By the miracle of electrical lighting in this remote homestead, the finally tailored host for the evening has Colonel Shepard laid on the dining room table and begins to examine him, blue gloves probing the wounds. He throws his voice to Book, but doesn't look at him.
MAN: How did you let yourself get hurt?
BOOK: Saving a couple kids caught
in the open after it all started.
MAN: That doesn't sound like you.
I thought I trained you
better than that.
John cranes his neck
to look around.
JOHN: Where are we?
MAN: Face up, please.
He grabs the colonel by the chin
and redirects his gaze to the ceiling.
MAN: You're not a settler.
But I don't recognize you.
COMMANDER: No, sir.
MAN: So where did you come from?
COMMANDER: I'm not sure how meaningful that
would be to you. Are we still in the Pegasus Galaxy.
MAN: Pegasus?
He turns with a start and
leaves the colonel's side.
MAN: What do you know about Pegasus?
COMMANDER: My ship and I were there yesterday.
MAN: Then he's...
state your name
and rank.
JOHN: Colonel John Shepard, Atlantis Expedition.
He face grows red and he
looks weak in the knees.
MAN: No you're not. You can't be.
BOOK: Atlantis? That's real?
MAN: That's classified.
COMMANDER: I never saw any Atlantis.
But I talked to a ship. A ship that
was supposed to be protecting it.
JOHN: Daedalus.
COMMANDER: Right, Daedalus.
MAN: The Daedalus was lost.
Centuries ago, now.
JOHN: And how do you know about it?
MAN: That's classified.
JOHN: Not you.
They follow his eyes to Commander Sheppard.
COMMANDER: Me?
JOHN: Where is Commander Sheppard?
JOHN: Where is Commander Sheppard?
BOOK: You were badly hurt
when you came through.
MAN: Came through from where?
COMMANDER: Colonel, it's me.
JOHN: I don't know you.
COMMANDER: We fought the Wraith.
I saved you after you killed the queen.
MAN: (interrogating) Wraith?
She pushes passed him to reach
the colonel's side?
COMMANDER: What do you remember?
JOHN: That Commander Sheppard
was a man.
COMMANDER: Your certain of that?
JOHN: I think I'd remember
that sort of thing.
The man steps off to the side
with a heavy sigh of acceptance.
COMMANDER: What does that mean to you?
MAN: You're telling me he's a time traveler?
You both are?
COMMANDER: Yes.
MAN: Then assuming for the moment that
the colonel's report is accurate then
you both have changed the timeline.
And whatever monsters have followed
you here are liable to destroy us all.
Gunshots from the perimeter.
MAN: What's your game?
Why did you lead them to me?
BOOK: Look at me.
He presents his shoulder.
BOOK: This isn't a play.
MAN: Or you were just bit by your own trap.
JOHN: I don't know what mind games
you two are used to playing, but can
we agree that we all want those
things out there dead?
MAN: I shall accommodate you, colonel.
He steps over to a desk and removes a drawer. There is a shoebox size remote switch, which he turns the nob on the top. Out on the perimeter the guards double over in agony and the animalistic Husks arch back and scream. Some turn back, but three push through the perimeter and beyond the sonic weapon, which had been presumed to be definitive.
MAN: So much for the sanitary solution.
He waves for two more soldiers to head outside
and pick off the closing Husks.
COMMANDER: You're killing your own men!
BOOK: Save yourself the trouble of being
surprised at him. It won't do you any good.
The Husks are sniped down and the
two men return inside the house.
MAN: That perimeter sonic fence is linked
to an Alliance cruiser beacon. If the
infestation is as widespread as you
seem to believe then we will
wait the night here for them.
The room has grown solemn as the night is long. Everyone looks on as the homesteader comes to the end of his surgery and plunks something in the waste tray. He follows up with spraying a gentle mist across the colonel's back and the wound begins to close before their eyes. He fishes with a clamp back into the waste tray and holds the Wraith tracker up to the light.
MAN: These were always a
nasty piece of work.
He glances up at Commander Sheppard.
MAN: He shall come around shortly.
The homesteader hands off the Wraith tracker
to the mother holding another tray while
standing in as a nurse and she takes it away.
The homesteader joins Book in an
opposite chair at the hearth.
MAN: So what happened? Hmm?
No honor among thieves?
Book doesn't answer.
MAN: You don't have to act surprised.
BOOK: I'm not. But you should know
I won't help you look for them.
MAN: But you didn't warn them about us.
Book doesn't answer.
MAN: They think we're dead?
BOOK: You know they do.
And you know that you
failed to recover them.
MAN: Failure is relative, Omega 5th.
BOOK: You know what, you can
stop calling me that!
MAN: Temper, temper. You'll egg on
your new friends to just who you really are.
You wanted to believe that you were saved?
That you could save others? We're pawns in this.
BOOK: (laughs) Pawns? (laughs) So what does
power look like to you? The more you cling to it
the less you have. I have seen the writing on
the wall. I have served evil, but no more.
If these galactic interlopers of ours are
around long enough to learn anything
then so be it. Because uncover my
secrets and they'll learn about you
too, mister disgraced retiree.
The homesteader puts his
hand over his heart.
MAN: That hurt, Book. That hurt right here.
I thought you respected the game
better than that.
BOOK: I learned that it doesn't pay.
MAN: Oh, it paid. You just decided
to fritter it all away.
BOOK: I won't say I built something.
But I tried to restore what we took.
MAN: And now look
where you have ended up.
In the grace of my charity.
