"...never seen anything like this technology," a male voice said. The source was somewhere nearby, but no matter how much I wanted to see what was going on around me, I decided to keep my eyes closed for now.
There's another little trick—though you might not know it, eye movement under closed lids is visible from the outside. So it's better to keep your eyes fixed in one position.
In the end, I still had my hearing.
And my hands tied behind my back, ankles bound together. And it was kind of chilly here, too.
It took a few seconds to figure out what position I was actually in. Turned out I was sitting on the floor, leaning my left side against a wall. Great, worth a try.
Cracking my left eye open, I saw my legs and chest. So, what do we have?
I was sitting by the tunnel wall, next to the entrance to the room I had been about to clean out. The medical depot. And it was apparently already broken into.
Directly opposite me, I could see the rear of the Jumper, and the ship's condition did not inspire confidence. The ramp was open, and the internal bulkhead separating the cargo and passenger compartments had been blatantly forced. I had no idea how much time and effort these guys spent, but they had pried the doors apart.
Which meant Chaya might be their prisoner.
Inside the ship I counted two men—one pretending to understand something in the open control-crystal panels in the aft section, the other doing the same over the instrument console. The lack of backlighting in both cases indicated the ship had no power.
That was almost good, it meant the Jumper hadn't fallen into their hands. That also meant none of them had the Ancient gene.
But that was also bad—they clearly weren't staring at all this out of idle curiosity. I doubted they'd saved my life out of altruism either. Otherwise, they simply wouldn't have bothered shooting me in the first place.
Judging by the sounds, there were more people of this unknown enemy working in the rooms I had intended to loot. I wondered how many bastards there were.
Besides knocking me out—and a good while ago, judging by the lack of chest pain—they'd tied me up and stripped off everything they could take. Body armor, greaves... At least they left the uniform and boots.
But they took the weapons, the scanner, and the personal shield.
Things are really in the toilet, God.
For the second time I was convinced I should wear the shield always active. The idea of activating it at the last moment turned out stillborn.
Well, never mind; now I needed to figure out what was going on and whether there was any way to deal with these guys.
"Are you sure?" another voice continued. Cracking my right eye a little, I could see through my lashes a pair of men talking to each other. The hope that at least one of them might be familiar to me didn't pan out. One stood with his back to me, and the other I was seeing for the first time. At least I didn't remember him from the show.
"More than sure," the owner of the first voice assured him. "No microcircuits, no wiring like we're used to. Everything is made of glass or a similar material. This is definitely not at the development level of Ermen's inhabitants. Here, look," through my half-lowered lids I saw him hand the other man my personal shield. "I'm sure this is no mere trinket."
"A more advanced culture?"
"Yes. That green stone and the energy pistol confirm it."
"Did the woman say anything?" the shaved nape asked. Very thoroughly shaved, by the way, with a short cut and uneven edging. That gave me a better idea of what was going on.
Didn't make it any better though.
"She's silent," the first replied in frustration. "We almost drowned her in a barrel, but she refuses to answer even under a beating."
You bastards...
"Rip out her nails and break her bones," the Shaved Nape ordered. Looking more closely, I saw my pulse blaster hanging at his belt. Well, well, looks like you haven't heard the one about the unskinned bear. Just let me get these hands untied, I'll explain it. "She definitely knows how to start the ship—she already tried to fly away from us. I am not leaving such technology behind!"
"I understand, Commander. But perhaps we should send her home and come back for the ship later?"
"Imagine the honors that will await us if we bring not only supplies from Ermen's depots but also this ship. How much will our authority grow if we manage everything without outside help?" the Shaved Nape asked. "We still have time. Get to work."
"Yes, Commander."
They were dressed just like the two rummaging inside my ship. In something akin to a uniform, but unfamiliar. Dark blue pants, untucked beige shirts, dark jackets with fur collars. No insignia, no chevrons. But the mere fact that two of them were dressed the same killed any hope—these weren't just random looters.
The thought that these were guys familiar with Jensen no longer seemed likely either. Another soldier came out of the armory, looking with interest at an anti-personnel mine like a Claymore or our old M50 "monka." Oh, for the love of—what the hell are you pulling the pin for, you idiot!?
"Don't touch that!" the man whose back I'd been staring at barked at the soldier, covering the would-be Darwin Award winner in a long stride. "That's an anti-personnel directional mine! If you pull the pin, it'll kill us all!"
"S-sorry, Commander!" the soldier stammered. The "Commander" snatched the dangerous toy from him, planted a punch straight into his jaw, and the overeager imbecile collapsed to the floor. "Get this idiot out of my sight!"
The owner of the first voice I'd heard hurriedly disappeared into one of the depots, practically dragging the young idiot by the hand.
The Shaved Nape turned to face me, letting me get a good look at him. It didn't take me long to recognize him.
"Stop wasting time," he said, looking in my direction. "We need to sort this out as quickly as possible."
Oh, you have got to be kidding me. Things were not just bad. This was a whole new level of "we're screwed and nowhere to go."
No, he hadn't noticed I'd come around, because he… was looking somewhere behind my back.
"Don't worry, Father," a female voice sounded behind me, overlapping with a kick to the kidneys. "I think I know who will help us."
* * *
Without much ceremony, they hauled me up, punched me in the solar plexus (quite professionally, I had to admit), then shoved me back into the wall. At the same time, a bolt clicked into place.
"I've been waiting a long time for you to come to," a red-haired girl said with poorly concealed irritation, aiming a massive pistol at me. "Start talking before I shoot you."
Coughing, I looked at the girl, then the man standing next to her. There were about twenty years between them, but... the resemblance was purely superficial. Actually, practically nonexistent.
Red curls, a simple, unremarkable face with no intellectual stamp on it, average height... nothing special about her from the front or the back. Legs... nothing to write home about, body like a teenager.
A sort of combat hamster. Any minute now, you expect drool to start running.
"Lower your weapon," the Shaved Nape ordered, stepping up to the girl. "I need him alive. For now."
"But he's been lying here out cold for so long!" the girl complained. "We could have gotten what we wanted from him already!"
"Three shotgun blasts could easily have killed him!" the Shaved Nape snapped. "I said shoot his legs!"
"I've been waiting like an idiot for him to wake up..."
"Well, why 'like,'" I smirked. "You could've just kissed me and whispered something sweet in my ear..."
The man reacted to the weapon's motion with a warning growl. The girl with the gun made a face that approximated rage.
"I said lower your weapon," the man repeated in a command tone. "Go back to the woman and continue the interrogation. Varelon will take a while with her."
"Sora, right," I rummaged through my memory and recalled the name of this deranged doll with limited facial expression. "Listen to what Daddy says. Tyrus, how's life?"
Both Genii froze, wrong-footed by my words, and exchanged glances.
"Father, I..."
"Go," Tyrus ground out, signaling to two soldiers with a look to get me out of the corridor.
Sora, Tyrus's daughter.
The girl shot me a vicious look, shoved the pistol into its holster, and strode toward the open depot. That was where I'd hauled the gear from. The one the man whose voice I'd heard first—Varelon, I thought—had also disappeared into.
So that was where Chaya was being held. Strange that I couldn't hear a sound from inside.
"Looks like your daughter's not your favorite," I said as the soldiers grabbed me by the arms and dragged me into the now-empty medical depot. Those bastards had cleaned the place out!
"What makes you think that?" Tyrus asked.
"Do you deliberately not tell her that a weapon has to be kept on safe?" I asked. "Or is it because she's not really your daughter that you treat her like that?"
"What!?" they dumped me on the floor, and Tyrus leaned over me, face contorted with rage, barely holding back from shooting me. "Go on, repeat that lie again!"
"Tih-tih, Tyrus," I said, never taking my eyes off his gun hand. "You don't want to kill the only pilot in the galaxy for this ship, do you?"
"You're right," he hissed, returning the pistol to its holster. "But I won't let what you said slide."
He spent the next five minutes working me over like a punching bag. In reality... well, I had some experience, so I could say with authority—punks on Earth hit more professionally.
"You done?" I asked, feeling like I'd need a couple of new kidneys.
"Say that again and I won't..."
"You should look less at me and more at redheads nearby," I said. "Take it from a representative of a civilization with more experience in genetics than the Genii—red hair is not compatible with black hair like yours. It dominates over light hair, but is suppressed by black. And you, as I see, don't exactly resemble a redhead..."
It was total nonsense. The one thing I knew for sure was that I had no idea what was dominant and what was recessive there. The important thing was to say it with confidence and make him doubt.
"You're lying!"
"That's all you care about?" I asked. "Not that I know both your names, or that you're family, or that, despite the disguise, you're Genii?"
"Yes, that interests me too!" the Genii said after a moment's thought. "How do you know all that?"
"Telepathy, my friend," I smirked when I saw the soldiers behind Tyrus exchange glances. "Not as strong as it could be with an amplifier, but..."
"He could've heard it while pretending to be out," one of the soldiers offered a more reasonable theory.
"Exactly, dimwit," I agreed. "And I can also say you pretend to be farmers on your homeworld, live in an underground bunker, are developing nuclear bombs you hope to test on the Wraith in about five years..."
Tyrus darkened as he looked at me.
Apparently none of that had come from the soldiers. They were way too cautious for that. Operational security and all that.
"Tyrus," I called the Genii, apparently the senior one here, in a whisper. "I'm not entirely sure, but... am I allowed to talk about the spy network among the peoples of the galaxy and the data-storage device you got from the Wraith dart you shot down? I just don't know if the grunts are cleared for those secrets or not. But there's plenty of interesting stuff in your head..."
Yes, the Genii had those kinds of secrets.
"I don't know who you are, but..."
"Oh," I feigned surprise. "You should take better care of your scientists. Working with radioactive materials without good protection can be fun, of course. Especially when you start dying of cancer and glowing in the dark... But I think your commander is smart enough not to trust the scientists blindly when they say everything's fine. Remember how poorly Radim's sister fared!"
Another Genii by the name of Radim came to mind because his sister, like him, was a scientist. In the events I knew, she and other scientists had received a serious dose of radiation, making her useless to the Genii. They used her in a suicide mission, so...
"Enough!" Tyrus roared. "You will answer my questions!"
Yeah... what a dim bulb. Instead of being impressed...
"As you wish," I shrugged. "Our introduction hasn't been a roaring success, but we could cooperate. Maybe I could help you improve the uranium-235 separation from uranium-238 and refine the bombs..."
"We've already refined them," Tyrus smirked. "With the help of Ermen's energy archive."
Oh, for...
Think—think—think...
"Don't take wishful thinking for reality," I advised with a smile. "You surely did well finding a place to feast on. But compared to my technology, what Ermen has is merely an appetizer before the main course. You yourself understand—my ship is not from this world. And it surpasses everything here by far."
"I wouldn't be so sure," Tyrus snorted. "They have many interesting things. Including anti-radiation drugs that will help our scientists."
"I'm happy for you," I shrugged. "And did they also have cloaking tech so the ship can't be detected by scanners or visually?"
The grunts exchanged glances again. A vertical frown line appeared between Tyrus's brows.
"Can their ships also fly through the gate?" I went on, fanning the flames. "Or do they have self-guided munitions so powerful a single one could destroy a Wraith cruiser?"
"You're lying," he said, but the greed in his eyes said everything.
"Then check for yourself," I smirked, nodding at the pulse blaster hanging from his belt. "You can judge our tech by what our sidearm can do."
Too bad I'd lied to Alvar, telling him it only worked with the gene...
Tyrus glanced at the weapon.
"Don't be a coward," I egged him on. "Fire at the wall. Though it's better not to do it underground."
"Why?"
"Because the shot's charge will make a five-meter-wide hole in the wall. Imagine what happens if you wreck the structure."
"We'll test it later," he said, licking his lips. "Right now you're going to tell me how to start the ship and its weapons."
Looked like the guy had really lost his head. I understood a bit about prisoner interrogation. And Tyrus was asking all the wrong questions. For a military intelligence officer, definitely the wrong ones.
But for a man trying to stand out in a militaristic society by obtaining more advanced tech... if he hadn't lied and the Genii had indeed refined their atom bomb using the squirrelled-away knowledge here, then he clearly needed something more.
An invisible ship with drones did sort of fit the bill.
As I'd thought, appealing to greed was the right play.
"Sure thing," I agreed. "Oh, right, you won't manage. The ship is tied to my genetic code. Without that, the key won't work."
"What key?" Tyrus perked up.
"It looks like a trinket the size of an index finger," I informed him as innocently as possible. "It reacts to DNA on the skin, lights up green, and allows a mental link between a person and the ship. Useful gadget, by the way."
"Mental control?" Tyrus gaped. "With the power of the mind!?"
"No need to be so surprised," damn, it hurt like hell to smile when half your internal organs were yelling. I took my words back—this bastard's punches only looked harmless at first. "Surely there's nothing like that on this little planet?"
"No," he confirmed. "All the stranger that you're helping us."
"Why not?" I asked. "I have no desire to die here, so..."
"But your girlfriend hasn't told us anything," Tyrus narrowed his eyes.
"That's her right," I said as indifferently as I could.
"And why do you want to help us?" Ah, the brain was starting to engage. Not good.
"Who argues with men holding the guns?" I asked.
"How many people like you have ships like that?" oh, damn, he wasn't the idiot—I was. He'd lulled my vigilance to get me talking and get what he wanted. In fact, he was doing exactly what I was.
"We're scouts," I said. "There are two of us. Maybe you've heard about the Lanteans? We're sometimes called the Ancestors here."
Understanding dawned on Tyrus's face.
"The builders of the gates," he realized. "The Wraith wiped you out thousands of years ago."
"Well, as you can see—not all of us," I put on a brave face. "Some of our people went through the gate to another galaxy. They lay low, rebuilt. But when things got bad there too, they sent us here to find a place for a base. We found one of the old outposts and started figuring out what's what. Since resources are scarce, we decided to survey planets. We found depots here, thought no one laid claim to them."
"You were mistaken," Tyrus said. "Ermen was once part of our interstellar confederation. We thought they were destroyed thousands of years ago, but we recently found traces that they had, in fact, survived. We came so their legacy wouldn't be wasted."
You slimy sons of... That's why the mention of an interstellar state had sounded so familiar! It had been the Genii! The damned sly bastards! Scum who wouldn't stop at anything to seize the galaxy. And now they had Ermen's data.
That's why Tyrus hadn't bought my shtick about refining their atom bomb with local knowledge! If they had documents from this planet, deciphering a related language probably hadn't been that easy. A... if I was right, then... that was why the hives weren't sleeping!
"You've already tested your nuclear bomb on the Wraith," I said.
"Yes," he replied. "Unfortunately, we did not manage to destroy the Hive, and our prototype fell into the enemy's hands. They came here, destroyed the entire population..."
That's why Jensen's people had died—the Genii hadn't blown the hive. Their agents had been exposed and...
No, damn it, that wasn't it!
I felt a hot urge to spit in Tyrus's face.
Ermen had been destroyed by a Hive that wasn't sleeping anymore! And the Genii, by his own recent words, had come here after the planet was destroyed. So how exactly had they refined their bomb with the locals' knowledge before the Hive, which they had awakened with that very bomb, came here!?
Tyrus was flat-out lying.
"Sad news," I said.
"You didn't answer right away," Tyrus noted. "What were you thinking about?"
"That I don't know how long I was out," the plan had already formed in my head. Now to see if it worked.
"Will they be looking for you?" the Genii asked warily.
"No, there are only two of us," I shook my head. "A pair for the whole galaxy. But the problem is something else. The ship's telling me a Wraith fleet is approaching the planet. A hive and three cruisers. Half an hour and it'll be in orbit."
"The Wraith? What do they want on a dead planet?" Tyrus panicked.
"How should I know?" I asked. "Apparently you triggered one of their traps—they leave probes to watch the planets they've wiped out. To see if anyone comes after."
"Or you set that off! We didn't see any sign of Wraith tech!"
"Even a downed dart can serve as an antenna," I said, remembering what Alvar had said about the battle for the planet. They couldn't possibly have failed to shoot something down. "Hell, that's why we flew under cloak! I remember dart wreckage on the edge of the city!"
"Tell everyone to gather up!" Tyrus ordered.
"We won't make it to the gate in half an hour!" one of the soldiers panicked. "There's too much loot!"
The Genii commander looked at me.
"I think someone will help us."
"Of course," I nodded.
Of course I'd help. With a caveat.
* * *
"Tykus, the medical supplies are loaded," Varelon—the man I'd heard first—said, poking his head into the cockpit. "The lookouts say they don't see any darts or big ships..."
"Well, if their eyes can pick out objects at forty kilometers through cloud cover," I turned in my seat, flexing my untied hands, "then you've got super-soldiers. You wanna share the recipe?"
"Start the ship!" Sora, sitting in the seat behind me, drew her pistol again and aimed it at me.
"With pleasure, sunshine," I said. "But there's no key. One of you took it and didn't return it."
"Stop flirting with my daughter," Tyrus, sitting in the copilot's seat, ordered. "She's betrothed."
"Lucky chosen one," I lied, watching the Genii drag out bags stuffed with loot from the storerooms. Go on, boys, get to work. For now I was managing to keep the Jumper's activation suppressed with a mental command. But where was Chaya? I hadn't seen her anywhere.
The Genii girl snorted, and her dear daddy pulled a green crystal from an inner pocket of his jacket. Handing it to me, he said, looking straight into my eyes:
"If you help us, my command will ensure you want for nothing for the rest of your life."
"Now that's what I call a constructive approach," everything in me balked at smiling and pretending to be a willing collaborator. I almost threw up a couple of times. But I had to keep it up.
"Lie to us, and I'll put a hole the size of my fist in you," the red-haired doll assured me.
"Thanks, but I prefer favors voiced by your father," I replied, taking the crystal in my hand. "Will the others be joining us?"
Aside from a pair of soldiers in the back and Daddy-and-Daughter, no one was here.
"You needn't worry about them," the red vixen said.
"The second squad is heading to the gate on foot," Tyrus said. "First we'll get out of here, then they'll go through the gate after us. It'll be better for you if you help—then your girlfriend will survive. I assume you know that before an attack, the Wraith always open the gate to the planet they're about to strike?"
"So we still have time," well, that explained everything. "Closing the hatch, preparing for takeoff."
Chaya was with the second squad. Since I hadn't seen them drag her off, I figured it was done deliberately so as not to anger me. And now I knew for sure there was at least one more way out of the tunnels.
And I figured Tyrus had decided to sacrifice them to distract the Wraith. While he and his darling daughter, under cloak, would wait it out and then take the loot to base. An invisible ship, medical supplies, and all the honors. And I'd be forced to tell them everything I knew, then vanish.
