Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't owner Stargate Atlantis or any of the characters. All I can do is play my part in keeping them alive. (Sigh!)

This story is unbeta'd because I rattled it off over the past few days and wanted to get it posted tonight since it's the right time of year for it. Apologies for any mistakes. I did the best I could with a tight deadline! :)

oooOOOooo

Dead Wraith Don't Smile…

Part One

The sound of his footsteps echoing back from the hollow passages had been Sheppard's only companion for the past fifteen minutes now and they were beginning to really annoy him. He paused to give his ears a break, shining his flashlight around in an attempt to find his bearings. Okay, if he wasn't mistaken he was almost back at the bridge, which meant he'd nearly completed a full circuit of the Hive ship on this level. That meant he could stop walking soon, and his damned footsteps wouldn't keep thumping through his head like a sledgehammer taking down a stone wall.

The headache had kind of crept up on him and reached near migraine levels before he'd even acknowledged it. Of course, that was most likely because his priorities lay elsewhere considering they were aboard a Hive ship and he was half expecting a hibernating Wraith to suddenly snap out of its slumbers and suck the life out of him. Sheppard shuddered, spinning around to illuminate the passage behind him. All clear. He really had to stop creeping himself out like that.

Above him, Teyla and Ronon were completing their own circuits on higher levels, looking for signs of life. Nothing was showing up on the LSD, but that meant squat as far as hibernating Wraith were concerned. Dead Wraith and hibernating Wraith were unfortunately all the same to their tech. A room by room search was the only way to be sure they didn't have unwanted company.

Sheppard ploughed on, almost tripping as he stumbled over a pair of booted feet protruding a short way out of an open door on his left. He aimed his P-90 so the flashlight gave him a better view, tentatively nudging the boot with his own. No response. He edged in through the doorway, passing his light along the huge form of the desiccated Wraith grunt. Just like with the others, there was a feeding wound in the centre of his chest when he checked the body.

'That's ten,' he murmured, grimacing as he let the decaying fabric of its uniform drop back in place against its withered chest. 'Guess you guys were here for a long time.'

He straightened up, wobbling a little as a wave of dizziness gripped him. Out of necessity, he thrust his hand out to steady himself against wall and waited for the worst of it to pass. The one good thing about a dead Hive ship was that everything was dried out…no slimy, sinuous tissue pressing against his palm. God, he hated that feeling. The hairs on the back of his neck bristled, and he checked around him again, sure something was inching its way up to him. But again, the passageways remained silent and empty, other that his own ragged breaths and his echoing footsteps as he chose now to press on.

It was with an immense sense of relief that he spotted the dim glow of another flashlight in a room up ahead. It told him he was almost back at the controls. He could hear slight shuffling movements, a clue that Rodney was still beavering away to get something—anything – back online. So far, the only thing working on the ship had been the distress beacon, which had its own power source for obvious reasons. They'd cut it just as soon as they'd located it, and now Rodney was trying to connect that power source to the ship's systems to find out if there was anything useful to salvage, be it information or hardware.

He strode back onto the bridge as casually as he could, trying not to let on just how off-kilter he felt. 'How's it going, Rodney?'

Rodney held up a finger, the universal sign of 'shut up and wait'. Mini-flashlight clenched between his teeth, he slotted the distress signal's power cell into the control system panel and suddenly the room was bathed in light. A hum of activation thrummed through the panels surrounding them and much to Sheppard's disgust the shrivelled tissues surrounding the power unit began to flesh out and pulse, new tendrils growing and attaching to the source of their nourishment in a greedy and desperate search for long awaited sustenance.

Rodney swiped the flashlight from his mouth. 'That never ceases to disturb me.'

'I know what you mean,' Sheppard agreed, feeling his lip curl at the mere sight of it. Despite its apparently dead state, a few cells of the ship had somehow retained enough life to be reactivated with the injection of an energy source. It was fascinating really, even though it was also incredibly gross. 'What do we have?'

Rodney crossed over to a screen and scrolled through the data in his inimitably speedy fashion. 'A lot, actually. Command and control systems, hibernation pods, cocoons, data core, offensive and defensive weapons, but zero propulsion systems. Hence why the ship is here and didn't limp its way home across the Pegasus galaxy.'

