STARGATE ATLANTIS: The Furies (Book 4 in the Legacy series) (5 page)

Which meant he was stuck here, on the hive, while Ember and the others were on Gaffen, and there was no way he could ask them to investigate the last few addresses in the DHD’s buffer to see if Atlantis had dialed there. He had almost convinced himself that he was mistaken, anyway, that he was truly Quicksilver, brother of Dust, senior cleverman in the hive of Queen Death, but the decision to send his men to Gaffen wakened all his previous doubts. And now he would never know.

He snarled again, pacing the length of the chamber he shared with Ember, as much at his own melodrama as at the situation itself. He would find another way to test his hypothesis, of course — if it was impossible, he was the man to do it — but that would mean starting over again. And there was no way to predict when the queen would order another attack on Atlantis’s blocked Stargate. If he were McKay in truth, that ought to please him, but at the moment, it was only more frustration.

At least Ember’s absence gave him a chance to search the other cleverman’s files. He had been through them before, but always in haste, always with one eye on the door, for fear that Ember would return and catch him at it. This time he would have time to work without fear of being interrupted.

He went to his own console, entered a query. The screen pulsed for an instant, then displayed his answer: Ember’s shuttle had left the hive. And that meant it was time to get to work. He turned to Ember’s console, entered the codes he had stolen, and watched as the system unlocked itself. He would need to be careful, do nothing that could not be erased, but he would at least have a chance to look at Ember’s files on him. He was typing the query even as he thought, scowled as the system returned a null result. All right, maybe Ember didn’t keep a file on him — that was a point in favor of his being Quicksilver — or maybe it was just better hidden.

At second search, there was a hidden portal, secure storage reached through a second set of codes. Quicksilver stared at the screen for a moment, then entered a code he knew Ember kept in reserve. The subsystem opened obediently, but the screen was blank. Quicksilver narrowed his eyes at the screen. That made no sense; he was sure there was something here, something hidden — the numbers didn’t match, there was something in the volume in spite of the void. He considered it for a moment, then entered another code. The screen shifted, and a gameboard swam into view.

“Oh, please,” he said, irritated. If he’d wasted time on Ember’s secret plan to win at towers… And then the pattern registered: not a plan, but a problem, and in the moment he identified it, he saw the solution. He moved the silver blade, and the image dissolved, revealed a tiny list of files.

None of them had anything to do with him, either. One was communication codes — Ember was more loyal to his commander than to his queen, it seemed — and the rest were short notations, work on the ZPM and the new hyperdrive, nothing to do with him. But the last…

He caught his breath. The last was a video file, captured from the hive’s communications system — perhaps even excised from it, from the codes, and that was worth seeing. He triggered it, leaning close to capture every nuance.

A stranger looked from the screen, an unfamiliar older blade. “Old friend, I seek to confirm or deny a — possibility. In culling Gaffen this last ten-day, my queen’s blades took one who greatly resembles the Consort of Atlantis. I know you have seen him yourself, and so I set his image before you. Is this the human himself, or merely one similar?” He paused. “If it should be so, we may wish to treat, my queen and I, that we may come to some agreement with your lady.”

The screen brightened, filled with a human shape: a man sitting against the wall of a holding cell, his eyes closed, head tipped back against the cell’s wall. The camera zoomed in, focusing on the face, shifting slightly to get the clearest view. The man opened his eyes as though he’d heard something, stared into the camera as though he sensed its presence: a dark-haired man, ordinary enough, a few days’ growth of beard on his chin, hazel eyes that stared defiance.

Quicksilver closed his own eyes, his stomach roiling as though he were in freefall. He knew the man — knew him with a certainty he had not felt since before he was captured, could put a name to him, a human name. John Sheppard — Consort of Atlantis, indeed, commander of the Lanteans; the man who had led the attack on the hive, who had tried to capture him. Tried to rescue him…

Tried to answer his message. The stranger had said Sheppard had been taken on Gaffen. And that meant that his own message had been received, and answered: Sheppard had come for him — had come for McKay, and he was McKay in truth. And, unwittingly, he’d led Sheppard into a trap.

