Preparing what seemed like a simple operation — an ambush on the Wraiths — took us two weeks. Yet in the series, people did everything on the fly, with minimal resources and preparations. And somehow they didn't end up in trouble up to their necks.
Our experience shows that there's nothing better than thorough preparation for such a mission. It was this preparation — mainly the technical part — that took up the long preparation time.
So, Plan A.
Find a planet in the database with a surface gate, verify it has no population. We don't want to mess things up for anyone, do we?
Conduct reconnaissance, find the old ruins of a small settlement abandoned years ago. Set up a prototype of our EMP generator in the ruins, assembled by Chief Engineer Ihaar from scrap materials and powered by the naquadah that the Nomads recently mined on Ermen and enriched on Atlantis.
A prototype of the Atlantis EMP generator, combined with a portable naquadah generator.
Carefully camouflage the generator, test its functionality in the field, experimentally confirm the device's stated radius of action.
Carry out necessary safety measures. For example, install a reprogrammed crystal in the dialing device that prevents dialing an address from this side.
And then position a dozen people as an ambush.
The Nomads might not be suitable for us as battleship crew members, but they hate the Wraiths no less than we do. And when Larrin was offered a "chance to hunt those bastards," she fairly quickly found us some sturdy guys capable of following orders.
There are twelve of us on the surface. Four squads of three. In the first — me, Larrin, and Teyla. In the second — Kaspar Fry as commander and two Nomads. Our task is to hold the front that the Wraiths will inevitably charge toward. After all, right in front of us is the transmitter that was inactive until an hour ago and reacts to Ancients.
Logically, the enemy will charge at us to figure out where the Ancients came from on this lifeless planet.
The planet isn't just dead — it's surrounded by an asteroid field. A dense enough one that Wraith ships, even darts, can't fly in and drop right on our heads.
Ihaar, who was scanning the orbit from a Jumper hovering behind the stargate, said the planet originally had five fairly large moons. And all of them are now part of the asteroid belt.
In case the Wraiths somehow manage to get a ship here, we always have Plan B.
The third and fourth squads, positioned on the hills to the left and right of the clearing with the stargate, are commanded by Kirik and Saya. Their task is to deliver flanking attacks on the Wraith infantry.
And the infantry is currently bearing the brunt of the situation.
The Wraiths realized almost immediately that they'd fallen into a trap. But they didn't immediately figure out that the incoming hyper-tunnel — which wouldn't allow them to leave the planet for the next thirty-eight minutes — had been opened by someone other than their kin. This is the advantage of having an Ancient scientist on your side — she always finds a way to devise a risky trap using the gates.
This time, Chaya figured out how to send a subspace message through the gate network to Proculus. A message that the gate on this planet had been opened from the other side served as the trigger for the Jumper crew on Proculus to dial this address and lock it in for thirty-eight minutes.
The EMP field "shut down" all complex technology within a half-kilometer radius of the generator. The Wraith darts — whose flight sounds cut off on a shrill note — nosedived into the ground behind us.
Three machines slammed into the earth and exploded, illuminating the night with bright fire flashes. The other two darts, barely managing their glide, made hard landings at the edge of the forest behind us.
By this point, everything was already in motion.
Night is the ideal setting for an ambush when your usual gadgets aren't working. And the Wraiths, realizing they'd fallen into a trap, intended to use that advantage.
But then... we didn't choose the night time for the trap for nothing either.
With loud pops, six projectiles shot up from the edges of the forest surrounding the clearing with the village ruins on three sides, leaving smoky trails behind them. Detonating with a booming explosion at a height of fifty meters, they illuminated the darkness with bright white lights.
Night turned into day, and the figures of fifty Wraiths — who had intended to disappear into the forest away from where their technology had stopped working — began to suspect something.
What was happening didn't affect their determination to escape the trap. They weren't broken by the fallen darts, nor by the clear visibility of the characteristic alien silhouettes on the bare field in the light of six artificial suns, nor by the abrupt roar of sniper rifles whose large-caliber bullets literally tore off Wraiths' limbs.
