The Saints of Atlantis 24
A/N: This chapter is a little short, by about 150 words, but as it is the second half of the last chapter I hope you can forgive me. Yes, it is yet another cliff hanger, just so you’re warned.
Conner and Murphy had seen many different marks over their years as shepherds for God. They had even learned that aliens who were people carried the marks as well, but they had only seen the sort of marks that this Wraith carried around him on young children, or those who were mentally handicapped. The drones hadn’t had any marks at all, which made Conner think that like drones in other types of insect species, there wasn’t much going on inside their brains. The Wraith knelt there on the ground, staring at the animal as though it had never seen one before.
“Conner, I think he didn’t know that he could eat anything other than Humans,” Murphy said in Gaelic.
“That would account for the marks of innocence and wrong deeds,” Conner agreed. He switched back to English. “It’s real lad. You ate the beastie, whatever it is, was.” He wasn’t sure just what type of herd animal it had been, or its purpose, but at least he did know it was an animal.
“How?” the Wraith whispered, confirming Murphy’s theory.
“Your people didn’t evolve eating just humans,” Murphy told him. “They had to have eaten other animals because the cousins on your side of the family still set webs to catch their prey. They would have eventually died off if they no longer had prey, regardless of how long your people can sleep.”
“Just like the cousins on our side of the family still scavenge for a variety of foods,” Conner said.
The Wraith straightened up. “What do you mean, family?” Conner wasn’t quite sure, seeing as how he’d never talked with a Wraith before, but he sounded very shaken.
“We all evolved from the Ancients, lad. Your people and ours, we just started out on different branches of the family tree. Your people evolved from the Iratus bug while ours evolved from primates, but the Ancients were the ones trying to steer the course for both our people by putting their own DNA in the mix,” Conner said.
The Wraith turned colors, and Murphy wondered if that meant the same thing to a Wraith that it did to a human. “I have heard of your people. You claim to be the children of the Ancients. That you alone are their inheritors,” the Wraith growled.
Conner recognized this tactic. Murphy pulled it often enough, trying to pick a fight when he was unsettled, worried or scared. “Nah, we’re just the eldest,” he said easily. “The Ancients started us off before they came to this galaxy. Then when they left here 10,000 years ago, the few Ancients that didn’t ascend went back to Earth and had kids with the humans there. So you see, a few of us are children of the Ancients, just not anywhere near all of us, and for those of us who do it’s only one aspect of our lives. There are a lot of things that are more important to us than who our ancestors thousands of years back were.”
The Wraith looked shocked, and Murphy couldn’t take it anymore. He burst out laughing. “They were just people lad, and they fucked up a lot. What’s important was that the information that they knew doesn’t die with them. We need to be careful and use that information wisely, just as you now must.”
“What are you talking about?”
The Wraith was frustrated and distracted now, Conner could see. “You have a choice now. Will you continue to eat people, or will you eat animals that have no higher understanding?” he asked. “That is what we object to most you understand, that you can eat animals and yet choose to eat us instead.” Although he and Murphy had drawn their zats, neither had one pointed at the Wraith just yet. This particular Wraith was at a crossroads, and he would need to choose his path before the brothers could decide what to do about him. “And let’s face it; you really can’t blame us for not wanting to be eaten.”
“Especially when we’re not the only things on the fucking menu,” Murphy sarcastically pointed out
“McManus?!”
‘Fucking hell,’ Conner thought. ‘This is all we need.’ The others had found them. It was Colonel Sheppard who had called of course, Teyla and Ronon would have used their first names. “Back off, he needs to make his choice without anyone interfering. Lad’s had a huge shock and needs to process it.”
“What the hell are you talking about?!” Sheppard yelled, more confused and worried than angry Conner was glad to hear.
Ronon said something Murphy took to mean ‘fuck that shit’, and really why had the Ancients been such prudes? A little cussing never hurt anyone. “It’s a Wraith. It needs to die!”
“Don’t make me shoot you Ronon,” Murphy warned. “You know our calling. He hasn’t made his decision yet and you need to let him.” Ronon just growled, unable to back down with one of his enemies within reach. “Ronon, I’m warning ya!” Ronon started towards the Wraith. “Ronon!” Murphy yelled. “Fuck!” he snarled, shooting Ronon once with his zat.
“You shot him,” the Wraith said in wonderment.
