Have you ever been thrown under a hydraulic press?
To the bottom of the Mariana Trench?
Or at least from the stratosphere without a parachute?
No?
Then you won't understand what I felt the moment the Hippaphoralkus lunged forward like a wild beast. The platform and the ship commander's chair are equipped with enhanced inertial dampeners, but even within their range, I felt as if a steamroller had driven over me. And, since I'm the clingy type, I got wound around its roller. And traveled quite spiritedly for some kilometers or so...
"We are five hundred thousand kilometers from the site of the Aurora's explosion," a voice said, coming from above. Moreover, I couldn't identify it at all, as it reached me through a thick layer of water... which was nowhere around.
On the other hand, everything in my eyes was somehow orange-red... and warm...
"Could you get off me before the others regain consciousness?" the same voice asked. I think they call it a baritone.
That's sad.
It's doubly sad because a baritone is actually a male voice. I have nothing against representatives of my own sex... nor any desire to climb on them!
Every movement of my head was accompanied by the blows of a sledgehammer against my brain. It was getting a little easier; the drums stopped thundering in my ears, and my vision became clearer...
The warm orange matter in front of my face was moving. Rhythmically, cyclically... Inhale, exhale...
And also very characteristic curves going left, right, a hollow...
Adrenaline flooded my blood in a stream that even liquefied gas in a pipeline would envy.
Raising my face, I saw the upper part of a chest in front of me... and, to my shame—transparent-reddish streaks... With a movement of my hand, I touched my face—that's right, it's from me... It looks like I bit my lip, and everything that was in my mouth had been turned out... Well, it's a good thing my stomach is strong, and empty too...
"Are you deaf or something?" this time the voice, though it had become more melodic, still remained demanding. Yeah, a bit of a problem, trouble...
Damn it, Trebal!
Raising my eyes, I met two sapphire-green pulse pistol emitters. I don't even know if it's good or bad that they're eyes...
"I don't usually end up on women this way."
Once in my youth, the thought deeply settled in my soul that any problem with women could be saved by a sense of humor. I took this tactic into my arsenal... only because of my leaky memory, I didn't take one thing into account—the woman should have the sense of humor. A man's sense of humor is permanently born ahead of him...
But a woman with a sense of humor is a luxury, not an incubator in a beautiful shell.
"I am not interested in your wordplay," Trebal snapped.
A poke between the ribs and pain pierced my body. My fingers loosened, and I tumbled from the chair and the girl onto the floor.
Damn it, that hurts!
My body felt like it had been pulled through a garlic press as it was, and now this!
"Do you have even a shred of pity?" I groaned.
"I do, but not for you," to my surprise, Trebal rose from the chair quite easily. Staggering, she took a couple of steps off the dais... and immediately swayed, falling flat on her back.
Acting more instinctively than consciously, I lunged forward and... my physiology failed me—my muscles wouldn't obey.
The blonde head, or rather the back of it, hit me right in the... And they told me: "No good deed goes unpunished!"
I didn't have the strength left to scream in pain. Only enough to cover the injured part of my torso with my hands and curl up in a fetal position.
The Ancient, getting on all fours, looked at me through the veil of her white-blonde locks.
"I apologize, I didn't mean to do that," she muttered. But her voice said it all!
"Then why did you hit me with the back of your head a second time?!" I groaned. "She didn't mean to..."
"It is the inertia of the collision of two elastic bodies," she said quickly, reaching the chair at the same time. "Physics, nothing more. But, I offer my apologies for my carelessness."
What a bitch! She broke the whole Lantean nesting ground with her head! What does she have instead of bones? Ship armor?!
"Apologies..." I groaned, "...accepted. Remind me not to hit you with the back of your head against a corridor anymore... You weren't exactly a sweetheart before, but now you're the bitch of all bitches. Miss Bitch of two Universes!"
"What?!" Trebal was taken aback. "You hit my head against a wall?"
"What?" I caught myself. "That's sonic distortion due to damage to the harmonizing walls of the middle ear as a result of the g-forces experienced by the body."
The girl gave me a piercing look.
"There is no such phenomenon."
"Tell that to the collision of elastic bodies—your head and..."
"I have already apologized. And, for your information, I saved your lives!"
"That doesn't give you the right to take it away from my descendants!" I groaned.
The state of rest reduced the pain... By the time I was able to get to my feet, Trebal was already standing in front of one of the consoles. Well, sort of in front... I think only the good grip of her boot soles on the floor and her hands braced against the top edge of the console kept her from falling.
