Amy Griswold - The Lost

“As soon as we jump in, I expect they’re going to start trying to power up the ship,” Sam said.

“And our clock starts ticking, I know.”

“I’ll radio you if it looks like it’s starting to go bad. If they get their defensive systems back up, it’s possible that we can disable them. If it looks like that’s not going to happen, and we start taking a pounding, we’re going to have to jump out.”

“I know,” John said. “We’re ready.”

“Preparing to exit hyperspace,” the Hammond’s helmsman said.

“Okay,” Sam said. “Good luck.” She glanced over at a waiting technician. “Beam them down.”

The shimmer of the Asgard beaming technology was always disorienting for a moment. It took a couple of heartbeats before the hive ship corridor resolved itself clearly around John. Ronon had already put his back to John’s, covering the length of the corridor behind them. Teyla stepped to John’s left, her P90 at the ready, taking in their position.

The corridor was empty for the moment, the red light that the Wraith seemed to prefer tracing the weirdly organic shapes of the walls. John glanced down at his life-signs detector. There were moving forms nearby, but there was no way to tell if they were separated by walls or if they’d run into them in moments.

Sam had beamed them into what they’d guessed was the laboratory section of the ship, but it was hard to tell from featureless corridor if they’d gotten it right. The holding cells should be up and forward. If Todd’s tip was good, though, that would be a needlessly dangerous detour.

He chose the direction that promised fewer Wraith ahead, and signaled Ronon to take point. If they ran into one or two isolated Wraith, Ronon’s pistol would make less noise than P90 fire. If they ran into more than that, they’d take that as it came.

Teyla followed Ronon, her eyes searching the walls for signs of a door or side passageway. She was moving easily enough, showing no signs that her hip was bothering her. He just hoped this wasn’t going to end with them having to retreat at a sprint.

Ronon lifted a hand to stop them, and gestured to an opening in the wall. John glanced down at the life signs detector. There was no one in there. It looked like a laboratory when he looked inside, with benches and consoles and what might have been a large display screen against the wall, although it was dark.

“If the ship has powered down completely, it may not be possible for the scientists to go about their normal work,” Teyla said under her breath. She stepped forward, running her hands over one of the consoles. “I do not believe the main databanks are currently operable.”

John glanced up at the dark display screen. “You think they gave everybody the afternoon off?”

Ronon was still covering the corridor outside from the doorway. “Then what’d they do with McKay?”

“Put him back in a holding cell, maybe. Or maybe they aren’t going to stop asking him questions just because their computers are down.”

“Perhaps their scientists are needed to put the ship into its state of hibernation, and to restore it to its normal function.” Teyla spread one hand across the console, her fingers moving purposefully. “I am trying to activate this console, but the ship is not responding. It is as if it is sleeping.”

“We’d like it to stay asleep,” John said.

“We would also like to know how long it will take to power up the ship.”

“We can’t waste time trying to find that out,” John said. “The important thing is finding Rodney. If the defenses go back up, we’ll figure out something.”

“Would we not like to know where he is?” Teyla asked, not yet stepping away from the console.

“Can you get that thing to work or not?”

Teyla frowned, her hand moving on the console almost as if she were trying to push it along. John was reminded, in the sudden vivid way that irrelevant things rose into memory, of a herdsman trying to clear cows from a road.

“No,” she said finally in frustration. “I cannot.”

“Then let’s go.”

He waved them back out into the corridor. The next two openings were also empty rooms, one a storage room of some kind full of containers of liquid that didn’t seem to bear investigating, the other another laboratory, also deserted. He spared a glance for the life signs detector, and swore under his breath.

He tapped Ronon’s arm and gestured for him to hold up. They were going to have company. Ronon nodded, smiling sharply, and held his pistol at the ready, his whole body expectant. He looked almost happy at the prospect of getting to shoot something.

John tensed, waiting, painfully aware of the seconds passing. They must already be starting to power up the hive ship. They had to find Rodney before that happened, or else they had to figure on making their own way off the ship, and with the ship on alert that wasn’t going to be easy. Still, maybe they could get to the dart bay, take a dart out in the confusion and signal the Hammond —

The life signs detector showed their glowing dots almost on top of each other, and then he saw the movement, pale hair catching the light as the Wraith stepped around the corner. Ronon fired twice, the first shot making the Wraith stagger backwards, the second dropping him.

John caught Teyla’s eye. “Teyla?”

She took a deep breath and frowned for a moment as if looking at something he couldn’t see. “I do not know if he was able to communicate our presence to anyone,” she said. “There is too much alarm and confusion.”

“Let’s hope he wasn’t,” John said. He scowled down at the life signs detector. There were too many moving forms, and no way to tell if any of them was Rodney. “Let’s go.”

The corridor branched off into two others, one slanting upwards, the other down. John picked the upward one, moving quickly and checking every opening. There were too many deserted rooms, too many branching corridors. They could wander around a fleshy maze for an hour, all their time slipping away —

Teyla caught his arm, and he looked down at her. “This will take too long,” she said. “We must find out where he is being kept.”

“You have an idea?”

She squared her shoulders as if bracing herself for something. “They will know we are here soon enough already,” she said. “Let me try to get the knowledge from one of them. I think I can do it.”

He gritted his teeth. He hated asking her to risk touching one of their minds that way, but it was true that they weren’t getting anywhere. “What do you need?”

“I will need to be close,” she said. “We will need a prisoner.”

They took the next turning, following a single bright spot making its way down the corridor past several more serpentine bends. John gestured for Ronon to cover their rear, stepping out in front. They needed a prisoner in good enough shape for Teyla to do her thing, not stunned into unconsciousness or with large smoking holes in him.

He came around the corner behind the Wraith, its head bent over some kind of device in its hands, and put one shot through its shoulder. It screamed, the noise inhumanly loud in the cramped corridor, but Ronon was already moving, throwing the Wraith hard against the wall and then wrestling its arms behind it. That wouldn’t hold it for long, and if it broke free, it would be easy for it to spin, to jam its feeding hand against Ronon’s chest —

Teyla stepped out from behind John, her face as calm as if she were sitting cross-legged in meditation back in Atlantis, beautiful in shadow. The Wraith’s eyes locked onto hers, and both of them tensed. Ronon jammed his pistol hard against the Wraith’s side, and John trained his P90 right between its eyes, but he held still, heart hammering in his chest, waiting.