'Data core,' Sheppard repeated, watching the alien language scroll by over Rodney's shoulder. 'That sounds like something we should check out.'

'Yes, it does,' Rodney replied, gathering up his toolkit and bundling it into his backpack. 'After you.'

As they headed out Sheppard radioed through to Teyla and Ronon. 'You guys done yet?'

'On my way back now,' Ronon instantly responded.

'I am also about to return,' Teyla followed up.

'Find anything interesting?'

Teyla answered first this time. 'Twelve dead Wraith warriors.'

'I found seventeen.'

'All of them had been fed upon,' Teyla added.

'Same,' Ronon grunted.

'I found ten, so that's thirty-nine dead grunts in total. Question is, where did the queen and her commanders go?'

'As long as they're not here, I really don't care,' Rodney quipped, tucking in close behind him as they walked.

Sheppard had to agree with that sentiment. 'Rodney and I are headed to the data core. Join us there,' he told the others.

'Copy that,' Teyla's voice responded through a sudden crackle of static. If Ronon replied, it was lost in the noise.

Of course, just because the missing Wraith weren't on the ship, that didn't mean they weren't still on the planet somewhere. They'd arrived on P36-299 earlier with Lorne's team in tow to provide extra fire power considering they were checking out a Wraith distress signal. Sheppard decided this might be a good time to check in with them. 'Lorne, what's your status?'

He flinched as his radio buzzed angrily, rattling his eardrum. 'Nothing to…ee so far, Sir. Other than small…digenous lifefor…something…ke rabbits. They don't appear to…angerous.'

Sheppard mentally filled in the gaps in the garbled message. 'That's good to hear, Major. McKay just turned the lights on in here so we're going to try to access the data core…see if we can find out what happened to the ship.'

'Acknow…ged. Need an…elp there?'

'Negative, Major. We have things in hand here. Keep checking the perimeter.'

'Okay. Well jus…eep walking….and walki….nd walking.'

John smirked at the weary tone in Lorne's voice as he called back to McKay. 'What's with the radio interference, Rodney?'

'There's a higher than average level of electromagnetic radiation in the planet's atmosphere.' Sheppard heard him wrestle his hand-held scanner from his tac-vest. 'And apparently it's rising.'

Sheppard ground to halt, causing McKay to walk right into him. 'Is it dangerous?'

'No…at least I don't think so,' McKay hedged, avoiding eye contact.

Turning to face him, Sheppard rested his hands on the butt of the P-90 clipped to his vest. 'You don't think so?'

McKay gave an odd little shrug. 'Well, it's non-ionizing so theoretically that means it's safe.'

Sheppard narrowed his eyes, trying to pin him down to an answer. 'Theoretically?'

His insistence on a more direct answer instantly put Rodney on the defensive. 'There's very little data available that could help me predict possible long-term side effects, but I'll go out on a limb and say at these levels you should be fine as long as you don't plan to retire here.'

The sarcasm was more than his aching brain was willing to handle. Sheppard hesitated before answering, his eyes fixed on Rodney's until the scientist reluctantly backed down. Once McKay seemed to understand he didn't have the right to be angry with him, Sheppard snapped, 'That's comforting,' before trudging on in the direction of the data core.

Ronon was already there when they reached the right chamber, his rangy limbs propelling him faster than Sheppard and McKay had been able to cover the shorter distance from the bridge. Before he was aware of them, Sheppard spotted Ronon pressing the heel of his hand into his forehead, suggesting he too was experiencing a headache. He hoped McKay was right about there being no lasting side effects from them EM field on this planet. It certainly appeared to be having some strong effects on them in the here and now.

Without even acknowledging Ronon's presence, Rodney got straight to work accessing the ship's data banks. Sheppard ambled his way over to his friend and leaned back on one of the consoles beside him. 'You okay?'

Ronon gave only the merest of nods, closing his eyes as if the newly awakened lighting was too much to cope with. 'Will be when we get done here.'

'Yeah, that makes two of us.'

Teyla joined them then, looking drawn and fatigued. Something about this planet was taking a heavy toll on their physical well-being. They really needed to wrap this up.

'How much longer, McKay?' he asked, concerned as he watched slide down doorway she'd entered through until she was sitting at the bottom of it, apparently too tired to walk any further.

