Prolog
It was just one of those days, mused Lieutenant Silvers as he send one last glance back towards the settlement they had only recently left and not on the best of terms at that. Given this was supposed to be a recon and trading mission one could honestly say that only half of it had failed.
A few days ago their MALP had detected obvious signs of life near the gate of Taunus 5 and given that Teylas people had no trading connections to the people here let alone knew of their existence, stargate command had decided to send someone other than SG-1, namely Lieutenant Silvers and his team.
Sadly the natives soon turned out to be whacko half-worshipers. Which at least partly explained how they had managed to reach an at least somewhat mentionable state of technological development in the first place, without being wiped out by the wraith.
But sadly nothing far enough along to aid the current inhabitants of Atlantis even if they had found a way to persuade them to actually trade anything in the first place. Had he already mentioned they were whacko worshipers?
The people of Taunus 5 had shown no open aggression towards him or his team and even bothered to sit down and listen to what they had to say before politely telling them to fuck off and not bother coming back as they would not aid anyone fighting the wraith. Ok, maybe that had not been their exact wording but the message had gotten thru pretty clear with all the passive aggressiveness in the air and all.
Now on his way back to the stargate he again cursed his luck as the dark oppressing clouds covering the sun all day finally released their downpour and turned the vast grassy hills into a mudslide.
A suitable end to an altogether equally miserable day.
He probably should not have jinxed it because the universe always came up with ways to make a bad situation even worse.
The loud whine of a passing Dart shattered the silence and made him take cover behind a large cluster of rocks barely high enough to cover his crouching form. Given the bareness of their surroundings he could probably be grateful there was any kind of cover at all.
Simons who had been further down the slope had found an even lousier hiding place in form of a scraggy bush he had somehow managed to crawl into and Michaels behind him seemed no better off. But covered in mud and leaves as they all were it probably would have been enough to simple sprawl out on the ground to become invisible from above.
“It’s coming down!” Evans shouted from behind another rock pile when the whine grew almost unbearable loud as the Dart approached in an unusual angle.
Then they lost sight of the wraith vessel behind another hill and the thick dark pillar of smoke rising into the cloudy horizon signaled that the Dart had indeed made contact with the ground, just probably not as smoothly as the pilot had intended.
A lone Dart with no Hive in sight crashing down, seemingly unaided? Now, that counted as strange which in turn meant they had to at least check it out.
Slowly he stood up from behind his hiding spot and signaled his men to do the same while he slowly backtracked a few feet to get up high enough to see the crash site. Then he gracelessly flung himself into the dirt as to not be visible from the smoking wreck in case one of the nasty buggers had indeed survived the crash. His foresight seemed useless at first given the condition of the Dart but proved valid non the less when sudden movement drew his eyes.
Somewhere just behind the mangled shape of what had once been a cockpit the lithe form of a wraith moved with an obvious limp and far less grace than the arrogant half-bugs usually displayed. Silvers couldn`t see all that well thru the thick wads of smoke and the occasional sparks that lit the deceased Dart but the unsteady form seemed to stop for a moment. Then just as suddenly the Wraith continued to limp away from the crash site, obviously dragging something along with him he had just pulled out of the wreck.
As soon as Silvers got a clear shot he took aim just in case, but chose to let things play out for the moment. Simons next to him took in a startled breath the same instant Silvers himself recognized the Wraithes burden. Bloody civilian should be used to all of this by now.
Completely limp in the clawed grip of the Wraith feeding hand a mangled shape was pulled along: The evidently deceased body of a young man, his head pulled up as to not be dragged face first through the thick mud. Not that it would have really mattered. The poor guy must have bleed out internally after the crash or gotten his lungs penetrated by some piece of shrapnel if all the blood pouring out of him mouth and nose was anything to go by.
If you were planning on having a snack on that one you’re out of luck.
Why a Wraith would bother to take the dead body along in such a manner was beyond him, but then again nothing those ugly creepers ever did made much sense. Besides the life-sucking perhaps, that did, in a creepy survival kind of way.
Slowly the Wraith moved towards them, silvery hair in complete disarray and plastered to the bluish face in a bloody mess. Dark blood gushing out of various cuts that seemed to not heal quite fast enough. The mangled mess of his dark leather suit, or whatever those things were called, seemingly in a similar state.
Silvers would have felt sorry for the Creep if he had been anything but a life-sucking monster although it truly was a shame about the boy. The Wraith halted again just out of range of the Dart in case it choose to explode and drooped to his knees right next to the corpse.
Simons let out a startled chuff that must have alerted the creep, because his yellow-glowing eyes snapped up towards them and fixed Simons with a soul shattering death-glare. His Fingers tensed around the trigger but the wraith neither got up nor did anything else to sign his death sentence, the feeding hand still loosely hovering just above the dead guys chest.
What the hell did that Thing think it was doing down there anyway?
Instead it let out a vicious snarl followed by a warning hiss, daring them to approach and slowly lowered his hand until it came to rest just below the dead guys throat, fingers outstretched.
A creepy almost challenging grin warped the Wraith features, bearing the sharp teeth, while his eyes remained fixed on the soldiers above him. Either the Thing didn’t have the strength left to get up and attack them or the corpse proofed mysteriously more interesting than live prey. Either way the Wraith seemed far less interested in the Atlantians than in whatever it had been intended on doing before Simons had given their position away. It’s feeding Hand tensed but otherwise the creature remained alarmingly still, no muscle moving.
The erring silence stretched on until a sudden jolt went thru the corps as it came coughing and sputtering back to live. Silvers was startled enough to almost shoot the Wraith about it and Michaels even let out a startled yelp.
“Geeze, wouldn’t have done that if I were you!” Evans mused aloud, while Silvers still tried to make sense of what had just transpired.
“The gift of life?” Simons whispered completely awed.
Wasn’t that the thing Todd did to Major Sheepard after their imprisonment by the Genii?
He had only read the reports and filed that specific piece of information away as some kind of unexplainable wraith-voodoo. Then again, it only seemed fitting those live-sucking bastards could do one amazingly useful thing, karma and all.
The bluish Creep just kept that annoyingly arrogant toothy kind of grin in place while fixing them with those yellow predator eyes.
What was it with bug-people having reptile-eyes anyway?
And all of a sudden the slitted pupils unfocused and the yellow eyes rolled backwards as the Wraith tumbled to the ground, out cold.
“Told you so.” Evans replied, almost smugly.
“Ok, that was bizarre…” Simons was the first to rise to his feet but Silvers motioned for him to stay put. “You go and call in Atlantis, tell them we need a jumper and a med-team!” He may have no idea why the poor guy down there was alive again but like hell would he let him die a second time over. Silvers did want some answers after all. “And do ask them if we need another wraith prisoner!” No need to waste the opportunity while it jumped him. The Thing might look half dead but Wraith were resilient if nothing else.
