STARGATE ATLANTIS: Dead End (19 page)

Ronon whirled round. The swishing sound was getting louder. He couldn’t see a thing.

“Stand your ground!” he shouted to the others, but it was too late. Like a startled herd of animals, the hunters were running. They’d become the prey, darting down the tunnels like rabbits. Orand went after them, leaving Ronon alone at the rear.

He tried to make out what had got them so terrified. As their lights disappeared into the gloom it got even harder to make anything out. Keeping his gun raised, he followed them, scouring the dark to see what was going on.

The swishing got louder. He looked over his shoulder. There was something materializing behind him, emitting its own light. It was above him, hard against the roof of the tunnel. For a moment, he thought it was a figure transporting in, but the shape never solidified.

Ronon felt a rush of fear.

That was crazy. Even locked in the middle of a Hiveship, surrounded by his mortal enemies, he hadn’t felt that kind of fear. What was getting into him? He flicked the gun setting to ‘kill’, and the white light flashed along its flank.

He forced himself to stop running and turned to face it. There was a face there, narrow and arrogant, distorted with anger. There were hands outstretched, fingers extended. It rushed toward him, arms grasping. Everything was insubstantial, hard to make out.

He fired off three rounds. The bolts of energy screamed off, each perfectly aimed. They went straight through the apparition, shattering ice and rock beyond it. The ghost swept towards him.

“OK,
that’s
no Wraith,” he muttered, turning tail and running after the hunters. As he went, he could feel the apparition’s presence coming up behind him. His heart started beating out of control, sweat breaking out across his forehead. He tried to fight it, but the fear built in his throat.

He sped onward, not risking turning. The tunnel continued to plunge down, taking him deeper and deeper into the planet’s core. Soon he could see the lights of the hunters again. He spun round quickly and loosed another volley.

Same result. Nothing hit. But this time the apparition responded.

Crackling energy streaked from its ghostly fingers, aimed right for him.

Ronon sprang away from the blast, rolling as he hit the floor. The jagged rocks bit into his flesh, and he staggered as he found his feet again. Something hot had torn right past his shoulder.

He scrambled down the tunnel after the hunters, fear now thick in his throat. Orand was right. They couldn’t fight this. Forgetting his training, forgetting his weapon, forgetting the mission, Ronon Dex ran for his life.

“I’m a genius!” cried McKay, enjoying the familiar warm glow of success. It was almost his favorite feeling. His absolute favorite involved Samantha Carter from SGC, and was not something he dwelt on very much these days.

Sheppard looked up wearily. He’d been dismantling, carrying, fixing and testing for what seemed like hours, and McKay even began to feel a little sorry for him.

“That’s
great
, Rodney,” Sheppard said. “Wanna tell me why?”

McKay favored him with his patent self-satisfied smirk. “Because, my good Colonel, I have restored power to the Jumper.”

He picked up a small control panel and entered the command. Lights flickered on along the length of the rear bay. With a further press, the inner bulkhead doors slid open and the dark interior of the cockpit emerged. The windshield was covered with snow, but everything looked in working order.

“I gotta hand it to you,” said Sheppard, looking relieved. “You sure know when to pull the rabbit out of the hat.”

McKay knew Sheppard didn’t usually enjoy paying compliments, but he could see the man was impressed.

McKay flicked a few more switches and a series of secondary systems began to power up. “It’ll take a while for everything to get back up to speed,” he said. “Some of the damage is irreparable and we’ll be a little shaky for a while. I don’t reckon we’ll get more than a single flight, but we’ve got enough to get us home.” Then a worried frown creased his forehead. “That is, of course, if we can get the Stargate to open. And of course we don’t really know what went wrong last time, so we’d have to try and figure that out before making the jump to Atlantis. And if that’s not possible, we might still be stuck here. Though of course, we can now get into orbit if we
really
have to, although how much that’ll help when we’re…”

Sheppard’s cold stare silenced him. McKay stopped talking. Military types were never really interested in exploring all the possibilities. They wanted to be told which direction to move, and then allowed to get on with it. The very idea that there might be better alternatives, and that these might be worth considering in some detail, was anathema to them.