'Really? I just got here,' Rodney squawked, focussing on his tablet as he attempted to interface with the core.

'I know, but how much longer?' Sheppard asked again, frustrated to once more be pushing for the vaguest of details.

McKay gave an exaggerated sigh and threw him a death glare. 'I don't know. You might as well ask 'how long until the universe implodes?' I've never tried to do this on a broken ship before. These things take time and, hard as this may be to believe, I am not a miracle worker!'

'That's not hard to believe,' Ronon growled, smirking Sheppard's way.

Teyla just sat forward, dropping her head into her hands. 'We understand this is a difficult task, Rodney. But if you could be as swift as possible, we would all be very grateful.'

The pitch of her voice told them all, even Rodney who was not much good at picking up on vocal inflections, that Teyla was already done with the bickering. Diminutive as she was, Sheppard knew a pissed off Teyla shouldn't be crossed. They had all learned that much in their years of working with her. She was a force to be reckoned with.

Sensibly, Rodney worked on in silence, rewarding them a few minutes later with, 'I'm in.'

Sheppard pushed up from his leaning spot and wandered over. 'Cool –' He stopped short of asking what he'd found because even Rodney wasn't that fast.

The scientist mumbled inaudibly under his breath as he scanned reems through the reems of data he'd unlocked. Finally, after a couple minutes more of muttering he announced. 'Here it is. Catastrophic systems failure following a crash a shade over ten thousand years ago. Seems like they managed to get some things functioning…same things we've re-established, but they couldn't fix the engines. And since this planet only has a space gate, that left them trapped here. They sent out the distress beacon, but no one came.'

'Must've been too busy fighting the Ancients,' Sheppard suggested.

'I doubt it. We're not on the outer reaches of the galaxy, so the signal should have been picked up by someone. I'm thinking maybe the electromagnetic radiation prevented the signal from reaching anyone. We can't even get a clear radio signal from Major Lorne and he's only a relatively short distance away.'

Sheppard nodded. That made more sense. The Wraith wouldn't have left a ship down at a time like that if there was any hope of salvaging it or the crew. Their whole battle strategy had been based on overwhelming the Ancients with their sheer numbers.

'The data logs were updated whenever the crew got hungry and roused from hibernation.' Rodney peered closer, as if proximity improved his translation skills. 'Happened quite a few times over the millennia.'

'That explains the bodies,' Teyla called over, straightening up and pushing back strands of hair from her forehead as she rested her hand there. 'Each time they awoke they would have selected some of the warriors for nourishment before returning to their hibernation.'

'Guess the rest of them got rescued,' Ronon said, crossing over to join them now as Rodney continued to scroll down the entries.

The symbols meant nothing to him, so Sheppard tried to be patient as McKay scoured them, mumbling out loud as he speed-read.

Then he stopped. 'Oh no…'

Sheppard's blood turned to ice water in his veins. Oh no was usually Rodney's precursor to We're so screwed or some other calamitous declaration of that nature. 'What is it, Rodney?'

'The last log. It was only three months ago. No one came. The power to the ship failed, and unlike us they didn't want to take apart the beacon, so they abandoned ship in search of another power source. They could still be on the planet somewhere.'

Not missing a beat, Sheppard contacted the major again. 'Lorne, you and your team need to fall back to your jumper and await further instructions, we could have –' he glanced at Rodney, who held up six fingers, '—six Wraith loose and hungry on the planet.'

There was an odd pause, far longer than any of them thought necessary, then Lorne's voice replied, 'Uh, actually, I wa…bout to contact you. We...ust found the...'

Every member of his team tensed, Teyla and Ronon reflexively gripping their weapons. Jaw tight, Sheppard ground out, 'Take cover and we'll be right with you.'

'No rush, …olnel,' Lorne drawled. 'I don't think…ey'll be giving us...ny trouble.'

The major seemed weirdly casual for someone who had stumbled upon at least half a dozen Wraith. Sheppard cast his gaze around his team, their weary features shadowed by worry in the unnatural Hive ship's lighting. 'Care to elaborate, Major?'

'They're de… Colonel. Have be…or so… time, I'd say.'

Sheppard frowned. 'Can you confirm you said they're dead, Major?'

'...at's right, Si… All of…em.'

