Medea part 9
“The Commander’s transmitter has just activated,” one of the many underlings announces from outside the second’s door.
A half whine is uttered from the worshipper under him when he pulls away from her. Ignoring the human, he quickly dresses and leaves her. She would be in the same spot when he returned. Yes she would move around, poke through his belongings and trophies while he was away, but she would return to the spot and resume a seductive position. If she broke any of the items those embellished bone hoops lining her ears would serve as a reasonable replacement.
To be honest, the Wraith could hardly call up her name. She did her duty well and has remained in his graces the longest of all of the personal servants he had owned. Copper curls and milky white skin, blemished only by an identifying tattoo on the left side of her neck; attractive for a human. Those brilliant blue green eyes were worth keeping around until she fell out of favor.
The underling who summoned him dips his head in greeting when the senior Wraith walks onto the bridge. “He is still within the facility.”
“Send a dart planet side with the orders to contact the Commander and relay his orders to us.”
۞
That life, that spark of recognition in Helena’s eyes still troubled Todd as he inserted the second slide to finish the transfer of data.
Todd frowns as he watches the screen in front of him. Birth records, death reports and experimental procedures on underdeveloped females to increase the birth rate. The second generation of females produced, all but two had successful pregnancies in their respective Hives. The third generations birthed on average twelve per litter.
Helena was listed under the fourth generation. The last of that brood to emerge, inspected and listed to have weak vision and disease susceptible; breeding not recommended. The Wraith doubted that fool of an Overseer had told her this fact. The immune deficiency could explain how she managed to survive a full transformation when exposed to the virus. Her body could not fight the mutations and did not attempt to heal itself once her organs began to swell.
The slide lifts from the console with a wet pop once the download finishes. Todd takes it and after wiping it off, inserts the glassy slide safely into one of the many hidden pockets in his suit.
“Commander, your orders?”
The Wraith glances up from the screen, knowing the mental signature as the seventh shift navigator. “Go south to the gate and retrieve the humans there, return to the Hive and inform the second that a transport ship is required to remove unborn younglings.”
“Understood.”
۞
“I miss Helena,” Jennifer says quietly.
She and the rest of their small sun burnt and thirsty group sat at the crest of the valley. The stargate was just barely visible; a tiny hint of it peeked out like a bridge. It was mocking in a way. Home was just in front of them all, buried under seventeen feet of pea sand. Digging in that would prove futile as it held little to no moisture, opposed to the rich, cool, water retaining flour sand.
“Why? She is…was, just a Wraith,” Rodney replies from his spot beside Myrna. The hybrid had not said a word this entire time. She had sat down between Jennifer and Rodney, drew her legs to her chest and stared at the horizon.
For the first time since Helena’s death, Myrna looks up sharply. Her pupils constrict to wires as she glares at the man. “And you’re just a human. What makes your species so special?”
“Well, we…”
“Well what?” she snaps.
“Drop it. Both of you,” Sheppard barks.
“Well if Jennifer didn’t practically throw herself at Todd, it…”
“Rodney, I said drop it!”
“You didn’t see how she looked at him.”
Before Sheppard could say anything further along the lines of Todd being better than Rodney (as much as he didn’t want to admit), Jennifer stands unexpectedly. She moves past Myrna and slaps the man so hard Sheppard winces in sympathy. He deserved that, Sheppard thinks with a frown.
A stunned silence washes over the group as Jennifer glares down at the man in front of her. Her eyes were glassy and threatened the release of tears at any moment. Her mouth opens, and then closes, thinking better of herself to not say what she really wanted to. At last, Jennifer finally says quietly: “When we get home, I’m moving my things out and back into my room.”
“Jen, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Yeah, Rodney, you did.”
Myrna pushes her bare feet into the sand, politely pretending not to listen to the angry couple. She wiggles her toes and enjoys the grating of the granules against the sensitive skin. Fingers soon join the toes, sliding under the red and over the top of her feet. Myrna interlocks her fingers between her toes and hums the only song that came to her mind: Bungle in the Jungle, the last song she had heard before the iPod’s battery ran out.
“Jennifer.”
Turning away from Rodney, Jennifer sits between Myrna and Sheppard. Her head was down with the sweat damp bangs create a curtain in front of her vision. Jennifer didn’t want to see anything anyway. The more she thinks about it as this failed mission went on, the more she regrets sleeping with Rodney. She had been so certain she loved him for all his flaws.
It wouldn’t do her any good to cry about it. It was a stupid decision, and Jennifer has dealt with plenty of them before. David, she thinks, choking back a bitter laugh. After the pregnancy scare in her sophomore year of college, he certainly showed his true color.