“Course,” Conner said with a shrug. “You haven’t made your decision. Getting zatted once won’t hurt him none.”
“Piss him off something fierce but nothing else,” Murphy said with a shrug for what Ronon would do to him later.
“What decision must the Wraith make?” Teyla asked. She and Sheppard were holding their weapons on the Wraith and weren’t even trying to hide it. If it made one wrong move they had every intention of killing it.”
“He didn’t know that he didn’t have to eat Humans. Now he has to decide if he’s going to keep eating them or not,” Conner explained. “We can’t let anyone interfere with his choice. It has to be made freely or it is no choice at all.”
Sheppard and Teyla both nodded. “We’ll take Ronon back to the village. The culling is over, but he should be able to get back to his hive fairly easily if he’s going to keep eating people. I know at least one Dart landed with minimal damage,” Sheppard said. He paused for a moment, weighing the risks. “If he does decide against eating humans, bring him back to the stargate with you. We’ll take him with us when we leave.”
Teyla stared at him. “I know,” Sheppard said as he pulled Ronon into a fireman’s carry. “Elizabeth will have my hide for bringing home another stray, but do you really think it would be right to send him back to his hive if he makes that choice? It’d be like sending an alcoholic to go live in a bar.” The brothers could hear him trying to explain what an alcoholic was and why one living in a bar was bad as they left with Ronon.
It was plain that this shocked the Wraith almost as much as eating the animal had. “You shot him to protect my freedom to make a choice, and those two went along with it. Then the male invited me back to your new world?!?”
“A coerced choice is no choice at all,” Conner said again.
“And free will is one of God’s greatest gifts. We would not be serving him well if we did not defend your choice to choose,” Murphy pointed out. He knew the Wraith would not understand his reference, but he did hope that the explanation would be satisfactory.
The Wraith looked once more at the remains of his meal. “I believe that I shall not be eating humans again, and I will travel with you to your new world. Your people are very… different from what I was told. Your views are quite strange and I think that I would like to learn more about you.”
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Elizabeth focused on her breathing. If she could just keep her breathing nice and regular, she just might hold off this bout of morning sickness. Unfortunately she failed, and with a groan she got up from her desk and ran for the balcony. Retching over the side wasn’t exactly what she wanted to do if she had to puke, but at least it was raining and Mother Nature could clean up the resulting mess.
She walked back into her office only to find Radek waiting for her with a towel and a cup of peppermint tea. “Who do you have spying on me Doctor Zelenka?” she mock growled. It wasn’t that she liked the fact that someone was watching her, more like she was grateful that Radek cared enough to keep track and have what she needed ready when he could. Most other men that she knew would never have thought to do so.
Radek squirmed. “Actually, I think it is Atlantis,” he admitted. He shoved his glasses up when Elizabeth looked puzzled. “Ever since the information that the Ancient’s gestational unit was put into use was inputted into the database, there has been an unusual amount of power being diverted to the internal sensors. It isn’t much,” he hurried to reassure her. “There is no need to worry about that, but the sensors being used are always focused on the babies. When you ran out of your office, a bit of security tape was sent to my laptop. I think that this is another mark in the ‘Atlantis has an AI we haven’t found yet’ column.”
“Well,” Elizabeth said as she finished drying her hair and took the cup, “the ATA carriers all insist that there is something there and feminizing it. If the city is alerting you to when I need some help, I’m certainly not going to object.”
“It should not last much longer,” Radek consoled her.
“The morning sickness I can get through.” Elizabeth dismissed his guess with a wave as she settled down behind her desk. “It’s the IOA inspection that I’m not too sure about.” She sipped her tea as the thought sent her stomach rolling once more.
“We are being inspected?” Radek said, more resigned than surprised. Ever since they had married in a quiet little ceremony Radek had learned much more about her fights with the powers that be back on Earth. She nodded. “Do you think that we are in trouble, or that you are in trouble?” It was merely a matter of degree as to which was worse.
Elizabeth shrugged. “They want answers as to why we don’t have more information on the Wraith, why the Wraith know so much about Earth, and so on and so forth. Basically I’m just hoping that this is nothing more than paying the price for backing them into a corner over the families. It really depends upon who they send.”
“Stargate activated, it’s Colonel Sheppard!” came from Chuck, who was monitoring the control room this shift.