Not even the automatic gunfire that hit from three sides shook the Wraith commanders, who kept driving their soldiers forward into cover. Or toward the enemies.
And in this situation, numerical superiority seemed like it would play its part... if not for the Ermen analogues of MON-50 mines.
* * *
The roar of three falling darts momentarily deafened the trio of Nomads. But not one of them slowed down, crossing the sparse undergrowth toward the two surviving darts.
The burning wreckage of three Wraith aircraft provided an excellent view of the crash site. The organic sludge that the Lanteans said was fuel for these machines burned brighter than the oil torches used by the inhabitants of most planets.
And that made Kaspar's mission much easier: he didn't have to rely solely on the tactical lights of their rifles.
"Wraith!" Fry warned his fighters, raising his Alash.
The stock pressed into his shoulder, protected by an Ermen field uniform. His index finger settled habitually on the trigger — now familiar...
The Wraith pilot — undoubtedly one of the commanders, easily distinguishable from soldiers by his leather cloak, loose hair, and the absence of ugly masks on his face — turned out to be quite agile.
He had already climbed out of his fighter's seat, aiming a stun pistol at the approaching humans. But nothing happened.
In the light of the burning wreckage, it was clearly visible how surprise showed on the pilot's face that the glowing part of his weapon — the power cell — remained dark. Apparently only now did he realize that the dart's equipment failure wasn't an accident and the problem went much deeper.
The bewilderment on the Wraith's face turned to rage when the beam of a flashlight from one of Fry's fighters hit his eyes. Baring his teeth after the first burst tore through his lower torso, the Wraith charged at the Nomads.
Two more bursts shredded his torso into a bleeding wound, as if something had exploded right under his nose. Splattering everything around him with black blood, the pilot collapsed onto the grassy field, barely moving his arms.
"Control," Kaspar ordered the fighter nearest to the Wraith. Without taking his eyes off the enemy, the man chose the safest tactical position, scanning the area. This Wraith was seriously wounded but not dead. He would need a lot of strength and energy to regenerate, which was unlikely to be fully possible without feeding on a human.
That kind of Wraith would be suitable for capture.
"First one down!" the second fighter began counting the kills, moving around the wreckage of the neighboring crashed and burning machine. A wounded pilot with a chunk of his neck missing was trying to climb out of its seat. He wouldn't even survive until the mission's end. And leaving an enemy in the rear was wrong.
The second pilot of the landed dart couldn't get out — the impact had been fatal for him. Sure, Wraiths can regenerate well, but it's hard to do when a dart's control lever is embedded halfway into your face.
Kaspar didn't leave things to chance. A short burst blew apart the pilot's head, not giving him even a chance of survival.
"Second!" Kaspar called out.
Another burst:
"Third!"
They were interested not only in the pilots of the surviving darts but in all pilots. A crash, even one like this, didn't guarantee a Wraith's death. A broken dagger-shaped nose section, a burning tail, a blazing cockpit — only maximum destruction of vital body parts could guarantee a Wraith's death.
Kaspar circled the third wrecked dart in a wide arc. The cockpit was empty.
"One on the loose!" he warned his fighters.
It didn't matter if the Wraith was wounded or healthy — they had to find him. Immediately. The trap was designed so that none of them would get away from here.
Behind him, where the main battle was taking place, antipersonnel mines were already roaring, maiming other Wraiths.
Kaspar and his fighters examined the wreckage, circling around it or just looking around. Wraiths aren't used to hiding, but they know when to swallow their pride and run.
Or when to attack to get a weapon and a needed victim.
Fry noticed movement in the darkness near the nearest bushes but pretended it didn't concern him. He continued moving slowly forward, exposing his back to attack.
Wraiths know perfectly well in what position humans are most vulnerable. And an attack from behind fits perfectly into their favorite tactic of victory at any cost.
Making minimum noise, moving on half-bent legs, crouched low, the Wraith came out from behind the bush, approaching.