"The Wraith are gone," she said. "The Aurora too... The Commander succeeded. As always."
With the help of the chair, I regained a vertical position and looked around.
Our comrades—Alvar, Teyla, a couple of Athosians, and two Ancients—lay along the wall where the only entrance and exit to the bridge was located. Judging by what I see—everyone is breathing. No blood is visible, no unnaturally twisted limbs either.
"They will be fine," Trebal assured. "The impact knocked them unconscious. It will pass."
"Tell that to the concussions or intracranial hematomas, broken bones..."
The young woman shook her head.
"...but, you really did get us out of a lot of trouble," I finished my thought. "I think it's a somewhat fair trade. Thank you."
The girl nodded silently in response, then flipped several switches on her console.
"Is Koschei in his cell?" I inquired.
Trebal looked at me in surprise:
"The Wraith told you his name?"
"No, I gave it to him myself."
"And he answers to it?" she was even more surprised.
"As you can see... So what's with him? Should we be worried?"
Trebal, checking the data on one of the monitors, nodded affirmatively.
"His life signs are being recorded in the locked part of the brig," she said. "Strange..."
"What exactly?"
"This system shouldn't distinguish between the life signs of humans and Wraith," she explained and looked at me with interest. "Did you modify it? Set up differentiation by biological rhythms? By brain waves? Based on cellular structure?"
"We'll talk about that when we get back to Atlantis," I grimaced. I have no idea how that thing works. But something tells me I shouldn't mention Chaya Sar's name. For now—certainly. "We need to understand what's going on with our ship and crew."
"Yes, of course," the Ancient frowned, returning her attention to the control panel. "Everyone's biorhythms are stable; the ship records no brain injuries or life-threatening conditions."
Strange lady. She has notes of arrogance and contempt, a natural bitchiness. But when she's busy with work, it seems as if it's all just a shell and the real Trebal is the very model of compassion.
A contradictory woman.
"Ikhaar, are you alright?!" she inquired using the ship's intercom.
I went to the rest of my comrades, helping to bring them to consciousness. I need to think about what to do next... Extra people certainly won't hurt us.
"We're alive," a response came over the intercom a few seconds later. Just as I brought Alvar to his senses.
"I haven't been flattened like this since the days of piloting a faulty interceptor," he admitted, realizing we were in relative safety.
"...but we have huge problems," Ikhaar concluded.
***
It took some time to bring the crew to their senses. Yes, the acceleration that the inertial dampeners couldn't handle didn't exactly improve anyone's health... But a dozen broken bones, concussions, and an ocean of bruises was a small price to pay to get away from a supernova explosion.
Which was exactly what we were talking about in the infirmary while the healthier ones were putting the less healthy ones in order.
"We're all going to die," Ikhaar announced from the doorway as he entered the compartment. He didn't even look at us, but went to the nearest console and started poking around in it. "I warned you that bypassing the security protocols and ports wouldn't do us any good, but you didn't want to listen to me...!"
"Is he always such a pessimist?" I asked Trebal quietly. The Ancient twitched the corner of her mouth and shrugged, as if to say, I'm already used to it.
The other Ancients didn't really react to what was said either. It seems a panicking engineer is a normal thing for a team from Atlantis.
"So," Ikhaar used the medical monitor and brought up a schematic of the ship. Oh, I don't like the red marks in the aft section of the ship. "We survived the Aurora's self-destruction, three Wraith cruisers are destroyed... And that's where the good news ends."
"There were four ships," Kiryk reminded, cradling a broken arm in an improvised sling. Thanks to Ermen for the medical supplies! I don't even know how we'd be managing now without them. We'll also need to think about how to restock.
"Yes, as I said, the good news is over," Ikhaar grimaced. "I boosted the sensors during the reboot and calibration," he changed the image on the monitor and showed a pulsing crimson mark at a significant distance from us. A very characteristic mark. "If anyone's interested, that's a Hive ship. It's heavily damaged, but there are signs of life on it. That means the crew survived too."
"If they haven't attacked yet, they don't have the capability," Alvar noted, looking irritably at the female technician who was wrapping a bandage around his head.
"Most likely their sensors and part of the hull were damaged by the radiation from the explosion," Ikhaar suggested.
"So that's good, isn't it?" Teyla asked.