“Ah, I see that my slave driver has returned,” joked Radek. As he had hoped, it was enough to get her to laugh. “I will return in time to take you to lunch.”
Conner and Murphy had seen many different marks over their years as shepherds for God. They had even learned that aliens who were people carried the marks as well, but they had only seen the sort of marks that this Wraith carried around him on young children, or those who were mentally handicapped. The drones hadn’t had any marks at all, which made Conner think that like drones in other types of insect species, there wasn’t much going on inside their brains. The Wraith knelt there on the ground, staring at the animal as though it had never seen one before.
“Conner, I think he didn’t know that he could eat anything other than Humans,” Murphy said in Gaelic.
“That would account for the marks of innocence and wrong deeds,” Conner agreed. He switched back to English. “It’s real lad. You ate the beastie, whatever it is, was.” He wasn’t sure just what type of herd animal it had been, or its purpose, but at least he did know it was an animal.
“How?” the Wraith whispered, confirming Murphy’s theory.
“Your people didn’t evolve eating just humans,” Murphy told him. “They had to have eaten other animals because the cousins on your side of the family still set webs to catch their prey. They would have eventually died off if they no longer had prey, regardless of how long your people can sleep.”
“Just like the cousins on our side of the family still scavenge for a variety of foods,” Conner said.
The Wraith straightened up. “What do you mean, family?” Conner wasn’t quite sure, seeing as how he’d never talked with a Wraith before, but he sounded very shaken.
“We all evolved from the Ancients, lad. Your people and ours, we just started out on different branches of the family tree. Your people evolved from the Iratus bug while ours evolved from primates, but the Ancients were the ones trying to steer the course for both our people by putting their own DNA in the mix,” Conner said.
The Wraith turned colors, and Murphy wondered if that meant the same thing to a Wraith that it did to a human. “I have heard of your people. You claim to be the children of the Ancients. That you alone are their inheritors,” the Wraith growled.
Conner recognized this tactic. Murphy pulled it often enough, trying to pick a fight when he was unsettled, worried or scared. “Nah, we’re just the eldest,” he said easily. “The Ancients started us off before they came to this galaxy. Then when they left here 10,000 years ago, the few Ancients that didn’t ascend went back to Earth and had kids with the humans there. So you see, a few of us are children of the Ancients, just not anywhere near all of us, and for those of us who do it’s only one aspect of our lives. There are a lot of things that are more important to us than who our ancestors thousands of years back were.”
The Wraith looked shocked, and Murphy couldn’t take it anymore. He burst out laughing. “They were just people lad, and they fucked up a lot. What’s important was that the information that they knew doesn’t die with them. We need to be careful and use that information wisely, just as you now must.”
“What are you talking about?”
The Wraith was frustrated and distracted now, Conner could see. “You have a choice now. Will you continue to eat people, or will you eat animals that have no higher understanding?” he asked. “That is what we object to most you understand, that you can eat animals and yet choose to eat us instead.” Although he and Murphy had drawn their zats, neither had one pointed at the Wraith just yet. This particular Wraith was at a crossroads, and he would need to choose his path before the brothers could decide what to do about him. “And let’s face it; you really can’t blame us for not wanting to be eaten.”
“Especially when we’re not the only things on the fucking menu,” Murphy sarcastically pointed out
“McManus?!”
‘Fucking hell,’ Conner thought. ‘This is all we need.’ The others had found them. It was Colonel Sheppard who had called of course, Teyla and Ronon would have used their first names. “Back off, he needs to make his choice without anyone interfering. Lad’s had a huge shock and needs to process it.”
“What the hell are you talking about?!” Sheppard yelled, more confused and worried than angry Conner was glad to hear.
Ronon said something Murphy took to mean ‘fuck that shit’, and really why had the Ancients been such prudes? A little cussing never hurt anyone. “It’s a Wraith. It needs to die!”
“Don’t make me shoot you Ronon,” Murphy warned. “You know our calling. He hasn’t made his decision yet and you need to let him.” Ronon just growled, unable to back down with one of his enemies within reach. “Ronon, I’m warning ya!” Ronon started towards the Wraith. “Ronon!” Murphy yelled. “Fuck!” he snarled, shooting Ronon once with his zat.
“You shot him,” the Wraith said in wonderment.
“Course,” Conner said with a shrug. “You haven’t made your decision. Getting zatted once won’t hurt him none.”