“Alright,” said McKay. “There are still some things to iron out. But we’re making progress.”

“I
love
it when you tell me that,” said Sheppard. “Now fire up those sensors. Any sign of Teyla and Ronon?”

McKay frowned and adjusted some of the settings on the panel in front of him.

His euphoria gave way to worry. While absorbed in fixing the primary systems he could briefly forget the bigger picture. But the missing team members were never far from his mind and it had now been hours without word. That was too long. “I’m not getting anything at the moment,” he said.

“What’s the problem?”

“Power,” replied McKay. “And only half the secondary systems are operating. Hang on — I’m getting something. Coming up now… But that can’t be right. Can it? Oh, God.”

Sheppard hovered at his shoulder. “What can’t be right?”

McKay double-checked the readings. It was hard to make things out with any clarity, and the signal was weak. But he wasn’t mistaken. “I’m getting some readings from the long-range scanners,” he said. “Nothing precise enough to locate Teyla or Ronon, but enough to see what’s coming. There are storms closing in on us from every side. Big ones.”

Sheppard shrugged. “We
know
the place has storms, Rodney.”

McKay adjusted the settings, back and forth, looking for some kind of error. “Yeah, but they were finite. These are joining up together. I don’t like the look of them at all. The further you go out, there are no breaks at all.” He looked up at John. He could feel the blood draining from his face. “We’re in trouble,” he said. “I don’t think these clouds are going away. Something’s happening here, and it’s working fast.”

Sheppard looked unconvinced, but Rodney could see he was troubled.

“Maybe you’ve missed something,” he said.

McKay nodded, and got back to work. But the image of circling cloud formations, like the eternal storms of Jupiter, wouldn’t leave him. He was sure he wasn’t wrong. More data would just confirm his suspicions. Their time situation had just got much worse.

Once those fronts closed in, they were never going away.

Teyla and Miruva were standing on a balcony high in a rock wall. Unlike the sheer, polished surfaces in the Hall of Arrivals, this was living stone, uneven and mottled, as if carved that very day. If the Hall had seemed big, then this new chamber was gigantic.

They stood perhaps two-hundred feet up the near rock face on a wide ledge. On either side of them, the level surface continued as far as they could see, a shelf in the otherwise unadorned rock. The roof of the chamber was so far away it was hard to make out and there seemed to be wispy clouds drifting across its surface. But the real shock was how far the space extended before them. Teyla couldn’t even see the far end. It was lost in a kind of mist. They were in a huge rectangular clearing in the heart of the earth, several miles wide at least. It looked as if thousands of people could shelter there comfortably and still have room for whatever they could desire.

Once again, she found herself wondering if Geran might actually be right. Who could possibly have manufactured such a vast space?

“Welcome to the underworld,” said Geran, sounding a little proud of the theater of the whole thing. Presumably, he’d shown many new arrivals their new home. “This is where we live. And where you will spend the rest of your days.”

On the distant floor below, Teyla could see a lush landscape. Fields stretched away for what looked like several miles, their crops green and healthy. Between the neat squares of cultivation, paved lanes ran, connecting small villages. Even from such a height, Teyla could see them bustling with life. Men and women hurried to and fro carrying baskets stuffed with produce. Children ran and laughed amidst the buildings. If this was the afterlife, it could have been a lot worse.

“This looks like… Athos,” she breathed, thinking how like her homeworld of old the place seemed. The only difference was the vast rock walls enclosing them on all sides — and the fact there was no sky. Yet, there was light all around them. It was like a world in microcosm.

“Where does the light come from?” asked Miruva, echoing Teyla’s thoughts. “I can see solid rock above us.”

