Amy Griswold - The Lost

Fear. Confusion and fear. She felt it like ice within her, cold as the barrel of Ronon’s energy pistol against his side.

Once, under Todd’s tutelage, masquerading as his Queen Steelflower, she had learned to speak this way, to modulate the tones of her mind to what passed for conversation, to speak as a Wraith would speak rather than shout. This was different. This was as different as speech was from interrogation.

And yet she felt his fear lessen by some small amount. The touch of her mind did not send him burning in agony to his knees. It was imperative and order, the vise-like strength of the mind of a Queen.

*You will tell me where the scientist McKay is kept* she demanded, and he felt almost a moment of relief, as an unsure soldier would be steadied by John’s voice snapping an order, decision taken away, uncertainty resolved in the reliance on someone who ought to give the orders, who by right could command.

He did not resist, but the images were jumbled, corridors and doors, Wraith and more Wraith. People that he knew, others aboard the hive ship, with no clear picture of Rodney. Not useful, not coherent.

*Tell me what room.* He could not deny her. She was a Queen, and her mind was on his. No mere cleverman could conceal his thoughts from such, even if he might wish to. *I am a Queen* Teyla said, mind to mind, as though her hands ringed his wrists like iron. *Show me the chamber where the prisoner McKay is.*

Power and the thrill of power, the bright yielding of his mind to hers, as though he bent like a supplicant, head down before her beauty and her strength. The corridor, the room, not so far from here. Two turnings, and then the door.

*You will kill me.* He stated it as fact. Of course they would. When he had rendered her what she wanted, he would die, surely as a sacrifice beneath a sovereign’s hand.

*Yes* she said.

She pulled the energy pistol from Ronon’s hand, thumbing the settings, her fingers small around the large grip, the barrel against the cleverman’s ribs, and squeezed the trigger. The Wraith sprawled first to his knees, then collapsed to the floor in an ungainly heap, a pool of shadow in the darkened hall. She held the pistol out to Ronon.

He took it, glanced down at the stun setting, and frowned. “What did you do that for?”

“Because I wanted to.” In Teyla’s voice she heard the echo of a Queen’s tones, and Ronon’s frown deepened.

“Later,” John said, forestalling any further discussion. “Did you find out where Rodney is?”

“Yes. It is this way. Todd was right that it is a laboratory.” Teyla gestured to the left. “It is not far. Come.”

John let her lead, following after with the life signs detector, while Ronon took six. It took only a moment, which was probably a good thing. She knew that time always seemed to run unevenly in a mission, minutes seeming hours, elongating with strain and adrenaline, but even so they must have been aboard the hive ship for some minutes. Sooner or later it would awaken. Sooner or later they would activate their defensive systems, and then the Hammond might be seriously outclassed.

“It is here,” she whispered, gesturing to a closed door.

John squinted at the life signs detector in the dim light. “Two,” he said. “Rodney and somebody else. And there are a bunch one corridor over who are going to be here any second. Ok, let’s do this thing. Ronon, cover us.”

Quicksilver was in his laboratory when the alarms sounded. Doors slid shut all over the ship, panels of bone and cartilage connecting with the quiet hiss of ventilation systems sealing. The laboratory lights flickered and then came back to life as it went to internal emergency power.

“What has happened?” Quicksilver said.

Dust shook his head, but he looked disturbed. He cocked his head for a moment, listening to the great network, to the other minds aboard. “An unidentified ship has just come out of hyperspace,” he said. “And we are powered down while the ship restores himself. We have no external power. The Bright Venture sleeps.”

“That’s not good, is it?” Quicksilver asked, cold running through his veins. Fear. That’s what it was.

“It might be rival hive,” Dust said. “Or it might be…”

Quicksilver turned to the viewscreens, trying to get sensor readings. There they were, green and red on the screen, the dipping, weaving shape of a ship the size of a cruiser, approaching with evasive jinks and bobbles though the Bright Venture did not return fire.

The alarm tone changed. Pilots to the Dart bay. Though how they should get the bay doors opened with the ship dormant…

In the hall there was a burst of sound, the bright pure buzzes of stunners, and the heavy rattle of something else, something that seemed oddly familiar to Quicksilver. Terrifying. And yet he felt his heart lift inexplicably.

“We must get down,” Dust said, and pulled him to the floor behind one of the long tables. “Their weapons will pierce the door!” He drew a small stunner from a compartment in the wall behind them.

“I did not know you had that,” Quicksilver said. Weapons were the province of blades. Clevermen did not generally use them.

“It is for emergencies only,” Dust said with a joyless smile. “And this is an emergency, my brother. This is the worst kind of emergency.”

They were trapped in the laboratory, no way out except through the door, and no one with them, no blades or drones to defend them. He felt this had happened before, and though the fear clawed at him, it could not hold him.

“We will have to resist them as long as we may,” Quicksilver said.

Dust looked at him with surprise. “You are brave.”

“Not really,” Quicksilver said. “Unless I have to be. This is also for emergencies only.” He squared his shoulders as the door blew in.

Two humans burst into the room, their black clothing dark against the wreathing white smoke. Their weapons were held high, and their lights cast a fitful and piercing brightness, almost searing to look at. A third remained in the hall, his hulking back slightly visible behind them as he covered the corridor outside.

Quicksilver froze, his pulse hammering in his head.

The taller of the two humans swept his weapon around. “Rodney?”

“Hurry!” the one outside shouted. “I’m not going to be able to hold them long, Sheppard!”

“Rodney?” the smaller of the two called. “Rodney, are you here?”

Dust gave him a sideways look, a swift half-smile that Quicksilver knew he would keep in his memory forever. And then he darted out from the end of the table, firing his stunner at the intruders, narrowly missing the smallest one.

The other swung around, the beam of light from his weapon catching Dust just as he opened fire. Blood blossomed, and he jerked in the rain of hard things, six, eight catching him full in the body, tearing through velvet and cloth and flesh and muscle and bone, shaking him like a rag caught in a tornado, flinging him useless and broken to the floor, one final spark of pain flaring in his eyes before they fixed.

“No!” Quicksilver was hardly aware of himself, unconscious of any fear at all, rising up from behind the table and leaping for the stunner thrown from Dust’s opened hand. “No!” He dropped to the floor, across his brother’s blood, and his fingers closed around it. Once, twice, three bright bursts erupting at the dark figure who had slain Dust.

Quicksilver rolled, getting out of the way of return fire, and squeezed off another shot and another, pumping blast after blast into the human where he lay, just as he had torn Dust, grim determination in his face and bile in his throat. The smaller human dove behind a piece of equipment, and he threw shot after shot at her, pinning her and the one in the doorway both. His shots could not penetrate the metal of the equipment nor the frame of the door, but he could keep them thus, keep them until blades came.