“Piss him off something fierce but nothing else,” Murphy said with a shrug for what Ronon would do to him later.
“What decision must the Wraith make?” Teyla asked. She and Sheppard were holding their weapons on the Wraith and weren’t even trying to hide it. If it made one wrong move they had every intention of killing it.”
“He didn’t know that he didn’t have to eat Humans. Now he has to decide if he’s going to keep eating them or not,” Conner explained. “We can’t let anyone interfere with his choice. It has to be made freely or it is no choice at all.”
Sheppard and Teyla both nodded. “We’ll take Ronon back to the village. The culling is over, but he should be able to get back to his hive fairly easily if he’s going to keep eating people. I know at least one Dart landed with minimal damage,” Sheppard said. He paused for a moment, weighing the risks. “If he does decide against eating humans, bring him back to the stargate with you. We’ll take him with us when we leave.”
Teyla stared at him. “I know,” Sheppard said as he pulled Ronon into a fireman’s carry. “Elizabeth will have my hide for bringing home another stray, but do you really think it would be right to send him back to his hive if he makes that choice? It’d be like sending an alcoholic to go live in a bar.” The brothers could hear him trying to explain what an alcoholic was and why one living in a bar was bad as they left with Ronon.
It was plain that this shocked the Wraith almost as much as eating the animal had. “You shot him to protect my freedom to make a choice, and those two went along with it. Then the male invited me back to your new world?!?”
“A coerced choice is no choice at all,” Conner said again.
“And free will is one of God’s greatest gifts. We would not be serving him well if we did not defend your choice to choose,” Murphy pointed out. He knew the Wraith would not understand his reference, but he did hope that the explanation would be satisfactory.
The Wraith looked once more at the remains of his meal. “I believe that I shall not be eating humans again, and I will travel with you to your new world. Your people are very… different from what I was told. Your views are quite strange and I think that I would like to learn more about you.”
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Elizabeth focused on her breathing. If she could just keep her breathing nice and regular, she just might hold off this bout of morning sickness. Unfortunately she failed, and with a groan she got up from her desk and ran for the balcony. Retching over the side wasn’t exactly what she wanted to do if she had to puke, but at least it was raining and Mother Nature could clean up the resulting mess.
She walked back into her office only to find Radek waiting for her with a towel and a cup of peppermint tea. “Who do you have spying on me Doctor Zelenka?” she mock growled. It wasn’t that she liked the fact that someone was watching her, more like she was grateful that Radek cared enough to keep track and have what she needed ready when he could. Most other men that she knew would never have thought to do so.
Radek squirmed. “Actually, I think it is Atlantis,” he admitted. He shoved his glasses up when Elizabeth looked puzzled. “Ever since the information that the Ancient’s gestational unit was put into use was inputted into the database, there has been an unusual amount of power being diverted to the internal sensors. It isn’t much,” he hurried to reassure her. “There is no need to worry about that, but the sensors being used are always focused on the babies. When you ran out of your office, a bit of security tape was sent to my laptop. I think that this is another mark in the ‘Atlantis has an AI we haven’t found yet’ column.”
“Well,” Elizabeth said as she finished drying her hair and took the cup, “the ATA carriers all insist that there is something there and feminizing it. If the city is alerting you to when I need some help, I’m certainly not going to object.”
“It should not last much longer,” Radek consoled her.
“The morning sickness I can get through.” Elizabeth dismissed his guess with a wave as she settled down behind her desk. “It’s the IOA inspection that I’m not too sure about.” She sipped her tea as the thought sent her stomach rolling once more.
“We are being inspected?” Radek said, more resigned than surprised. Ever since they had married in a quiet little ceremony Radek had learned much more about her fights with the powers that be back on Earth. She nodded. “Do you think that we are in trouble, or that you are in trouble?” It was merely a matter of degree as to which was worse.
Elizabeth shrugged. “They want answers as to why we don’t have more information on the Wraith, why the Wraith know so much about Earth, and so on and so forth. Basically I’m just hoping that this is nothing more than paying the price for backing them into a corner over the families. It really depends upon who they send.”
“Stargate activated, it’s Colonel Sheppard!” came from Chuck, who was monitoring the control room this shift.
“Ah, I see that my slave driver has returned,” joked Radek. As he had hoped, it was enough to get her to laugh. “I will return in time to take you to lunch.”