James Swallow - Halcyon

She came up into a crouch, tensing her muscles for flight, as the last of the riflemen perished with a scream, his lantern dying with him. Too late. Bodies lay about the chamber, spindly with sudden rigor.

The Wraith chittered with post-kill excitement, but Scar was not among them. He crossed to Teyla and found the end of the steel leash where it trailed upon the floor. "What do you have, Tey-lah?" he demanded, holding out his hand. "Show me." Scar manipulated the leash's control and the collar relaxed again.

The Athosian woman spat out acidic bile and shot him a murderous stare. "You used me! You left me there to distract them! You made me your bait!"

"Give it to me," he said, ignoring her fury.

Teyla knew instantly that if she did not give him something, Scar would take it by force, perhaps even break a limb or draw off a few years of her life as punishment. In the same moment, she hated herself for falling into the trap of thinking like a slave, letting fear of the Wraith's reprimand rule her before he had even committed it. She held tight to herself, hands in the folds of her torn and dirty jacket, shivering with anger and near panic.

"Tey-lah," Scar warned, reaching for her.

She thrust out her hand and showed him the object there. The Wraith allowed himself a smile and took it, turning it over in his grip. Teyla looked away, and slowly drew herself back up.

"A transmitter unit." Scar weighed the Atlantis-issue radio in his hand, studying it. With a long-nailed thumb he toyed with the dials. "You were attempting to call your friends for help, yes?" He absently pocketed the compact walkie-talkie. "How quickly you forget, my little Hound. Remember what I told you; only my wishes will be answered today."

Teyla did her best to look contrite and afraid of him. It wasn't difficult to do, the leering face with its maw of jagged fangs there before her and a dozen others all the same around it, all ready to rip her to shreds; but she had the knife now, hidden and ready. Her fingers curved around it, the metal hilt solid in her grip. There would be a moment, very soon, when she would use it exactly as the dead soldier had intended to.

Sheppard emerged from a low tunnel on to a catwalk several meters up, running parallel to a long corridor overlooking a dozen clawed cradles, each one grasping a dormant Dart fighter and heavy with webs from a million generations of spiders. Observation gallery, he decided. When the Hive Ship was fully active, anyone standing down there would be able to direct the launches of multiple Dart flights, something akin to the catapult officer on a naval aircraft carrier. Right now though, the corridor was alight with pulses of deadly energy as a group of armored Wraith enforcers traded fire with a single figure at the far end of the gallery. From his high vantage point, the colonel saw their target moving and firing, and recognized the tall warrior instantly. He went through a bunch of emotions in quick succession; pleased to see that Ronon Dex was still alive; confused about how it was the Satedan had got on board the Hive Ship; and then worried by the overwhelming enemy opposition that Dex was trying to hold off.

Sheppard sighted down the barrel of his P90 and looked for a good angle to give Ronon some covering fire. He had to make it count. The moment he squeezed the trigger, he'd lose the element of surprise. The colonel had to get as many of those Wraiths in the kill zone as possible. "If I had a SAW, I'd be able to take them all in one burst," he said under his breath; but they had left the heavy M249 support weapons back on Atlantis. Sheppard waited, the seconds ticking by, anticipating the moment for the perfect shot. From up here, the whole confrontation was visible, and he had his choice of targets.

There was a noise behind him. The same noise as before, the same click of Wraith feet on Wraith decks, the faintest rasp of a hungry predator's breath as it closed in for the kill. One of the aliens had clearly had the same idea as Sheppard, slipping away from the firefight to clamber up here and take out Ronon from the catwalk. This time, however, John didn't have a shouted call over the radio to warn him. The Wraith slammed into him with all the force of a linebacker, the impact making the bone gantry clatter and rock from side to side. The alien's body check knocked Sheppard's gun from his grip and it swung away from him like a pendulum, still connected to his gear vest by a lanyard, although at this moment it might as well have been on Mars. They traded hard and rapid blows, Wraith and human punching at places where nerve bundles and soft tissues could be damaged. The colonel fell into the combat training he'd learnt from Teyla, remembering the Athosian two-strike combo that always hurt like hell whenever the woman used it on him.

The Wraith lashed out at him with its claws, screeching at him from a frenzied face framed by a storm of stringy white hair. The razor-tipped nails raked over his vest, ripping open pockets and spilling their contents, tearing a rent in his blue jacket. That's two of them I've ruined on this mission. He feinted and threw another punch, but the Wraith anticipated and hit him hard in the head. John stumbled and fell among the mess of ration packs, field dressings and other gear on the catwalk. By now the two fighters were attracting fire from the other Wraith down in the gallery, streaks of white lightning spitting past them.

By sheer reflex, he grabbed at a black plastic cylinder near his hand and smashed it into the face of the alien as it came down to feed on him. The ferocity of the blow staggered the Wraith back a step and Sheppard hit him again, suddenly aware of what he was holding in his grip. The colonel jammed the object into the folds of the Wraith's body armor and snatched back his hand, clutching a metal pull-ring. He brought his palms up to his face and spun away just as the flash-bang grenade went off.

An ululating scream tore from the lips of the Wraith as the burning phosphorus elements and explosive charge burnt into its chest. Flash-bangs were supposed to be an indirect, nonlethal weapon; but stuffed down a guy's shirt it would still do a horrific amount of burn damage. Dazzled by the glare from the grenade, the Wraith staggered over the lip of the catwalk and fell into the midst of its comrades.

Sheppard shook off the ringing in his ears to see Ronon race out from behind his cover, taking advantage of the mayhem. John grabbed his dangling P90 and after a moment of applied lethality, the two men had the gallery to themselves. Ronon blew out a breath and saluted Sheppard with his short sword. "Messy," he called out, with a hint of gallows humor, nodding at the Wraiths.

John hauled himself over the edge of the catwalk and halfclimbed, half-slid down one of the bone support stanchions. "I prefer to think of it as improvised." Sheppard tried to force his usual smile to the surface but it was hard to find. This day had turned into one long and painful ordeal, and he still couldn't be sure if there was an end in sight. He glanced at Dex and for the first time Sheppard saw that the Satedan was streaked with dark blood. "Whoa, Ronon! You're hit, you're bleeding, man!"

The ex-soldier shrugged. "It's not mine."

"Then whose blood is it?"

He nodded at the walls. "The ship's. I cut my way in. It got a little…"

"Messy?" offered Sheppard.

"Yeah. You find Teyla or McKay?"

John shook his head. "Not yet. But they gotta be on board. There's nowhere else on this planet they could be." He quickly reloaded the P90. "I'm thinking we need to find the control center for this tub and bring it to heel, if Lord Daus's boys haven't already snafu'ed the whole damn thing."

Dex nodded. "Scar will do the same. I was on my way there when I got pinned down."

"You know where to go?"