“What would you do, John Shepp-ard,” the hybrid begins to ask, intentionally using the same emphasis as Todd on the human’s surname, “if one of your team members betrayed you?”
“Why do you ask, Myrna? Do you plan on trying to take on all of us?”
“No,” she looks past Jennifer, who had lifted her head to watch Myrna, to John. “I just wanted to know what your people do in such cases.”
“Well, if someone did,” he says and pauses: Why the fuck would she ask that? John’s brows lift in realization and he masks it with a look of pondering. “I’d do my best to knock’em out and bring them back to Atlantis. Woolsey will probably find out a good punishment.”
Myrna’s large irises looked like black pits in the dim lighting as she watches him for a moment. Without saying anything further, she goes back to playing with her toes.
“So you don’t kill them?” the hybrid asks after a short moment, flexing her toes and letting them poke out of the sand.
“Not unless they give a damned good reason to.”
“Even non-humans?”
“Todd’s still alive, isn’t he?”
Myrna looks at him and tilts her head, “He has betrayed you?”
“Well nearly killing half of our people isn’t exactly what friends do.”
“Have you ever had sex with a non-human?”
“Jesus Myrna, you’re worse than Todd with the random really fucking personal questions.”
Jennifer snickers, biting her lip to stifle the sound.
“Hey, he asked you about what was so great about anal.”
Blushing, Jennifer hisses: “Colonel!”
“What? You answered him.”
“Well he’s an alien; they probably don’t have sex the way we do.”
“You never asked him?”
“Oh goodness no. I know what it all looks like and how it works…just not how it’s done.”
“And you answered his questions about all our weird fetishes.”
“Colonel, I…”
Dematerialization is an odd feeling; it’s fuzzy, like touching one of those lightning orbs at the museum. Dreamlike, and just as fleeting; Jennifer suddenly found herself sitting beside Sheppard and Myrna in the dart bay of a hive ship.
Three guards stood at the large doors, stunners casually carried. Their faceless heads only moved to regard the Wraith who enters.
“Oh hey Kenny,” Sheppard says with a falsely friendly smile.
The long faced Wraith walks past the guards as they part for him, their heads lowered courteously. Looking past Sheppard, ignoring the human’s greeting and down to Myrna with a frown he says: “Put her in a holding cell. You three will accompany me to a waiting area. The Commander wishes to speak with you upon his return.”
“Nice to see you again too,” Sheppard mutters and reluctantly stands.
They didn’t have much of a choice either way. Jennifer makes a point not to watch as one of the guards stun Myrna and begin to drag her away. If they refused, it’d be a holding cell until Todd came along. Even then, there was no guarantee that he’d let them go. A waiting area sounded pleasant for a hive ship.
Kenny inclines his head, never needing to actually tell them to hurry up. It was a subtle gesture accompanied by an expression of annoyance as the humans begin to stand and straighten their clothing. Once Sheppard approaches, the Wraith turns and leads them down the dimly lit corridor.
Each hive they had been on, friendly or not, had different lighting. Sheppard idly wondered if it was the hive itself that chose the light, or whoever was in charge of home décor. Todd’s Hive leaned towards the blues and greens with a warm yellow and orange in the room they had proposed Jennifer’s inoculation. He quickly diverts his thoughts, wondering why the hell he was contemplating the lighting of a hive ship.
Their sour Wraith guide stops in front of a door. Once it slides open, he steps to one side to allow the humans entry. “The Commander should arrive within the hour.”
The waiting room was similar to the one they had visited before. A table, possibly the same was positioned in the center of the room. However, plush almost Victorian-esque chairs were nesting under it rather than the hardwood missionary ones. “Nice upgrade. Will we be getting filet mignon and a bottle of chardonnay to go with the fancy chairs?” Sheppard asks the Wraith who had paused in mid turn.
“I will have food brought if you require it.”
“I think we all would love something that hasn’t been dried and formed into a brick.”
Kenny nods and leaves them to their privacy when the door closes wetly behind him.
Jennifer pulls a chair out for herself and sits down graciously on the cushioned seat. She leans back and stares at the screen on the wall opposite her. The Wraith text scrolls lazily across the surface. “Why do you think they took Myrna?” she asks once she was pretty sure Kenny had not lingered by the door.
“She’s a hybrid, they probably want to study her,” Sheppard replies with a shrug and takes a chair for himself.
“But stun her?”
“If I could read their minds I’d tell ya.”
With a nod, Jennifer lapses into silence. Despite this not being Atlantis, she feels secure here. The room was a comfortable temperature and she let herself relax. Once Todd arrives everything will sort itself out, she assures herself. A blush creeps to Jennifer’s cheeks as the thought reminds her of how feral and handsome the Wraith had looked.