'Good,' Ronon huffed, grinning and visibly relaxing again.

'When you say some time…?' Sheppard asked, seeking clarification.

'I mean…eeks or months. They're…still…ind of…juicy…'

Rodney complained about the graphic images those words conjured in his mind. Even Sheppard felt his stomach do a queasy flip. He grimaced. 'Okay…'

'There's som...ing…odd about them though, Col…. I think …Kay should come take a lo...'

'No can do. Too busy here,' Rodney insisted, suddenly fully focussed on the data stream.

Sheppard sighed and rolled his eyes. Rodney was notoriously squeamish. This wasn't about his workload; this was about him not wanting to see 'juicy' Wraith corpses.

'Well, now we know there's no imminent threat, I'm sure you can spare them a few minutes,' Sheppard coaxed, hoping to gain McKay's agreement.

'Nope. You all seem to have some spare time, though. Why don't you go check out the rotting bodies?'

'I'm guessing it's something sciency or they wouldn't have asked for you.'

Rodney stopped working and lifted his head. 'Sciency?'

'We can be there and back in no time.'

'And what about this?' McKay demanded, flailing his hand in the direction of the data stream. 'It's not like I can just put a bookmark in it and pick up where I left off!

Aware it was McKay's sense of self-preservation talking, Sheppard bit back an insult and instead simply said, 'It'll be easy to find your place again. It's the part that says, 'the ship's broken, we're out of here'.'

He pinned Rodney with a look that reminded him who was in charge. Rodney glared back, then, with an exaggerated sigh, snatched the cables connecting his tablet away from the console, grabbed his backpack, and stomped for the exit. 'Fine, but what happened to getting this done quickly so we could get out of here?'

Sheppard just watched him go, activating his radio. 'We're on our way, Lorne.'

'Roger that.'

The others followed in Rodney's wake. 'He does have a point,' Teyla said softly as she walked beside Sheppard.

'I know, but don't tell him I said that.'

She smiled, and he heard Ronon snort out a chuckle behind him. McKay was going to be unbearable enough about being forced to do this; telling him he was right would only make matters worse.

oooOOOooo

A few minutes later, Sheppard executed a vertical landing in a small clearing a few yards away from where Lorne and his team waited for them. The area was quite heavily forested, even where the crashed Hive ship had ploughed a path to its resting place, so they were fortunate to be able to land so close. The planet was covered in lush greenery, interspersed with several bodies of water, not unlike Earth in some aspects were it not for the gratingly high EM levels.

Suffused in the reddening hue of twilight, Lorne sauntered over to meet Sheppard as he and the others disembarked. 'Hope nobody ate recently. Lewis nearly lost his power bar.'

'I think we're good,' Sheppard smirked. 'Unless McKay snuck one earlier.'

'As if I've had time,' he huffed, then he suddenly stopped. 'Oh, God!'

His reaction was understandable when Sheppard took a closer look at the cluster of putrefying Wraith bodies lying at the feet of Lorne's teammates. 'Wow.'

'I know, right?' Lorne grinned. 'I always say the only good Wraith is a death Wraith, but those are some pretty nasty specimens.'

The odour of decay was almost overwhelming at that range, and from the corner of his eye Sheppard caught sight of Rodney dry-heaving a couple of times before he regained his composure.

'One of them was food for the others,' Lorne said by way of an update. 'The rest of them…well, that's where you come in Dr McKay.'

'I'm not a medical doctor. Why would I have ay idea what happened to them?'

Completely unfazed by the state of their dead enemies, Ronon brushed past them all and moved in for a closer look. 'I've never seen anything like this.'

'I swear if he licks anything I'm going to barf,' Rodney mumbled, reminding them all of the Satedan's propensity for taste-testing new discoveries.

Thankfully, even Ronon drew the line at sampling mouldy Wraith. Instead, he reached out to pull the fabric of one of the commander's coats back to give him a clearer view.

'Nonono! Don't touch them!' McKay suddenly yelled, bowling forward and yanking his hand away at such an alarming rate that Ronon almost fell back in the dirt. Then, as if forgetting that Ronon could crush him with that one hand, Rodney started to hauled him away. 'We need to stay back.'

'What's gotten into you, McKay?' Sheppard demanded, as Ronon prised his fingers free of his shirt with a murderous glare.