"Wraith technology is biological in nature," Trebal intervened. "Unlike our ships, they won't need spare parts to repair the vast majority of damage. They will reconfigure energy flows and direct them toward repairing the damage. An hour, a day, two, or a week—but they will restore their ship to a state where they can attack and destroy us. I assume," she looked at Ikhaar, "that the damage to our ship is more severe than theirs?"
"I am not Ascended!" the chief engineer declared. "I can't even imagine what state their ship is in!"
"What about long-range sensors?" I asked. "Can we point them at the Wraith ship and find out the details..."
"And then they'll know exactly where we are," he said. "For now, there's a chance their sensors are burned out and recovering. But to take the risk when we can't fight back or run away..."
"We have drones," Alvar reminded. "Let's hit them before they hit us?"
I glanced briefly at Trebal, who had turned somber.
It seemed her emotions were under control, but at the same time, this conversation touched on very slippery circumstances. Which she, I have my doubts, had accepted and understood.
"The battleship is not fit for combat," Ikhaar grimaced. "It's a second generation, slightly better than the Aurora, but worse than the latest versions. Your generators are only outputting seventy percent power. That's not enough to power the shields even at the first setting. And without a ZPM, don't even think about full operation of all systems. The builders didn't just..."
"Enough theory," I asked. "Let's get to specifics. What's broken and what can we fix."
"Give me spare parts and I'll fix anything," the Aurora's chief engineer shrugged.
"Ikhaar," Trebal chided him.
"What?" he asked irritably. "I'm not Ascended to fix everything with a wave of my hand! I warned there would be consequences..."
"Yes, and it would be interesting to know about them," Kiryk grumbled.
"Well then, listen," Ikhaar said, still agitated. "I don't know who the genius was who reprogrammed the 'Mutiny on Board' protocol to counter the Wraith, but he's a bit of a genius and an absolute idiot! Because the ship sent a subspace signal to Atlantis, we were found."
"So, the signal wasn't sent by Koschei?" Teyla was surprised.
"Of course not," Ikhaar stated confidently. "The onboard computer did it. And it kept transmitting it until Mikhail rebooted the systems. The 'Mutiny on Board' protocol cancellation procedure kicked in, the Hippaphoralkus thought order had been restored on the starship and stopped calling for help."
"Could the Wraith have found out that Atlantis survived?" Kiryk worried.
"Don't they already know?" Trebal asked. "If they didn't see the destruction of something and what's happening contradicts their idea of logic, they don't jump to conclusions. I think they concluded that the Ancients either fled or died in the city during the siege."
"And now they have confirmation that's not the case," I concluded. "The Hive ship must be destroyed."
"Well, then the second one too," Ikhaar chuckled.
"Second Hive ship?" I, Trebal, Alvar, Kiryk, and Teyla asked almost in unison.
"Well, yes," the engineer nodded. "Didn't I say? It'll be here in about two hours. And we'd better get out of here."
"Do we have enough drones to destroy both Hive ships?" I asked Trebal.
"One—definitely," she said after thinking. "But two... There are probably enough drones, but we won't stand against a fully operational Hive ship. We simply don't have the shield power to withstand such a battle."
"We don't even have power!" Ikhaar said. "No engines—neither sublight nor maneuvering, the hyperdrive has gone into emergency mode and is locked, the pulse weapons are depowered."
"Can we fix it?" I asked.
"If you have a ship full of spare parts and a ZPM charged to at least ten or fifteen percent, then no problem, it'll be like new," Ikhaar threw out. "But first we need to thaw out all the crew members so the work doesn't take several months."
"Let's be realistic," I suggested. "We need to restore the hyperdrive at the very least. It's preferable to retreat and regroup now."
"That is illogical," Trebal countered. "If we want to keep the fact that Atlantis has an operational Ancient ship a secret, we should destroy at least this Hive. Before the second one arrives."
"Can we restore the necessary systems before the second ship arrives?" I asked Ikhaar.
"Theoretically," he hesitated.
"Ikhaar!" Trebal's eyes flashed.
"How should I know?!" he exploded. "I don't have that many people who can help with repairs. I lost two senior technicians and ten people in stasis pods when the Hive ship hit us! There are practically no spare parts, which means I can't repair critical damage, only bypass it—and that's only if the backup circuits survived and the diagnostic readings only refer to blown fuses and so on..."
"In that case," I stood up, looking at everyone gathered. "We should start dealing with this as quickly as possible. Kiryk—you're on Wraith guard duty. Make sure he stays unconscious. I hope he can't communicate with his own that way..."
