James Swallow - Halcyon

"The vessel has been here on our lands since before the Wars of Unification. I was never permitted to visit it." Her words caught in her throat. The noblewoman was like everyone else on the gyro-flyer, dwarfed by the horror of the reborn Hive Ship.

Ronon gave the Wraith vessel one last look and then ran his hands over his tunic, checking his gear. The drifting alien hulk hung like a storm front, moving against the wind, the throbbing hum of the gravity drives gradually increasing in pitch. The craft was elderly and still shaking off the throes of sleep, he reasoned, but it would not take long for the Hive Ship's systems to return to full capacity. Once that happened, it would outpace this flying machine in seconds, rise to orbit and be free to do whatever Scar commanded. Contact other Hive Fleets, launch bombardments or flights of Darts. The prospect chilled him, even if on some level Dex's sense of justice told him the Haleyons were fully deserving of such a fate.

There wasn't time to touch down and get to the Puddle Jumper; and even if he did, he only had the doctor to fly the craft for him. No. It was up to him to stop this.

Ronon pulled his way up the cabin to the cockpit hatch and summoned the flyer pilot's attention. "You. Get us closer."

The aviator's jaw dropped open. "Closer? Are you mad?"

The Satedan made a show of checking the power cell on his particle magnum. "Take us over the dorsal hull, close to the spinal ridge. Hurry, before the autonomic cannons wake up and start shooting."

The pilot nodded woodenly and pushed the steering yoke forward. The flyer pitched and the leviathan starship loomed to fill the glass canopy.

Ronon met Mason at the main hatch. "What do you think you're up to, son?" snapped the soldier. "I'm the ranking-"

"Get out of my way." Dex yanked on a control lever and the steel hatch yawned open, letting wind and the unearthly drone of the Hive Ship's engines fill the cabin. He pulled two keen battle daggers from a concealed holster.

"You're gonna kill yourself," Mason told him.

"There's plenty of Wraith who will do that for me." Outside of the hatch, he saw the bony hull of the Wraith ship come into view as the flyer drifted into near-collision distance. He threw a quick look at Beckett. "Keep your distance from the ship. I'm going inside."

"And just how are you going to do that?"

Ronon felt the kick of adrenaline rush into him and he couldn't stop the flicker of a grin as he stepped up. "Watch."

The knives raised, Dex threw himself out of the gyro-flyer and into the bitter air, the tree tops fluttering a thousand feet below.

"We are airborne." At first Teyla had thought the tremors passing through the Hive Ship were something else, perhaps an attack of some kind. She half-hoped that were the case, wishing that the Halcyons had seen sense and brought their air-battleships to smash the dormant vessel into wreckage; but the shift in gravity told her otherwise, as the decking seemed to become softer beneath her feet, the g-force lessening as the mammoth vessel discarded its cover. The corridors of the Wraith craft were taking on a different hue, the dead and ashen white of fleshy processing conduits along the walls changing to a cold blue-green. They pulsed like veins as life returned to the alien ship.

Scar's retinue of Wraiths had become muted ever since they boarded the hive. Teyla saw some of them sniffing at the walls or licking at scent-traces that only they could detect. The anxiety the aliens had demonstrated before the dolmen and inside the Jumper was completely gone. These beings were in their own element now, moment by moment regaining the poise that their leader demonstrated. She had no doubt that in days, perhaps even hours, the Wraith once tormented and made feral by the Ancient device would become their former selves; and when that happened she pitied the people of Halcyon. The Wraith were frightening enough when they preyed upon you just to fulfill their needs for sustenance; Teyla shuddered beneath her choke collar as she contemplated of the depths of cruelty they would show to a people who had made them slaves. She swallowed, trying to soothe her bruised throat. Breathing was difficult, even with the heavy Hound collar's cogs in a relaxed mode. "Ali," she gasped. "Gods protect me…"

Scar heard her whisper and cocked his head. "Your deities will not hear you in this place, Tey-lah. Of that, you must have no doubt." He sniffed the air. "Only my wishes will be answered today."

Teyla had never considered that Wraiths might have gods of their own. What kind of creator would they worship? she wondered; but it was more likely that Scar was simply mocking her. She was reduced to this, a pet for her most hated foe's amusement. Teyla caught the spark of revulsion that thought kindled inside her and held on to it, letting it warm her.

A warning yowl from one of the other Wraith brought them all to a halt. The alien dropped to a crouch and lapped at the chilly air, glancing back over its shoulder with a wary grimace. Scar became very still, and his cohorts followed suit. "Listen," he murmured, "can you hear them? Can you feel them, Teylah?"

She didn't want to. She did not want to acknowledge the swarming presence in the corners of her mind, the insect crawl of alien thought scratching at the insides of her skull; but they were there, the fierce colors of other Wraith psyches pushing in on her, tight and constricting. They were so very close now, in the walls, the floor, crowding out the sound of her heartbeat.

Man-shapes moved at the far end of the corridor, things that loped and hissed shifting away from bone alcoves in the walls. Some wore scraps of armor, some even carried weapons aglow with lethal power.

Scar made cracking, spitting sounds that were returned by the newcomers. Her heart pounding against the inside of her ribs, Teyla shrank back against a skeletal pillar as the newly awakened Wraiths came to walk among their brethren. Scar moved close to a female with blood-red hair that came to her knees. In the sallow glow of the corridor's bioluminescence, she could pick out black curves and loops of tribal tattoos on the female's bare shoulders. Scar had the same patterns about his neck and cheeks.

The female caught sight of Teyla and her nostrils flared. She jerked and spat, angry and hungry at the sight of a live human. The Athosian woman tensed, ready to fight off the Wraith, but Scar made a grumbling sound and the female demurred, backing off. One of the female's group presented its weapon to Scar, cementing his place as the alpha in the newly enlarged pack. Teyla recognized the shape of a Wraith stunner rifle, the long gun fat and rounded like a huge silver maggot, the emerald glow of energy cells along its flanks and the wicked barb at the end. Scar accepted it and tugged on the cable leash connected to her collar. Teyla moved with them as the pack pressed deeper into the ship.

It was difficult to do anything other than put one foot in front of the other, hard for her to keep herself held strongly in the grip of her own will. From all sides, the boiling invisible hate of the Wraiths pressed down on her. Teyla knew that with one single moment of weakness from her, the pressure would overwhelm her mind with raw, inchoate fear.

There was a moment when Ronon thought he was going to miss it; but then the wind caught him and the Satedan saw the glistening flank of the Hive Ship there in front of him. He struck hard and found no purchase on the slippery fuselage. The curved hull plates were broad and interlocked, lapping over one another in the same fashion as the carapace of an armored beetle. Instantly he was sliding away, down toward the lip of the fuselage and the sheer drop into the Halcyon woodlands. Ronon lashed out with the battle daggers with all his might and felt the blade tips bite into the hull. Bone squealed at the impact points and threatened to tear the knives from his hands, but he hung on grimly, snarling with effort. The wind pulled at him, whipping his hair about his face. His slide slowed and he felt air beneath his feet; Dex was almost off the edge of the drifting Hive Ship.