A half whine is uttered from the worshipper under him when he pulls away from her. Ignoring the human, he quickly dresses and leaves her. She would be in the same spot when he returned. Yes she would move around, poke through his belongings and trophies while he was away, but she would return to the spot and resume a seductive position. If she broke any of the items those embellished bone hoops lining her ears would serve as a reasonable replacement.
To be honest, the Wraith could hardly call up her name. She did her duty well and has remained in his graces the longest of all of the personal servants he had owned. Copper curls and milky white skin, blemished only by an identifying tattoo on the left side of her neck; attractive for a human. Those brilliant blue green eyes were worth keeping around until she fell out of favor.
The underling who summoned him dips his head in greeting when the senior Wraith walks onto the bridge. “He is still within the facility.”
“Send a dart planet side with the orders to contact the Commander and relay his orders to us.”
۞
That life, that spark of recognition in Helena’s eyes still troubled Todd as he inserted the second slide to finish the transfer of data.
Todd frowns as he watches the screen in front of him. Birth records, death reports and experimental procedures on underdeveloped females to increase the birth rate. The second generation of females produced, all but two had successful pregnancies in their respective Hives. The third generations birthed on average twelve per litter.
Helena was listed under the fourth generation. The last of that brood to emerge, inspected and listed to have weak vision and disease susceptible; breeding not recommended. The Wraith doubted that fool of an Overseer had told her this fact. The immune deficiency could explain how she managed to survive a full transformation when exposed to the virus. Her body could not fight the mutations and did not attempt to heal itself once her organs began to swell.
The slide lifts from the console with a wet pop once the download finishes. Todd takes it and after wiping it off, inserts the glassy slide safely into one of the many hidden pockets in his suit.
“Commander, your orders?”
The Wraith glances up from the screen, knowing the mental signature as the seventh shift navigator. “Go south to the gate and retrieve the humans there, return to the Hive and inform the second that a transport ship is required to remove unborn younglings.”
“Understood.”
۞
“I miss Helena,” Jennifer says quietly.
She and the rest of their small sun burnt and thirsty group sat at the crest of the valley. The stargate was just barely visible; a tiny hint of it peeked out like a bridge. It was mocking in a way. Home was just in front of them all, buried under seventeen feet of pea sand. Digging in that would prove futile as it held little to no moisture, opposed to the rich, cool, water retaining flour sand.
“Why? She is…was, just a Wraith,” Rodney replies from his spot beside Myrna. The hybrid had not said a word this entire time. She had sat down between Jennifer and Rodney, drew her legs to her chest and stared at the horizon.
For the first time since Helena’s death, Myrna looks up sharply. Her pupils constrict to wires as she glares at the man. “And you’re just a human. What makes your species so special?”
“Well, we…”
“Well what?” she snaps.
“Drop it. Both of you,” Sheppard barks.
“Well if Jennifer didn’t practically throw herself at Todd, it…”
“Rodney, I said drop it!”
“You didn’t see how she looked at him.”
Before Sheppard could say anything further along the lines of Todd being better than Rodney (as much as he didn’t want to admit), Jennifer stands unexpectedly. She moves past Myrna and slaps the man so hard Sheppard winces in sympathy. He deserved that, Sheppard thinks with a frown.
A stunned silence washes over the group as Jennifer glares down at the man in front of her. Her eyes were glassy and threatened the release of tears at any moment. Her mouth opens, and then closes, thinking better of herself to not say what she really wanted to. At last, Jennifer finally says quietly: “When we get home, I’m moving my things out and back into my room.”
“Jen, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Yeah, Rodney, you did.”
Myrna pushes her bare feet into the sand, politely pretending not to listen to the angry couple. She wiggles her toes and enjoys the grating of the granules against the sensitive skin. Fingers soon join the toes, sliding under the red and over the top of her feet. Myrna interlocks her fingers between her toes and hums the only song that came to her mind: Bungle in the Jungle, the last song she had heard before the iPod’s battery ran out.
“Jennifer.”
Turning away from Rodney, Jennifer sits between Myrna and Sheppard. Her head was down with the sweat damp bangs create a curtain in front of her vision. Jennifer didn’t want to see anything anyway. The more she thinks about it as this failed mission went on, the more she regrets sleeping with Rodney. She had been so certain she loved him for all his flaws.
It wouldn’t do her any good to cry about it. It was a stupid decision, and Jennifer has dealt with plenty of them before. David, she thinks, choking back a bitter laugh. After the pregnancy scare in her sophomore year of college, he certainly showed his true color.
