The Long Way Home

Chapter Thirty Eight: Acts of War

Bang bang
He shot me down, bang bang
I hit the ground , bang bang
That awful sound, bang bang

Nancy Sinatra -Bang! Bang!

It was war and war was exactly the same as Cass remembered it from her experiences in Afghanistan. It was loud and disorientating, wretched and impacting. She had no idea of the amount of people she had patched up today but she could count the men who'd died. Cass had lost nine good men so far from various ailments.

The sight of the young Marine caught up in the crash landing of the Wraith dart had been dreadful, hearing his shrieks of pain as he burned alive was indescribable. His flesh had blackened and furled as he screamed and begged for them to help. Cass would never get those images out of her mind, nor would she forget the acidic stench of burning fat that hung in the air.

Carson had been tearing her back as she lunged towards the flames. She had kicked and squirmed like a Banshee as one of Everett's Marines pulled the trigger and put the poor bastard out of his misery. It had been the right call to make but it killed her to see it in action. There was nothing they could have done for the poor guy but that didn't help chase away the demons at night.

Chaos was raining down on them from the heavens as the whistle of Wraith darts cut through the air, piercing her ears with their shrill, violent noise. There was a low rumble vibrating through the corridor from yet another explosion from somewhere above her. The building was holding stable for now but Cass didn't know how long that would last if the onslaught continued. She could hear the bursts of heavy duty gun fired snapping through the silence as Everett's Marines shot at the darts with their huge, mounted rail guns.

The Siege had gone on for over a day now and The Wraith forces showed no sign of letting up. Wave after wave of Dart ships hurtling towards their city and there wasn't a damn thing they had been able to do about it. Their plan of disabling all three Hive ships had gone to hell when the satellite had been destroyed during the process of trying to dispose of the Wraith. They had managed to kill one of the Hive ships approaching Atlantis but the two that were left were just as bad.

Only three more days to go, Cass told herself as she hurried down one of the corridors leading to the main tower. Even as she thought that she knew there wasn't a chance they were going to last that long. Over forty eight hours ago, the SGC had sent a crew of Marines complete with heavy artillery and headed by Colonel Everett into their city through the Stargate in order to help fortify the area until the Daedalus arrived.

The Daedalus was a new spaceship the SGC had built that could travel through hyperspace at immense speeds. It was currently carrying a fully functional ZPM all the way from Earth to the City and would arrive in three days and counting. That would give them the extra power needed to launch a full mounted attack against the Wraith. As Colonel Everett had said when he'd arrived through the Stargate, they only had to hold the city for four days.

Over twenty fours in and things weren't looking so good. Despite the fact they were defending the city with rail guns Wraith darts were still managing to crash land their way into Atlantis. Already the warning had gone up from Teyla that the city was swarming with Wraith.

Which was the reason why Cass was clasping a light weight P90 in her hands, she had used one before out in the field to blast a couple of rounds at a Wraith that had been coming at them. She'd managed to slow it down it before Sergeant Bates had taken it out completely.

Cass was comfortable with firearms, weapons training was an essential part of her integration into the military. She wasn't what you called a sharp shooter but she was proficient enough to hit a target. Cass only wished she had taken the time to learn more instead of...