His heart was racing, painful in his chest. He was Rodney McKay, except he’d been turned into a Wraith — but that wasn’t the important thing right now. Atlantis knew that, Sheppard knew that, and they’d come for him anyway. Except Sheppard had been taken prisoner.

“All right,” he whispered. “All right. Think.”

First of all, this message was old — for all he knew, the team might have rescued Sheppard already. At the worst, he wasn’t being held by Death, because everyone in the hive would have heard that news, so Sheppard was still with this other blade’s queen, whoever she was. And that made rescue or escape a whole lot easier. Sheppard would escape. He always did.

Second — the thought was a sharp as a knife to the heart, but he faced it anyway. Second, even if Sheppard was a prisoner, there was nothing he could do about it. He had to keep his counsel, hide what he knew, and wait, either for rescue — because Sheppard wouldn’t leave him behind — or for a chance to escape on his own. Sooner or later, there would be a chance. There had to be a chance. Sooner or later, someone would come.

He took a shuddering breath, feeling his heart steady a little, extended his hands to see them shaking. They looked alien, suddenly, frightening, with their heavy claws badly tended, and the thick vein that wound around his feeding hand. He curled his fingers to fists, and looked away. Ember had hidden this file, cut it from the ship’s record and concealed it: the cleverman was playing a double game, at least, or maybe even triple, and that was something he could use.

And in the meantime, he would back himself out of Ember’s systems, shut everything down very carefully. He frowned at the keys, suiting action to thought, watching the file fade, the empty subsystem reappear. He would pretend he had never found any of this, never doubted what he was told. And when Ember returned… His feeding hand flexed. He would get answers this time.

The IOA
preferred to meet at Homeworld Command rather than at the SGC. There were many more five star restaurants in Washington, Jack thought cynically. And besides, it was the least he could do for Hank Landry. Keeping the IOA firmly in DC and out from under the feet of the Stargate program was worth a good deal.

Also, when you met at the SGC something unexpected might happen. And it was almost never good.

The downside was that in DC they tended to meet and meet and meet. Their meetings in Colorado Springs were shorter. They were all in a hurry to blow this taco stand and get home. In DC there was no reason not to just go on meeting and meeting.

Especially when there was fun to be had. Crucifying Dick Woolsey was a blood sport.

He’d been their darling and he’d disappointed them. It wasn’t enough to fire him. They were going to get their full money’s worth out of seeing him fight hopelessly for his job first. Clausewitz, or whoever it was, was right. Politics was crueler than war.

They sat around Homeworld Command’s tidy conference table, coffee and tea and water continually resupplied by a nearly invisible lieutenant with enough security clearance to go to the moon, in their fifth hour today of savaging Woolsey. Lesser men would have already resigned. It kind of made Jack O’Neill feel sorry for the poor bastard, for all that Woolsey had been a thorn in his side enough times.

Roy Martin, the new American representative, wanted to go over everything in tortuous detail and wanted hard copies of everything, ‘not these fancy electronic files.’ Another job for the highly cleared lieutenant, running out to the printer like the model of twenty four year old efficiency. Next month she’d be training to be on an SG team. If she didn’t wash out, she’d be past getting the coffee. But as it was, Anderson (he thought her name was Anderson, he’d look when she came back in) was taking the opportunity to impress rather than sulking about being a glorified copy girl. There was something about her ramrod straight posture and the quick click of her heels that reminded him of somebody.

“Is that not the case, General?”

Everybody was looking at him. And he had no idea what the question was. “It might be,” Jack said.

Woolsey looked exasperated. “It might be that it is our policy to require an IDC before we drop the shield or open the iris on the Stargate? Hasn’t that been hard and fast for the last thirteen years?”

“It is absolutely our policy,” Jack said decisively. “But there are always exceptions. For example, if the incoming traveler sends a video message providing positive identification in the absence of the equipment to transmit an IDC properly.”

Woolsey looked at him like he was needlessly muddying the waters. Which he was. Jack shut up.

“And so we did not lower the shield when the message came in from New Athos. We responded by radio with assurances that a team would be on the way until the transmission ceased on the other end,” Woolsey said.

“And why did you provide them with the vital information that we were about to send men through the Stargate?” Shen asked.

Woolsey’s mouth twitched. “Because,” he began.

S.R. Desai, the Indian representative, folded his hands on the table before him. “I don’t believe that our new colleague, Mr. Martin, has actually heard the message in question. Perhaps it would be instructive to play it for him so that he can better understand the decisions that were before Mr. Woolsey in the moment.”

Shen pursed her lips. “We all have a transcript,” she said shortly. “I don’t see that we need to waste…”

“It’s a proper request,” Desai said mildly.

“I’m happy to provide that if it’s necessary,” Jack said, not looking at Desai. He thought he understood what he was up to. He glanced at the officer at the back of the room. “Colonel Davis, would you play the sound file in question?”

It only took Davis a minute. He was good.

“Atlantis, you have to help us!” A panicked voice, a young man, his voice breaking on the edge of terror. “We have Darts… I don’t know how many! They’re… “ A sob, a scream as though someone in the background cried out in mortal terror. It echoed through the gray and white conference room, cutting like the stench of blood. LaPierre’s hands clenched on the arms of his chair, and Anderson, silent beside the coffee service, raised her chin. “Please! You have to help us! Atlantis…” It faded in a burst of static. The Atlantis controller’s calm voice could still be heard. “New Athos? New Athos? Can you hear us? New Athos? We are sending a team with all possible dispatch. Can you hear us?” An accented voice, quiet behind hers, Dr. Zelenka. “I do not think they can. Bùh jim pomoz.”

Davis turned off the recording.

“Perhaps that answers your question, madam?” Desai asked Shen. “I think it is helpful, do you not, Mr. Martin?”

“Very helpful,” Martin said. He frowned down at his briefing book as Anderson silently refilled his coffee, decaf, as he’d said.

Nechayev’s eyes met Jack’s, a flash of amusement there. “So now that we have established why New Athos was informed that our gate team was coming, let us move to what happened when they arrived…”

Lt. Colonel Davis was doing a good job of showing the IOA members out, and Jack smiled and let him do it. That was what they paid Davis for. Woolsey was last, his leather briefcase in hand, raincoat over his arm, hanging back. Outside the full glass windows the evening rush hour traffic crept up Massachusetts Avenue toward Columbus Circle, red tail lights bright in the gathering dark.

“You ok?” Jack asked Woolsey quietly.

Woolsey gave him a sideways glance. “I think I’d rather be interrogated by Replicators again, frankly.”

“I hear you.” Jack looked at the retreating backs of S.R. Desai and Aurelia Dixon-Smythe as Davis herded them past the security desk.

Woolsey took a deep breath as they disappeared around the corner. “I was thinking… Do you want to go across the street to Capital City Brewery and get some dinner?”

Which translated as let’s spend three hours with you holding my hand while we rehash every word of the hearing. Jack thought another fifteen minutes would have him screaming in a decidedly un-Air Force way.

“Actually, I’ve got a lot of paperwork to catch up,” he said. “This has eaten my whole day. I should probably just take the laptop home and nuke something rather than go out, Dick.”

“Sure,” Woolsey said. He looked kind of crestfallen, and for a moment Jack almost said to hell with it. But three more hours of how the IOA sucked?

“Another time,” Jack compromised. “They’ve got good steaks.”

“Yeah.” Woolsey nodded and squared his shoulders. “I should be getting home too. Not that I’ve got paperwork from Atlantis…”

Before they started another round of speculation there, Jack headed for the glass conference room doors. “I’ve got to run by my office and get my laptop.”

“Ok. See you later.” Woolsey looked out the window. “It’s stopped raining.”

“Good,” Jack said.

There was the distant rumble of thunder off to the west as Jack left the building, putting on his cover absently while glancing up at the sky with a lifetime’s force of habit. Thunderclouds building again to the northwest, catching the updrafts over the edge of the Appalachian front beyond the horizon, away from the microclimate of the river. Thirty minutes, forty. Plenty of time.

It was only eight blocks to his apartment, two rooms whose rent at three times the price of his mortgage in Colorado Springs was supposedly justified by granite countertops. He wouldn’t miss this when it was time to retire. Eight blocks, enough to provide a little aerobic exercise. Something he got less of now that he ended fewer reports with ‘we retreated to the Stargate under fire.’