'I've seen that before…well, not exactly that, but remember Doranda? Doesn't this remind you of Dr Collins?'

Sheppard looked at their bodies; the remaining skin and flesh, although liquifying in places, did display some signs of discolouration a blistering. 'Radiation burns?'

'Exactly.'

'Radiation? We're not in any danger though, right?' Lorne asked. 'Thomas kicked a couple of them to make sure they were dead.'

The absurdity of that statement seemed to effectively snap McKay out of his horror. He gaped at Lorne, then at the bodies, then back at Lorne again. 'Really? He had to kick them to be sure?'

Lorne shrugged and give him a wry smile. 'He thought it might be a trick.'

Rodney rolled his eyes. 'Yes, of course. Because the Wraith are renowned across the Pegasus galaxy for their high jinks and hilarious pranks.'

Sheppard shivered involuntarily as a cold breeze rose, tingling against his skin. 'Rodney…we get it.'

'Well, can you belie –'

'I said we get it.' The colonel gave him a stern look, getting him back on track. 'Just answer the question. Are we in any danger from this?'

'Well, I'd say no, but that's because I can't detect any sign of radiation now. Which is odd considering the levels that would have been required to damage their bodies this way. If they've somehow been irradiated in the past three months I would expect to see some trace evidence of the cause in the area, or maybe contamination in the surrounding soil…but there's nothing.'

'So, we're safe?' Sheppard clarified.

'At the moment, yes. But since we have no way of knowing how they were exposed to this level of radiation, I think it would be safer not to handle them at all. We might trigger something catastrophic.'

'Ok, then we need a hazmat team to examine them,' Sheppard agreed, trying to push the thought of inadvertently setting off a nuclear reaction out of his head.

'I think that would be wise.'

'What about Thomas? Will he be okay?' Lorne asked. Behind him, Thomas was looking pretty sheepish, as if he now regretted his choices.

'Since there doesn't appear to be any ionising radiation present at the moment he'll probably be fine,' McKay told him, though he didn't sound completely convinced by his own assurances. 'Just maybe don't kick them again.' His forced flicker of a smile tagged on at the end of that gem of advice didn't help either.

'Lorne, you take your team back through the gate. Update Woolsey on the situation, let himknow we're requesting a hazmat team, and get yourselves checked out,' Sheppard ordered, breaking the awkward exchange. 'We can keep an eye on things here until the haz-mat team arrives…from a safe distance, of course.'

'Yes, Sir,' Lorne grinned, looking pleased to be getting out of there. 'Much as seeing dead Wraith cheers me up, I've had a bellyful of this bunch.' Then he looked over to the rest of his team. 'C'mon, guys. We're heading out.'

A low-lying mist began to settle about a foot deep across the ground as the evening drew in and the planet cooled. It crept across the scene, blanketing the bodies in a shroud of opacity that was a relief to all of them, masking the awful sight and stifling the stench to a more bearable level.

The planet's sun rapidly descended toward the horizon, causing eerie shadow play as its dying rays shone through the wavering branches surrounding them. But that was all it was…shadows…and once he got used to it Sheppard relaxed and found a tree to lean back against as he sat down and rested his aching feet. 'I think it's going to get a lot colder here soon,' he announced, thankful they had the jumper to fall back to once the chill really set in.

Teyla turned up the collar of her jacket and hunched against another strong breeze. 'Perhaps it would be wise to come back tomorrow, once the sun has risen again.'

'No need,' McKay told her with a dismissive flap of his hand. 'I'm going to polish up my compression ratio and download the information from the data core once we get back to the ship. Then I can upload it to read at my leisure.'

Sheppard grimaced. 'Wow, Rodney. You sure know how to party.'

'You have your golf, and I have work. We all relax in different ways.'

'Indeed,' Teyla chimed in. 'I find I relinquish the pressures of the day best while training.'

'You mean while beating my ass with your bantos sticks,' Sheppard smirked, then corrected himself. 'Not literally, of course.'

She smiled and even blushed a little. They both knew there was more than a grain of truth in what he'd said.

'This place is getting kind of creepy,' Ronon growled, his eyes scanning the area as far as the failing visibility allowed. 'Got a weird feel to it.'

'Not getting spooked are you, big fella?' Sheppard called over to him.

