking out of her mouth. The pistol forgotten, with one viselike grip she wrapped her pale fingers around the leader's neck and held tight; and then, with her heart racing in excitement, she opened her palm wide and let the serrated feeding cavity in her hand unfold, shiny with enzymatic fluids. In a single brutal thrust, she plunged her hand through the shredded material of the leader's jacket and felt the warm human flesh underneath. She gave a little shudder as the feeding began, the nourishing torrent of organic energies drawing up into her. The adrenaline in the man's veins made it delicious.

  But too late she understood that she had been careless, that she had made the same error as her fellow Wraith; she had underestimated the resilience of the prey. The second hunter, the one she had cast aside, shook off the effect of the blaster and leveled its rifle. She had assumed that the weaker-willed human would not attack while she was so close to its leader for fear of striking it. The pitiless look it returned her showed otherwise. It no doubt believed that it was performing a mercy on the other man-prey by ending its life before her feeding could be completed. The second hunter's gun spat puffs of gas and vapor, releasing a volley of razor-edged needles. The scatter-shot blast tore her off her victim and threw her into the snows.

  She felt the burning spines deep in her tissue and understood abruptly that this was death. As much as she tried to fight it off, to decry it, the ripple of fear returned tenfold and dragged her down.

  The Wraith perished, her fangs bared to the icy sky above.

  She made a point, whenever she could, to watch the sun rise. From the high balcony atop the central tower of Atlantis, there was no better view of the pale golden disc as it emerged from below the horizon, the first rays of light turning the dark ocean into a sheet of glittering, beaten copper. The thin cirrus clouds overhead glowed pink underneath, drifting frames around the star as it climbed into the teal blue sky. There was ozone in the air and the strange salt tang of alien seas.

  If ever a day comes when I forget why we are out here, I can just walk up and look at this. Elizabeth Weir smiled to herself and turned her head, looking around at the angular minarets and steeples of the floating city. Atlantis was a work of art in many ways, as much an expression of the character of the Ancients who built it as the scientific legacy they had left behind. Seen from the air, it drifted atop the ocean like a silver brooch on a vast indigo cloak. Up close, the city-complex was all glass and steel spires reaching up into the heavens. The shapes of the towers reminded Elizabeth of origami, turned straight edges and seamless folds of brushed metal. It was a metropolis built by cool and studied minds, and while it wasn't a clinical place, she sometimes felt that Atlantis lacked the warmth and the small chaos of cities on Earth. She thought of the senses she had of New York, of London and Paris, Delhi, Moscow or Hong Kong; Atlantis felt lonely in comparison, even after more than a year of human occupation, and she wondered if that would ever change. The Ancients lived here once upon a time, so why couldn't we? The smile broadened as she imagined the sights of children going to school on Atlantis's metallic boulevards, dogwalkers, baseball games and couples in the parkland, markets in the great atrium. Maybe one day.

  It was in moments like this, when she was alone with the city's melancholy quiet, that Weir felt closest to the people who had made this place. Back home, it was something she hadn't really been able to understand, not completely; she'd seen the look in the eyes of astronauts who'd been to the Moon, she'd seen it in people like Samantha Carter and Daniel Jackson when they spoke about other worlds. Now she saw the same look in the mirror, in a wiser face framed with dark hair, a kind of insight about Earth and mankind, about how small and precious they were.

  After months of being here, they were still only paddling in the shallows of the great oceans of knowledge left behind by the Ancients, and sometimes Elizabeth wondered if there was still something left of them in these walls, watching silently. In any other place, such a thought might have been eerie and disturbing, but she found it the opposite. If the Ancients were the progenitors of humankind, then the Pegasus expedition team were the children returning to the birthplace of their parents and making it their own. Perhaps it wouldn't be within her lifetime, but one day Earth's people would know all the secrets of this place; and the bright future that knowledge would bring would make everything they had endured here worthwhile.

  That is, if the Wraith don't destroy us first. She frowned at the dissenting voice in the back of her mind. Or the Genii, or any one of a dozen other threats... "We never thought it would be easy," she said aloud, and reached for the steel mug at her side to take a sip of tea. Weir looked down; on the lower tiers she could see people moving around, going about their duties. Out by the western atrium, Dr. Kusanagi and her group were setting up an air-monitoring experiment that would give them a better handle on the planet's weather systems. Directly below, she could hear the echoes of barked orders where some of the military contingent were sparring on a lower level; the recent additions of troops from the Russian Federation and the United Kingdom-part of a treaty agreement surrounding the Stargate program-were meshing well with the existing Atlantis Marine Corps garrison. And out on one of the spade-shaped `petals' that formed the outer districts of the city, a maintenance team were preparing the landing platform for the arrival of the Daedalus, the starship that in recent months had becom
e the lifeline for the outpost.

  The regular returns of the vessel were now an important part of life on Atlantis, with a palpable rise in the morale of the people here in the days running up to its landing. Daedalus brought news and mail from home, supplies and new faces, and most importantly the ship made the Atlantean contingent feel connected. A year of isolation and a Stargate they could never use to dial home had taken its toll, but with Daedalus Earth was only a hyperspace journey away. Each cargo she brought made that distance seem a little less; out here in the Pegasus Galaxy, even seemingly tiny things like replacement toothbrushes or toi let paper took on a great level of importance-it was the small, mundane details like those that helped keep the human presence in Atlantis on an even keel, helped the people working and living here to forget that they were Earth's most distant outpost of mankind. Despite the friction that seemed a regular part of her interaction with Daedalus's commander, Colonel Caldwell, Weir had to admit that the sight of the ship always raised her spirits. Daedalus, with her blunt, aircraft carrier lines, might lack the crystalline beauty of Atlantis, but her mere presence conveyed an important message. You're not alone out here.

  The data pad at Elizabeth's side chimed and she gathered up the device. The flat screen portable computer terminal seemed never to be more than arm's length away from her, constantly feeding information from the city's heart-and sometimes distracting her with games of Solitaire or Minesweeper. An alarm window was open; Weir had set the prompt to remind her of the morning's departures through the Stargate. Three teams were outbound today on missions to target worlds from the city's vast database of addresses, basic reconnaissance jaunts to search for new allies, Ancient artifacts or to just plain explore. She scanned down the list and saw the name of the commander of the team assigned to the next transit through the Gate; Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard.