James Swallow - Halcyon

He pointed. "Wraith held me on board one of these ships for weeks after Sateda fell. I got away from them a couple of times. I have an idea about the layout."

Sheppard gestured with his gun. "Great, you can play tour guide — "

A rasping crackle of static from his radio cut him off in mid-speech. "Colonel Sheppard? Ronon? I hope you can hear this…"

"Beckett?" John toggled the mike. "Carson, we read you, what's your situation, over?"

"My situation?" Beckett repeated into his headset. "Never mind me, what about you? We thought you were dead in there!"

"Doctor," Sheppard said firmly, "are you all right? Is the medical team safe?"

Carson glanced up at Erony's worried expression in the seat across from his inside the flyer cabin. She was gripping another walkie-talkie, listening in, her knuckles white around the radio. "Aye, I think so. Corporal Clarke's back in the city. I'm here with Mason and Lady Erony."

"Where the hell is `here', Carson? You were told to stay in the capital!"

"Ah, well. We came out looking for you in the lass's flyer. We found Ronon… Although he's since got another lift… We're going to head back and pick up the Jumper where you left it."

Beckett heard the exasperation in the colonel's tone. "Listen to me, if you're anywhere near this Hive Ship, you have to back off right now! We don't know who's in charge of this thing, and you could get your asses shot out of the sky"

The doctor craned his neck to peer through the flyer's porthole. "That's just it, John, we can't keep up with it!" The Wraith craft was now the size of a dollar coin, the beetle-like shape no different from a garden insect clinging to the outside of the window. With every passing moment it grew smaller as it gained altitude. "The Hive Ship is picking up speed and climbing. It's heading for orbit."

In the nexus chamber, Daus's rifleman stared at the radio in his hand in stunned silence as Sheppard and Beckett's conversation went back and forth. McKay made a sour face. "Thank you, Carson," he said to the air, knowing full well that the doctor wouldn't be able to hear him, "thank you for confirming the completely obvious level of trouble we are now in." Before him, the control center's eye-like view ports showed nothing but blue sky, the color deepening toward dark magenta with every passing second. Consoles all across the chamber that had been dark and dormant were now alive with color, alien displays casting strange light over the fearful faces of the Halcyon scientists.

"The Lieutenant Colonel and the Runner," said Vekken, "they are on board this vessel."

"It matters not!" snapped the Magnate, jabbing a finger at the air. "The Wraith will kill them. Our survival is the issue here. Without me, Halcyon will be lost, rudderless!" He glared at Rodney, the light of mad fury in his watery eyes. "I order you to stop this ship! Do it now!"

McKay threw up his hands. "Make up your mind! The hibernation systems or the flight brain, I can't work on both at the same time!"

"Who is controlling this craft?" roared Daus. "Is this your doing? Have you made this happen, outworlder?" He advanced menacingly.

Rodney blanched, the memory of Kelfer's murder still very fresh in his mind. "As far as I can ascertain, these ships are autonomic," he managed, "they're like trained animals. Give them a command, they execute it. Only a Wraith can make a Hive Ship obey."

"Scar!" Daus spat out the word like a curse. "He did this."

And like the secret name of a demon conjuring the very beast it described, the next voice they heard was the rasping purr of the Wraith commander.

The Wraith played with the radio, caressing it and examining the device at eye level, in the way that an artisan might appraise a gemstone for flaws. Scar had quickly deduced the functioning of the communicator. "Human," he husked, a vein of anger audible under the words. "You prove more resilient than I expected."

Teyla smiled coldly at the sneer in Sheppard's reply, inwardly elated that her friends were still alive. "You know, for a superior kinda Wraith, you're not as smart as you like folks to think."

"I killed you," growled the alien.

"Beg to differ with you, eyeball. That's what happens when you mess with weapons you don't understand," the colonel retorted. "Why don't you tell us where you are? We'd be happy to swing by and show you how they're supposed to work."

With an expression of loathing on his face, Scar reached into his tunic and removed the Beretta pistol he had taken from Teyla, holding it as if the gun filled him with disgust, as if it had somehow betrayed him. With an angry flick of his wrist he tossed it away, over the edge of the walkway where they stood. It clattered away into the darkness below. "I will not make that mistake again,"

"Too late for that. We've got explosive charges planted all over this ship. One command from me and ka-boom. Game over. You're finished."

A cruel smile appeared on Scar's face. "A lie. If you had the power to destroy this vessel, you would have done so before now. You are not like the natives, you have no desire to keep it intact, like some wretched breedery." He threw a wicked glance at Teyla and kept speaking. "Let me tell you how this will end, prey. Once we achieve orbital parity, my ship's guns will carve Halcyon's settlements into rubble. I will sow panic and fear in the prey that swarm on this world. Calls have already been sent, Hive Fleets are already on their way. My kindred are coming to Halcyon, of that you may be certain. When they arrive here, I will lead them in a culling so brutal, so total, that it will become legendary in the annals of the Wraith. We will harvest everything that lives on this world, spare nothing but one single survivor…" He chuckled, and the sound was chilling. "Yes. I will spare the woman Tey-lah, so that when your species see her broken by the horrors she has witnessed, they will know that the dominion of the Wraith is total."

When Sheppard replied, his words were curt and clipped. "Atlantis team, switch to alternate channel delta. Scarface can talk to himself for a while."

The Wraith commander gave a guttural laugh and turned back to face the Athosian; he was quite unprepared for her to spring at him and bury a curved dagger in his chest.

"Delta!" Rodney shouted. "I know that one!" Without thinking, he snatched at the radio in the rifleman's hands and twisted the frequency dial to the right setting. "Sheppard!" he called. "It's me, I'm alive! I'm here, on the control deck! I think we can-

The sudden impact came from nowhere and without any apparent intervening movement McKay found himself sprawled on the floor, clutching at his shoulder. The radio spun away, out of his reach.

"Do not dare to speak without my permission!" Daus raged, towering over him with his fists balled. His face was flushed with color. "I warned you!"

He could hear Sheppard calling out to him, but the thudding of his pulse in his ears made McKay giddy. "They can help us! I can't do this alone!"

"Are you as much a liar as you are a coward?" thundered the Magnate.

"I'm not a coward!" Rodney retorted. "I just have a heightened level of self-preservation!"

"You told my daughter you were the font of knowledge regarding the Wraith," he continued, "but you are not! You pathetic weakling! I would have killed you out of hand had I known how useless you are, instead of bringing you here!"

McKay felt sick inside. "You brought me here… Because of Erony?"

The rifleman's knife went into Scar's torso, through the ragged leather jerkin he wore, into corpse-colored flesh to the jeweled hilt. Oily blood flowed as the Wraith howled and beat at Teyla. Scar had released the control leash for her collar, and was clawing at her face with both hands, frantic as he tried to force her away.