The Genii were very thrifty folk. Life underground had clearly taught them caution and logistics. The Jumper's lockers were stuffed with medical supplies to the brim. The cockpit was crammed with bags of canned food and leftovers of medical stock. A few generators had been placed on the seats, then more bags and boxes. There was barely room for the two of them to sit... Well, that wasn't exactly a huge problem.
Clipping the shield to my jacket, I noted it glowed with a steady green light. I took the controls and checked the shield was active. Excellent.
"Come on," Tyrus forced out. "Turn on your ship! There's almost no time left."
"Everything we need is already on," I assured him as I activated the Jumper.
The ship lunged forward at cruising speed. Only about ten meters. Then it stopped dead.
Disabling the inertial dampeners had no effect on me—we had them in the shield. But for the four Genii...
Tyrus, hit with a ten-G acceleration, was first slammed into the copilot's seat, then hurled forward. Just like his daughter. Except Daddy smashed into the instrument panel, and Sora slammed into my shield.
"What are you doing?" Tyrus rasped as I pulled him off the console. "The Wraith..."
He didn't finish the sentence—I bashed his head against the cockpit frame. The unconscious Genii slid to the floor.
Then I went to Sora, who had managed to get a shot off at me. Things went much simpler with her—I broke her arm and punched her in the jaw, knocking her out like her dear daddy.
"What's goi...?" the pair of Genii in the cargo bay had just peeled themselves off the ramp when I stepped in.
At that range, it's impossible to miss a head. The scanner showed only three living beings within fifty meters. Daddy, daughter, and me.
Using the seat belts, I tied both bastards to their chairs, then frisked them and took everything. Absolutely everything. For reliability, I tore off the shoulder straps from the bags and tied both of them by the neck to the seats, then bound their legs together. It would have been better to kill them outright.
But I had to interrogate them first. And time was short.
Returning to the controls, I piloted the Jumper out.
Of course, there were no Wraith. I had just played on Tyrus's greed. Just like he had played on my desire to live. It's just that I'd gone along out of desperation, and he out of a lust for glory. There was a lot we needed to clear up—and these two would soon sing like canaries. But first I was going to save Chaya.
* * *
"Move it," the brute shoved her in the back.
Chaya stepped over a chunk of stone, rotating her shoulders to work out the stiffness as she walked. Everything hurt; the beasts in human guise hadn't spared her in trying to get information. But her shoulders and wrists were what she needed most right now.
Loaded up with backpacks of provisions, the men had stretched out in two files of six. Looking around, they traded remarks about the absence of the Wraith.
The Proculus woman could see with only one eye—the other had swollen shut from the beating. Apparently these people didn't know that pain could be shut off. Otherwise there would be no explaining their stunned looks when she calmly watched them tear out her nails. It especially stunned that red-headed girl who had tried so hard to look like a ruthless soldier.
How many of that type had she seen in her long life? Hundreds, if not thousands. True, none of them had that animal ferocity burning on this girl's face.
At last, they crossed the square.
"Tyrus," the squad leader raised something that looked like a crude comm device to his face. "We're at the gate. All clear here, respond."
Only silence answered.
"Maybe they already went through?" one of the soldiers asked.
"No, he would have warned us," from the commander's face it was clear he was worried. Apparently he did indeed fear the Wraith.
Chaya closed her eyes for a moment and focused. Though her telepathic abilities were barely out of kindergarten, she couldn't sense any Wraith nearby. Sure, they might be in hibernation, but... then what was there to fear?
Her head started pounding, as it always did when she used unnatural abilities. But who had the patience to wait for the needed parts of the Proculus woman's brain to develop on their own? It was easier and faster to stimulate that with genetic therapy.
"Hey, she's bleeding from the nose," someone reported.
Chaya opened her eye and looked at the commander who was touching her face.
"She won't die," he said confidently. "She'll hold out until we're home, and then either they treat her or put her down."
"She's a pity," the same soldier who had spoken about the blood said. "If they really are Ancients, they could be useful."