A rancid bi-mechanical hand extends forward. The Husks extends an open jaw under the strain of each motion. It pulls itself forward by one arm. The legs appear non-functional. Little by little it draws nearer to the house. When it arrives at the porch it continues on underneath. And deep under the house the Husk finds a place to dig without searching for it. The removed dirt and gravel exposes wire, which extends out toward the gate of the perimeter. And lacking cutting tools, the weakened Husks begins pulling at the wire.
MAN: What if I were to, say,
let you in on the bigger picture?
BOOK: I've seen enough.
MAN: What can I say? It was worth a try.
You were always very effect.
BOOK: And I'll try to live that
compliment down.
MAN: You may not have much time
to do that in. Take them.
The guards seize Shepard, Sheppard and Shepherd.
BOOK: Don't do this, Steader!
MAN: You are out of time.
The lights go out.
MOTHER: What just happened?
The Husks come flooding onto the estate. Some of them now bear the tattered clothing of dresses, skirts and jeans. And whenever the Wraith variety of Husk receives too many hits it turns on the nearest human cohort and feeds so that the human Husk falls away as a paper thin membrane.
The rifles rattle off their protest at the Husk's advance, but no more effectively than this.
The homesteader takes to the roof with his Alliance-issued sniper rifle and succeeds in picking off a dozen to one side of the house and half-a-dozen on the other, but they are still coming on all sides.
Ammo spent, he descends the tower for the interior of the house. He throws a switch and those that are about to leap onto the porch are showered in light and briefly turn back, but become trampled under by others that were further back and leap with abandon on the porch overhang and close on the second-story windows. The soldiers there blast away as fast as the lever action can manage them, but the flood of Husks bursts through the glass and immediately have control of the second floor.
Without command, the homesteader descends into the basement and the rest follow apart from the first story guards who continue to fight. There is a bunker entrance in the floor of the basement with steps heading further down.
JOHN: What about your men?
Book dismisses the attempt to
appeal to his conscience.
BOOK: Don't bother.
MAN: He's right. They're lost.
GUARD: We work for you!
MAN: Then you can stay with them.
He shoots the guard.
MAN: Inside! I still want to interrogate you
when this is all over.
Once inside he activates another sonic weapon which resonates through the house and kills the Husks. They are still in the bunker by morning. Sonic weapon faintly sounding, a company of soldiers mince their way through the bodies in the house wearing armor and more importantly helmets that protect from the sonic perimeter. Even now one Husk still lingers in agony and one of the soldiers delivers a bullet, which announces their presence to the rest in the bunker. The homesteader turns on a security camera and can see that they are Alliance soldiers. He disengages the sonic weapon and opens the vault door.
Without discussion, the company is removed to a waiting shuttle and they are near enough to a cliff to overlook the town. Sonic booms break the air and two smoke trails dive toward the low buildings and arch sharply back up again. The bombs dropped in their wake decimate the scene in fire.
MOTHER: There's no one?
BOOK: Unfortunately, now we'll never know.
They are shuffled onto the shuttle and it rises to break the atmosphere with ease and joins the Alliance Tohoku-class cruiser in orbit. Upon the shuttle doors opening before an airlock a flood of white hazmat wearing technicians take hold of each of the survivors apart from the Alliance agent and escort them to quarantine chambers where they might all only glimpse each other through the glass amidst pauses in blasts of air.
Commander Sheppard notes the decontamination process is far more invasive than that which could be managed on the likes of the Normandy and privately speculates the interrogation has begun.
They emerge from their chambers to witness in passing a Husk being studied in containment.
The mother of the three children stops and realizes who the Husk once was. She pounds the glass with her fist and the Husk tilts headlong into the glass and bounces back dazed, but lunges forward again to continue trying to bite the glass and presses a hand there where a feeding hand pecks a spike against the glass.
MAN: A third generation of the species, I am told.
First humans, which got ahold of your Wraith.
And now they have begun to alter their
human counterparts.
BOOK: There could be more.
Your containment isn't complete.
MAN: We have seen to it.
They continue as if on a tour and witness a second story window of a large chamber where technicians are in the midst of trying to dial the stargate and only getting three chevrons in before failing the lock.
MAN: It has been a long time since we
saw one of these devices.
Our records are sparse.
A very long time.
COMMANDER: At this point you should
consider destroying it.
JOHN: No. I have to get back.
I can still change what has happened.
MAN: Why would we want you
to do that? This is a spectacular
discovery for us. Human survival
will be improved from this point on.
Who's to say you would foster the better
future if allowed the past?
JOHN: That's my future. I can finish
what we started against the Wraith.
I can provide an earlier warning
about the Reapers.
MAN: That threat is neutralized.
COMMANDER: What about the Sovereign
that destroyed my ship?
MAN: The threat is neutralized.
Knowledge of your ship was lost
until now and that same Sovereign
was never seen by any humans nor
any other Reapers discovered.
COMMANDER: So it's still out there.
JOHN: You have an opportunity to
outflank these things in a way
that they cannot see.
MAN: The Reapers are not a threat to us.
No one in the Alliance has seen one.
Your war is long forgotten Colonel
and yours too, Commander.
Thank you for your service.
The Alliance will determine
humanity's destiny from here.
He addresses a soldier.
MAN: Confinement.
Bathing in the local star is an old worn hulk of a Sovereign. In containment, one of the Husks turns its head and looks at the stargate. External lights come to life on the Sovereign and within one of its legs there is a stargate stowed away. Within this leg interior corridor more Husks begin to stir and the stargate dials at a blurring speed. The seven chevrons are engaged in a matter of seconds.
The gate activates and Husks come pouring
into the gate room of the Alliance cruiser.
PREVIOUS FINALE
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