They rely too much on their technology, while Nomad scouts notice subtler details. Like a moving shadow cast by a Wraith approaching you. Leaving burning wreckage behind him was stupid on his part.
At the moment when the pilot was ready to pounce, overtaking him in a single leap, Kaspar dived aside in a roll. Coming out of it, he planted a long burst into the Wraith's torso, stuffing his insides with metal. A dry click from the rifle announced the magazine was empty. A good dozen large-caliber bullets, tumbling through the body and causing monstrous damage, had been fired into the Wraith.
But it wasn't enough.
Roaring and raising his hand to feed, the pilot advanced toward him with a slow step. The damage was taking its toll.
But by the time the pilot took his first step, Kaspar already had a pistol in his hands. He fired only a few shots, aiming at the Wraith's chest, when two automatic bursts struck from the side.
The pilot's torso literally exploded in black spray. Shreds of clothing flew in all directions.
Groaning something on the exhale, the pilot collapsed like a felled tree.
Kaspar instantly swapped the empty magazine for a loaded one with one hand, approaching the Wraith closer. He still held the pistol in his right hand, ready to use it if necessary.
Despite the fact that his insides were literally torn to pieces, he was still breathing.
And even trying to regenerate.
The wound on his neck was slowly closing. Too slowly for someone who might survive the trip to the gate.
"You will pay for your treachery," the Wraith hissed out the traditional threat of retribution. They always do that.
"Maybe," Kaspar nodded, raising the pistol. "But you won't live to see it."
Seeing that the human was close enough, the Wraith reached for a small circle on his wrist. Pressing the single membrane button, the Wraith groaned in disappointment, not seeing any colored lights appear in the center of the self-destruct device.
"Disappointing when technology fails you," Kaspar smirked, squeezing the trigger. "I know."
A single shot boomed into the night at the crash site of five darts. The last Wraith went limp, frozen with a large hole between his eyes. The expanding bullet had turned his brain into pulp.
Kaspar stood still for exactly two seconds, making sure that none of the wounds on the Wraith's body were closing. The only reliable confirmation that the pale-faced bastard was dead was the lack of healing for his injuries.
The fighters returned to their first victim. The Wraith was breathing but unconscious. The minor wounds had healed, so he was under one of the fighters' guns.
"Tourniquets," Kaspar ordered, pulling a half-meter jungle knife from inside his jacket and approaching the Wraith.
After doing what was necessary, he moved on to the next part of the plan.
Two strong strikes with the blade — and the Wraith came to. He lunged forward, intending to sink his hands into the body of the human bending over him.
But both of his hands were gone, left as severed pieces on the grass drenched in black blood.
"Your suffering will be agonizing, human!" the Wraith declared in a weakened but no less threatening voice than usual, glancing at his mutilations.
"I doubt it," Kaspar gestured with the pistol, forcing the barely alive Wraith to get up. "Your arms are too short."
* * *
Even before Kirik and Alvar began teaching her and her people the basics of killing Wraiths with firearms, Teyla already knew the most vulnerable points of humanity's ancestral enemies.
Head, chest, limbs. Wraiths are dangerous and tough opponents. The Athosians trained their own hand-to-hand combat techniques for generations, which would allow them to fight Wraiths face to face.
But the girl was ready to admit that doing it with automatic weapons, especially with the support of other means of inflicting death, was far easier than fighting with knives or sticks.
After long but persistent training with the former Runners, Emmagan had mastered firearms confidently enough not to become a burden to her comrades in battle.
A Wraith soldier who rushed at her from behind a rock received two short bursts to the chest and head, then collapsed to the ground, never to rise again. At that very moment, her weapon clicked treacherously, announcing that its magazine was empty.
The girl dove into cover, stepping over the dead Wraith. If there weren't so many of them here, she could have sensed each one's approach. But no matter how many mental training sessions Chaya held with her, Teyla's progress was insignificant in what required her active use of her gift.
Or curse, as many inhabitants of Pegasus considered it.