"That kid already told us everything we needed," the commander cut him off. "But yeah, I did hear they could do everything with the power of thought. Never mind, if she stays stubborn, they'll cut her open and all the secrets of their race will be..."
The end of his sentence was drowned out by an explosion.
A moment before that, Chaya heard the familiar sounds of the cloak dropping and a guided missile launching. The Proculus woman oriented herself and lunged at that same solicitous soldier. The explosion and her actions caught him off-guard, so her head-butt into his chest connected. They fell together exactly where she had intended.
While the man screamed in pain, impaled through the heart by a piece of rebar, the girl rolled aside. One glance at him made her flinch: instead of dropping and losing consciousness from a glancing blow to the jaw and the back of the head on the rock, as she had predicted, he had behaved differently and fallen onto the rebar next to where she had intended to disarm him.
The couple of soldiers who had rushed toward her were cut down by automatic fire from the piles of rubble nearest the gate.
But she didn't care much about that.
The jagged piece of metal she had picked out was sharp enough to cut through the manacle-like restraints that held her. Peering out from behind a heap of debris, she saw the shuttle had set down crosswise over the approach to the gate, its ramp lowered.
From there, ignoring the fire directed at him, Mikhail emerged. Though first he had kicked a couple of bodies out of the ship. In his hands a short rifle like those her captors had been carrying thundered.
And with almost no misses, he killed those men. Under the hail of bullets, he simply walked up to their positions and finished them off. Those who tried to run were torn to pieces by bursts from cover.
Chaya could have used mental effort to recognize their unexpected allies, but she felt weak. Mental tricks never came easy to her—nor to any of the younger races. She would use something else now.
"H... el... p..." the solicitous soldier gasped, breathing fast, dying from massive blood loss. One glance was enough for Chaya to grasp broken ribs, a pierced liver and spleen, torn intestines, a left lung punctured in two places. Even without being a medical specialist, she knew he had only moments to live.
And they would be very painful ones.
"Of course," she said quietly, taking his chin in her hand. Looking him in the eye, the Proculus woman jerked his head to the side. There was a crunch of breaking vertebrae.
Taking his weapon, she fired almost without aiming at a Genii who had run toward her. The next one died with a bullet to the back of the head.
Mikhail, tossing his emptied weapon aside, approached Chaya.
"Can you make it to Atlantis?" he asked.
"It's not as bad as it looks," Sar assured him. "And you...?"
"You don't have to worry about the Genii anymore," Mikhail said, picking her up in his arms. Surprised by his gesture—she could have walked on her own—the girl was even more surprised when she saw Teyla and Alvar by the Jumper's hatch. Both looked at her with concern; then Jensen said:
"We couldn't get into Atlantis. We figured you had trouble here. We came about ten minutes ago. I saw their scouts and we decided to lie low."
"And I found them at the gate and was going to hit them with a missile," Mikhail settled her onto the edge of a seat in the cargo bay crammed with loot. Their two friends stepped into the now-cramped cargo compartment and the rear hatch slammed shut. "Good thing I decided to come closer."
"Yeah, that would've been awkward," Jensen said darkly, prodding the men's corpses around the shuttle. "They don't look like looters..."
"If you feel like talking, there's a couple waiting for you in the cockpit," Mikhail said, rearranging the bags a little in the aisle to make room for Teyla. "Keep an eye on her."
The Athosian, taking a seat across from Chaya, took her hand. Mikhail and Jensen headed for the cockpit.
"Everything's going to be fine," Teyla promised, looking her friend in the eyes. "Just don't pass out."
Chaya looked at the Athosian in bewilderment but said nothing. Did she really not know either that pain could be shut off by an effort of will? Although, judging by her stories about Athosian meditations, you'd think they'd at least suspect...
"I don't intend to," the Proculus woman assured her, resting her head against the shuttle's metal wall. "I'm tougher than I look."
However, she never did witness the moment they reached Atlantis.