Ronon shrugged and continued to look around. It was Teyla who replied. 'I have to agree there is a strange atmosphere in this place. It is most…oppressive. And I cannot rid myself of the overpowering feeling that we are being watched.'

'Me neither,' Ronon grunted, now slipping his particle magnum free of its holster.

Having been battling with his own sense of unwanted attention, Sheppard knew exactly what they meant. And if Ronon was drawing his weapon it was time to be on full alert. The man had a sixth sense for trouble.

'That's just the electromagnetic field,' Rodney countered, matter-of-fact as ever as he pulled out his scanner. 'A Canadian neuroscientist named Michael Persinger studied the effects of electromagnetic fields on people's perceptions and he hypothesised that pulsed magnetic fields, imperceptible to the average person, can make you feel as if there is a presence around you. It's something to do with how the fields adversely affect the brain's temporal lobes. It's really very fascinating, and completely invalidates a huge proportion of reported ghostly activities.' He paused. 'Huh, that's interesting.'

'What?' Ronon asked.

'The EM field just spiked.'

'Maybe the ghosts didn't like you telling them they don't exist,' Sheppard quipped. He knew McKay was most likely right, but that didn't make the creepy sensation any less real.

'You do not believe in spirits, John?' Teyla asked, her large brown eyes fixing him with a penetrating gaze.

'Can't say either way. I've never seen one.'

'I believe that sometimes the spirit lingers,' she said wistfully. 'If something in life remains unresolved.'

'That's ridiculous,' McKay snorted, tapping agitatedly at his tablet's screen. 'We exist as a consciousness because of the unique chemical and physiological functioning of our brains. Ergo, when the body dies we can't possibly exist, because our brains cease to function. It's Biology 101.'

'Can we avoid the existential debate until we get back to Atlantis?' Shepard pleaded, uneasy with the subject matter considering their current situation. Besides, he'd heard McKay have this rant at people many times before. If he didn't nip it in the bud it could go on for hours.

'So, what do you suppose might've caused all this?' Sheppard asked McKay, dipping his head toward the bodies.

McKay shrugged, now engrossed in the readings from his scans of the area. 'Hard to say. Like I said before, I'm not picking up any readings to suggest there are any radioactive materials in the vicinity. Nor are there any signs that there have been any kinds of nuclear reactions in the area.'

'Maybe the sun did it?' Ronon suggested.

McKay lifted his eyes briefly from his tablet, though he didn't bother to turn. 'The sun?' he repeated, his tone exasperated. 'If the sun got hot enough to blister their skin like that, don't you think the landscape might look a little bit more…I don't know…crispy?'

'He's right, Ronon,' Sheppard agreed, intervening before McKay could reach maximum snark levels. 'Nothing would grow around here if the sun was hot enough to burn them like that.'

'Maybe they're like that Dracula dude in that movie we watched.'

Sheppard winced at the 'Ha!' McKay spat out. Ronon had walked right into that retort.

McKay stopped working for a moment to really get his teeth into this one. 'Ghosts? Vampires? Do you people believe in any kind of science at all? Those things aren't real. They're just stories to frighten children. Stop being so irrational.'

'I believe there are things in this universe that even a man of your intellect cannot fully understand, Rodney,' Teyla cautioned through slightly gritted teeth. 'We should always keep an open mind.'

'Not about ghosts and vampires,' Rodney insisted, turning his back on the now hidden grizzly scene and sliding his tablet into his back pack. 'How long do you think the hazmat team will be? I'm starving.'

Typical Rodney. The minute he stopped working he started thinking about food. 'Eat a power bar and suck it up, Rodney. It's going to take them a while to get the debrief from Lorne and gear up.'

Not waiting to be told twice, Rodney plucked his power bar from his vest pocked and tore it open. Teyla and Ronon likewise began to tuck in. Watching them eat made Sheppard more conscious of his own growling hunger pangs. He'd been planning to hang on until they got back to the hive ship to eat his own snack, but he supposed it would be okay to eat now since Rodney insisted he could do a quick download and take the database home for some bedtime reading…

'Well, that was wholly unsatisfying,' McKay grouched, slipping his empty wrapper back into his vest pocket.