I looked around, glancing at the Ancients.
"He can't, right?"
"Most likely not," Trebal said for everyone. "Their brains are structured much like ours. The same centers are responsible for higher brain processes. So, as long as he's unconscious, he shouldn't have mental contact with them."
"Take a couple of people, knock him out with this," I handed the former runner my trophy. Trebal, giving me a look that clearly showed she hadn't forgiven me for her helplessness, still remained silent. "Then hook him up to the meds. Let him stay in a coma until we get back to Atlantis."
"It would be better if someone with a medical background helped us," Kiryk complained. "I'm not very good at putting metal into a sentient being while keeping them alive."
"Were there any medics in stasis on board the Aurora?" I asked Trebal.
"The medical section on ships of this type is in the bow of the ship, next to the biological laboratories," she explained. "We lost it during the retreat. Along with our medics."
"Then don't deny yourself the pleasure of finding his veins by trial and error," I advised Kiryk. "Just in case, take one or two Athosians with you to keep an eye on him. If you see him so much as move—knock him out."
It's too early to kill him.
At the very least because he was mentally linked to the Queen of another Hive, and that's information. Besides, he clearly hadn't revived everyone he could. Waking him up now is foolish—he could contact his own. But in the long run...
As long as he's useful—he'll live. If not—he'll die.
"A scanner can help illuminate his anatomy," Trebal nodded to one of the technicians, and he pulled a familiar massive handheld device from a pocket on his belt. "This man will scan the Wraith and..."
"Stop, stop, stop!" Ikhaar waved his hands. "I need all the people capable of understanding what to repair and how. Sending a technician to replace a medic..."
"He'll just show me where Koschei's vein is and then go do whatever you tell him," Kiryk explained.
"Ah," Ikhaar drawled. "Well, then that's acceptable."
"Alvar," I addressed the second runner. "Take one of the technicians and go back to the bridge. Monitor and coordinate the repair teams. Ikhaar, Teyla," these two looked at each other. The latter with a readiness to help, the former with bewilderment, as if to say, how did you even think of calling our names in the same breath? "Split your people into teams. Let them work from inside the starship as Ikhaar directs."
"And how can they help?" Ikhaar asked. "Do they know how to change wiring? Won't they get confused in the polarity of the distributor? Can they identify a burned-out crystal? What has your people achieved at all?" he looked at Teyla.
"Well..." she was somewhat taken aback by such insolence. "We have tamed fire..."
A tense silence hung in the infirmary. The Ancients glanced briefly at each other. But the "poker faces" they wore carefully hid their true emotions.
"That is already worth a lot," Trebal assured, looking expressively at Ikhaar. He, shaking his head, sighed resignedly.
"These Athosians helped us put the battleship in order," I encouraged the chief engineer.
"Ah!" he drawled understandingly. "Then everything becomes clear. Although surprising... Still, ten thousand years... It must have been hard for you..."
"Excuse me?" Teyla inquired with emphasis. It seemed she took it as an insult. However, it's hard to blame her—that's exactly how some of the chief engineer's words sounded.
"Athosians in our time were one of the races that were supposed to become junior," Trebal explained. "You were well-developed and caught the attention of the Lanteans... If not for the war, you would have stood on the same level of development as us or the other junior races..."
"I see," Teyla nodded. "I think my people will be very interested to learn our ancient history..."
"Once we get out of here, you can talk," I cut off the waste of time. I understand, but now is not the time. "Ikhaar, send someone to inspect the damage to the Puddle Jumper and start repairs. First and foremost, we need the hyperdrive and sublight..."
Because if we can't prepare for a battle with at least one battered Hive ship, it'll be best to leave. Yes, flight and living witnesses will lead them to the trail, but... Better that than losing more than we hoped to gain.
I thought bitterly that Chaya was right—we should have prepared better for this expedition.
"Alright, to work," Ikhaar clapped his hands. "Let's start assigning groups... Teyla, what exactly did your people do on the ship and what systems are they familiar with?"
Our crew, which had almost doubled in size, became active, splitting into teams... If we're very lucky, we'll be able to get out of this mess.
A hand touched my shoulder.
Turning my head, I saw Trebal drilling me with her gaze.
"Come," she said quietly, nodding toward the exit of the infirmary. "We need to talk."
In how many cases out of a hundred do big problems start after that phrase? Two hundred or more?
***
Read the story months before public release — early chapters are on my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Granulan