The dead Wraith couldn't harm her, but for a second she imagined herself in his place. The hatred for Wraiths and everything connected with them is so strong in the galaxy that one day Atlantis will encounter those who won't care whether she chose to be born this way or not.
And one day she could be killed just as easily as she had just done to the Wraith.
His comrade, who jumped out from behind the neighboring ruins, tried to hit Teyla on the head with a useless Wraith rifle in the suppression zone.
She hesitated and could have been hurt if Mikhail hadn't arrived in time. Of all people, the Lantean leader had absolutely no trouble mastering Ermen weapons as well as Alvar demonstrated. Misha said he served in the military on Earth, where weapons had roughly the same design and completely identical operating principles.
Shooting short bursts of three rounds, as Jensen had advised, Mikhail blew the Wraith's head apart, saving Teyla from the threat.
"Don't fall asleep!" Mikhail threw over his shoulder as he continued firing at Wraiths.
Teyla, flinching, peered out from cover. While Mikhail was shooting another Wraith soldier, his commander tried to sneak up behind him. Teyla couldn't allow that.
Her burst went almost wide. One of the bullets grazed the Wraith commander, hitting his shoulder and making him turn his attention to her. Seeing that she was alone, he charged at the Athosian woman, roaring from the pain caused by the large bullets striking him. But he was determined to kill at least one human.
He didn't succeed.
On the illuminated field, there was nowhere to hide, but Larrin managed it. Just as Teyla thought about getting away from the frenzied Wraith, the Nomad woman was beside her. Her rifle spat streams of fire and metal, tearing the Wraith's chest open even more than Teyla's weapon had.
The Wraith didn't give up, but, wheezing, fell onto the field, barely showing signs of life. Larrin reached into her pocket and took out a small glass ball. Squeezing it in her hand, she made the object glow and threw it next to the severely wounded Wraith.
"Cover me!" she told the Athosian woman.
Teyla didn't see any point in arguing. Without taking her attention off providing cover fire for Larrin, Emmagan swept her gaze across the field, noting that there were at least two dozen similar balls lying next to half-dead Wraiths. "They're marking the wounded," Teyla realized, firing into a Wraith soldier's face just as Larrin was reloading.
Strange, but there hadn't been a word about marking in the briefing. Teyla decided to stay silent for now and tell Mikhail about it when she was sure none of the Nomads would find out.
* * *
What Kirik didn't like about firearms was the moving parts. Which could fail at the most unpredictable moment.
That's exactly what happened now.
The rifle clicked; in the light of the flares, the former Runner saw a cartridge jammed crookedly in the chamber. And a Wraith commander rapidly approaching him with a drawn blade. The enemy was grinning in triumph at the upcoming fight. Seeing that after killing the soldier in front of him, Kirik hadn't attacked him, the Wraith commander lunged forward.
The former Runner shifted his grip on the weapon to use it in hand-to-hand combat, but it turned out to be unnecessary.
Half a meter short of reaching him, the Wraith stopped, his eyes bulging as a muffled, squelching blow sounded behind him. Kirik, wasting no time, ejected the cartridge from the chamber and shot the frozen Wraith in the knee.
He collapsed onto the grass, gasping for air. His arms twitched slightly, but his lower body was immobile.
Kirik raised his eyes to the figure standing over the fallen enemy.
Dressed in field uniform, with gear and a scavenged weapon, Saya — beautiful but deadly, frightening with her glowing red eyes — shook her hand. Switching her rifle to a two-handed grip, without saying a word, she continued moving in quick, half-crouched steps toward the nearest squad of Wraith soldiers. Holed up in the ruins, they were covering their commander.
Seeing the lone girl, four soldiers charged at her.
Saya shot the first one through his face mask. Turning the enemy's head into one bleeding mass, she shifted to the side, ducked to avoid a stun rifle blow to her head. Firing into the second soldier's side, she broke his knee with a side kick, then knocked him unconscious with a butt stroke to the back of the head.
She killed the third soldier with a point-blank burst. Her weapon ran out of ammunition, suddenly falling silent. But the cyborg girl didn't flinch. Lifting her leg, she kicked the Wraith soldier in the chest, sending him crashing into the fourth.