Sheppard looked down at the power bar he'd just pulled out and made the tough choice to sacrifice his own comfort for the greater good. Hypoglycaemic Rodney would be no good to any of them.

'Here,' he called over to Rodney, tossing the bar his way. 'Have mine. I'm not that hungry.'

Though he might not be able to point and shoot a gun straight, Rodney's coordination when it came to catching food travelling at speed was second to none. He snatched the bar from the air with one hand. 'Huh…thanks.'

Teyla smiled over at Sheppard. She seemed to understand what he'd done. She was always the first to figure these things out.

The mist behind Rodney rippled as another gust blew across the small clearing. It gave the impression of movement. The more the sunlight faded, the more their eyes and senses seemed to play tricks on them. After watching for a few seconds longer and assuring himself there was nothing untoward causing the subtle undulations, he relaxed again. 'How's that compression code coming along?' he asked, getting Rodney's mind back on work until his body registered the calorific intake.

'Done, I think,' McKay muffled around the bar he'd consumed in two bites. 'I can't be certain without being attached to the data core, but it shouldn't need more than minor adjustments, if any at all.'

'So, once we hand this scene over to the haz-mat team we can be done in a few minutes?'

'Hopefully.'

'That's good because I could really use a break from this EM pressure headache.'

'I think we all could,' Teyla concurred.

In a snap movement, Ronon suddenly had his weapon charged and aimed in Rodney's direction.

The scientist's eyes almost bulged out of their sockets? 'What the hell?'

'Move,' Ronon grunted, standing absolutely rigid.

McKay stepped aside, peering over his shoulder. 'There's nothing there! I thought I was supposed to be the jumpy one.'

'You are the jumpy one, Rodney,' Sheppard reminded him. 'What did you see, buddy?'

'Something moving in the mist.' Ronon's eyes remained fixed on the spot Sheppard had also seen movement moments earlier.

Nerves now well and truly jangled, Sheppard gripped his P-90 and pointed it in the same direction. 'Yeah, thought I saw something, too. Could be some of the native critters Lorne told me about earlier.'

'Could be,' Ronon replied without breaking his focus.

'Perhaps we should scare them away. It would not be good if they were to eat the remains before the haz-mat team gets here to take samples,' Teyla suggested. 'Particularly if they are contaminated.'

'Just fire off a few rounds. That'll make them scoot,' McKay told them with a lopsided smile. 'Animals hate that kind of thing.'

'So do you,' Sheppard quipped, but he did as Rodney suggested, letting loose a round of bullets into the air above the bodies.

Nothing stirred. There was no startled reaction, no scurrying of tiny, furry feet.

Sheppard exchanged a glance with Ronon, the uneasy tingling on the back of his neck now intensifying. The Satedan's jaw was clenched tightly shut. Every muscle in his body remained tensed.

Without a word, Sheppard repeated his actions, releasing another volley of shots across the mist.

Teyla edged closer to him and whispered, 'Whatever is out there does not seem to be leaving.'

'No…no it doesn't,' he murmured, certain now that he could see more movement within that blanket of fog.

Rodney rolled his eyes. 'Maybe it's just the way the fog ripples on this planet…or maybe the animals are deaf and can't hear your gun.'

At that moment everything seemed to fall eerily silent. The wind dropped, and the air filled with a prickling static just like it might before a massive lightning striking.

But no bolt came down to strike the ground.

Instead, very slowly, as if being cranked with an old mechanical winding handle, the Wraith queen's corpse inched its way up into a sitting position, her upper body clear of the mist so there could be no questioning what they saw.

Then, just as slowly, she turned her head to face them and, in all her majestic mouldering glory, she gave them a skin-splitting smile...


A/N: Soooo, I've been absent for a while due to life throwing me a curveball, but I recently got back into writing (the sequel to Precious Commodities if anyone's interested) but then this little story insisted on being brought into the light. Blame my son's insistence on having me make him a Halloween costume to go trick or treating. Anyway, I would have loved to post all of this story today but I ran out of time, so I hope you enjoyed Part One and I'll hopefully have the second and final part up this weekend.

Also, I noticed when logging in that I have some reviews on other stories that never made it to my email inbox, so if you've left a review for anything I wrote in the past year, thank you very much for taking the time to share your thoughts. I wasn't ignoring you...I just never got the messages! :)