“What would you do, John Shepp-ard,” the hybrid begins to ask, intentionally using the same emphasis as Todd on the human’s surname, “if one of your team members betrayed you?”
“Why do you ask, Myrna? Do you plan on trying to take on all of us?”
“No,” she looks past Jennifer, who had lifted her head to watch Myrna, to John. “I just wanted to know what your people do in such cases.”
“Well, if someone did,” he says and pauses: Why the fuck would she ask that? John’s brows lift in realization and he masks it with a look of pondering. “I’d do my best to knock’em out and bring them back to Atlantis. Woolsey will probably find out a good punishment.”
Myrna’s large irises looked like black pits in the dim lighting as she watches him for a moment. Without saying anything further, she goes back to playing with her toes.
“So you don’t kill them?” the hybrid asks after a short moment, flexing her toes and letting them poke out of the sand.
“Not unless they give a damned good reason to.”
“Even non-humans?”
“Todd’s still alive, isn’t he?”
Myrna looks at him and tilts her head, “He has betrayed you?”
“Well nearly killing half of our people isn’t exactly what friends do.”
“Have you ever had sex with a non-human?”
“Jesus Myrna, you’re worse than Todd with the random really fucking personal questions.”
Jennifer snickers, biting her lip to stifle the sound.
“Hey, he asked you about what was so great about anal.”
Blushing, Jennifer hisses: “Colonel!”
“What? You answered him.”
“Well he’s an alien; they probably don’t have sex the way we do.”
“You never asked him?”
“Oh goodness no. I know what it all looks like and how it works…just not how it’s done.”
“And you answered his questions about all our weird fetishes.”
“Colonel, I…”
Dematerialization is an odd feeling; it’s fuzzy, like touching one of those lightning orbs at the museum. Dreamlike, and just as fleeting; Jennifer suddenly found herself sitting beside Sheppard and Myrna in the dart bay of a hive ship.
Three guards stood at the large doors, stunners casually carried. Their faceless heads only moved to regard the Wraith who enters.
“Oh hey Kenny,” Sheppard says with a falsely friendly smile.
The long faced Wraith walks past the guards as they part for him, their heads lowered courteously. Looking past Sheppard, ignoring the human’s greeting and down to Myrna with a frown he says: “Put her in a holding cell. You three will accompany me to a waiting area. The Commander wishes to speak with you upon his return.”
“Nice to see you again too,” Sheppard mutters and reluctantly stands.
They didn’t have much of a choice either way. Jennifer makes a point not to watch as one of the guards stun Myrna and begin to drag her away. If they refused, it’d be a holding cell until Todd came along. Even then, there was no guarantee that he’d let them go. A waiting area sounded pleasant for a hive ship.
Kenny inclines his head, never needing to actually tell them to hurry up. It was a subtle gesture accompanied by an expression of annoyance as the humans begin to stand and straighten their clothing. Once Sheppard approaches, the Wraith turns and leads them down the dimly lit corridor.
Each hive they had been on, friendly or not, had different lighting. Sheppard idly wondered if it was the hive itself that chose the light, or whoever was in charge of home décor. Todd’s Hive leaned towards the blues and greens with a warm yellow and orange in the room they had proposed Jennifer’s inoculation. He quickly diverts his thoughts, wondering why the hell he was contemplating the lighting of a hive ship.
Their sour Wraith guide stops in front of a door. Once it slides open, he steps to one side to allow the humans entry. “The Commander should arrive within the hour.”
The waiting room was similar to the one they had visited before. A table, possibly the same was positioned in the center of the room. However, plush almost Victorian-esque chairs were nesting under it rather than the hardwood missionary ones. “Nice upgrade. Will we be getting filet mignon and a bottle of chardonnay to go with the fancy chairs?” Sheppard asks the Wraith who had paused in mid turn.
“I will have food brought if you require it.”
“I think we all would love something that hasn’t been dried and formed into a brick.”
Kenny nods and leaves them to their privacy when the door closes wetly behind him.
Jennifer pulls a chair out for herself and sits down graciously on the cushioned seat. She leans back and stares at the screen on the wall opposite her. The Wraith text scrolls lazily across the surface. “Why do you think they took Myrna?” she asks once she was pretty sure Kenny had not lingered by the door.
“She’s a hybrid, they probably want to study her,” Sheppard replies with a shrug and takes a chair for himself.
“But stun her?”
“If I could read their minds I’d tell ya.”
With a nod, Jennifer lapses into silence. Despite this not being Atlantis, she feels secure here. The room was a comfortable temperature and she let herself relax. Once Todd arrives everything will sort itself out, she assures herself. A blush creeps to Jennifer’s cheeks as the thought reminds her of how feral and handsome the Wraith had looked.