Both fell to the ground.
The Wraith commander who had attacked her grabbed the cyborg by her uniform. Right at the moment when she was releasing the empty magazine. Kirik was already ready to fire to cover his comrade.
Even if she was a cyborg, a Wraith was a Wraith.
He probably wanted to tear open her jacket to attach himself to her chest. But Saya didn't need help.
Striking with her polymer-protected elbow, Saya forced the commander to recoil and release her. Then came a butt stroke to the stomach, a butt stroke to the face, a leg sweep. The Sallumai living weapon literally drove the Wraith commander, now on his back, into the ground with butt strikes.
After the first three, the Wraith who had tried to defend himself with his hands went limp and lay still on the grass.
With a muffled clang, the girl finished reloading and moved toward the other enemies.
Kirik shook his head and looked at the first Wraith the cyborg had struck down. He lay there, eyes wide open, silently opening and closing his mouth. In the bright light of the illumination flares, a huge black puddle that had soaked the grass beneath him was clearly visible.
Along with a piece of bloody spine that Saya had torn from the back of the hard-to-kill enemy.
With a deafening crash, one of the Nomads shot the arm off another Wraith commander. The enemy, who had peeked out from cover about fifteen meters from the former runner, could only lie on the grass, trying to stop the blood gushing from his shoulder with his left hand.
He wasn't long for this world, though. The sniper understood that, and a second shot blew the Wraith's head apart.
Kirik surveyed the battlefield.
All the mines placed around the Wraith's original path of movement had detonated—that was plain from the very clear number of small craters. Maimed Wraiths crawled around. Missing one leg, stuffed with shrapnel, missing both legs, with broken skeletons... Never once in his entire life had the "runner" Kirik seen the fearsome and ruthless Wraiths so helpless.
The roar of battle was dying down, just as the brightness of the illumination flares was decreasing. Here and there, single shots or short bursts still rang out as people finished off those Wraiths that there was no point even trying to save. One after another, more illumination flares shot into the sky, and maximum visibility returned to comfortable conditions.
Twelve people, only one of whom was limping—having injured his leg in a fight with a Wraith—found themselves back in the center of the clearing. Just like an hour and a half ago, when they had been going over the operation plan.
Kirik winced when the communicator, whose existence he had already forgotten, crackled to life in his ear.
A monitor from an Ancient scanner flickered to life in Mikhail's hands, and the Nomads' weapons began making their characteristic ready-to-fire sounds.
The EMP generator stopped its work.
"Not so bad," Mikhail declared. "One wounded, zero dead. Thirty Wraiths alive but crippled, twenty-five killed. I think this operation can be considered a success. Ihaar," he touched a key on his headset. "Do you see anyone beyond the clearing? No. Good, that means no one got away. Dial the address for Atlantis and tell them we're done and got through without losses."
An explosion rang out at the edge of the clearing, like the detonation of an Ermen mine. Except Kirik knew for a fact that a dying Wraith missing a chunk of spine had been lying there.
"Fine, twenty-nine Wraiths," Mikhail sighed. "Larrin, it looks like some of the Wraiths had their self-destruct devices triggered. Stun the ones still alive, all right? We need prisoners."
The Nomad woman nodded, and all of her kin except the injured young man headed off to knock the remaining live Wraiths unconscious.
"That was dangerous," Larrin stated. "Fifty against a dozen!"
"If the mines, grenades, and heavy caliber hadn't done the job, we always had Plan B," Ihaar shrugged.
"Retreating far from the EMP zone isn't a plan," Larrin remarked caustically.
"Completely agree," Mikhail sighed, touching his earpiece again. "Jumpers—drop stealth and prepare for loading."
Kirik smirked and looked around.
Six "jumpers" flew up to the clearing, having previously stayed outside the half-kilometer radius of the operation zone under stealth shields.
Larrin smiled and shook her head.
Half a dozen jumpers, with twelve homing missiles on each... The Wraiths would have had a rough time.