Geran shook his head. “We do not know,” he said. “But every morning the light begins to grow, softly at first, until by noon it is as you see it. When the evening comes, it dims again. At night it is much the same as in the world we left, except there is no moon and there are no stars.” He smiled. “And there is no ice, of course. The weather here is temperate. There are seasons, just as in the stories of old, but they are mild. Water wells up from beneath us, and there are many rivers. You probably can’t see it from here, but the land becomes wilder as you head further from this place. None of us has explored all the regions of the underworld.”

Teyla peered into the distance. It did seem indeed as if the land began to rise. There was the faint outline of forests, cliffs, and even hills.

“How far does it go on for?” she said, entranced by the vision before her.

“A man can walk it in for days,” he said. “But eventually he will come to a barrier. As much as it may seem a paradise here, eventually the rock encloses us completely. Make no mistake, traveler. We are imprisoned here. Come, follow me.”

Geran withdrew from the edge of the rock balcony, and led them along the narrow way to the left. Eventually, they came across a spiral staircase cut from the rock. The steps were wide and solid, and every so often there were places to rest on the descent. Whoever built this place had clearly kept their prisoners’ comfort in mind. Soon they were at ground level. There was a small gravel clearing in front of them, before the land began to evolve into the farmland they’d seen from the balcony. A wide road curved away, leading to the villages.

“There is a house provided for all of you,” said Geran, matter-of-factly. “We are always building, knowing that new arrivals will come from time to time. Now that you’re here, the work for the next group will commence.”

They walked out into the countryside and as they went they passed through inhabited villages. Their arrival seemed to arouse very little curiosity. Presumably, for these people it was a regular occurrence. But then Miruva let slip a cry of delight.

“Mother!” she shouted.

A women working in one of a fields straightened up and shaded her eyes. When she caught sight of Miruva, she dropped her tools and came hastening over. She was a tall woman with raven hair, tanned and healthy-looking.

“Miruva!” she cried. “My child!”

The women embraced, clutching one another tenderly. Miruva’s face ran with tears. “I thought I’d never see you again,” she stammered. “The Banshees…”

“Hush,” said her mother, brushing her hair back from her brow. “I know. We never need to speak of them.”

She pulled herself free from her daughter’s arms, and looked at her proudly. “I had half-feared, half-longed-for this day,” she said, tears shining in her own eyes. “Part of me wanted you to escape the clutches of the Banshees. The other wanted to see you again. How pretty you’ve grown!”

They embraced again and soon Miruva’s body was shaking with sobs. Teyla looked on silently, uncertain how to react. Though the scene was touching, there was something very strange about all of this. The talk of an afterlife and an underworld was clearly nonsense, but now was probably not the time to press the point. She hung back, wondering what her next move would be.

Geran approached her. “So it is whenever someone new arrives,” he said, softly. “They meet their lost family, their lost friends. It takes some of the bitterness away from being trapped here forever. But I suppose, being a ‘traveler’, you won’t have that luxury, will you?”

Teyla looked back at him. The man was studying her suspiciously. This Geran was no fool.

“My friends will come for me,” she said, firmly. “Even if I cannot, they will find a way to get us out of here. Have no fear of that.”

“Do you really not understand?” asked Geran. “This is not a place that can be reached by normal means. This is the resting place of the Elect. We have fulfilled the demands of the Ancestors. In their wisdom, they pick those who most deserve to escape the endless cold. You cannot choose to come here, anymore than you can choose to leave. Unless, of course, you think you are wiser and stronger than the creators of this place.”

Teyla knew she had to be wary here. There was much she didn’t understand, and the conviction of Geran was genuine. If she moved too quickly to doubt him, things could get ugly.

“I do not doubt your beliefs,” she said. “And I am certainly no wiser or stronger than any of you. But you have seen the terror of the Banshees. And even though you have been granted this place to live in, you cannot be reunited with your families and loved ones. That does not sound like paradise to me. So I for one will not give up on the chance of escape just yet.”