Title: Interlude 3 - Recovery
Chapter: 1 – The Aftermath of Destruction
Part: 1/?
Rating: M
Warnings: AU world, mild violence, slight sexual content, and, of course, some angst.
Disclaimers: I earn no money from this, I write only for pleasure. I own no part of the Stargate world, only the characters that I create for myself.
Spoilers: Set in established AU world, set in equivalent time as late season 3 – just after the episode "Sunday". This story calls heavily on the events of the previous fics in this saga and leads the way to the next big fic.
Note: Hello everyone – if people are still out there reading Atlantis fic! Thank you for the nudges and interest from people about this new fic. I have been writing nonstop since the end of the last fic, but life is busy and, again, I wanted to make sure I had the whole story in draft format before I started publishing. I don't want to let anyone down with an unfinished fic. Saying that, this is one of the Interlude fics, so a stepping stone of sorts ready for the next real big fic. But first, let's see how everyone is doing after the big events in 'Not To Have or To Hold'. After all, we left John and Teyla in a rather unresolved place...
Note2: Quick shout out to the group on FB, and to Camy – I promised I would get it up soon
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Chapter 1 – The Aftermath of Destruction
Just Outside Alliance Territory
The silence and emptiness was difficult; Very difficult.
Among his kind, he knew he was strong, intelligent and able, yet, even he was struggling.
The empty space where her presence had lived was almost too much to bear. Her constant presence had always lingered on the exterior of his mind, providing sustenance, meaning to his existence, and clear leadership. Now all there was in that space was emptiness.
Cold, lonely, emptiness.
But, this was the not the first time he had been through this. He had lost his first Queen many thousands of years ago, during the final battles over the skies above Atlantis.
He had been fortunate that another Queen had given him immediate sanctuary, had given him purpose and belonging again. Not many would have done so with his differences. But, he had found a home again, had served his new Queen with dedication and worship...and now she too was lost.
Murdered by the uprising of cattle.
His glorious Queen had been wise, giving to her Hive, and had been forward thinking as one of the founders of the Queens' Gathering. And a glorious gathering it had been; Hives working together, intelligent minds combining to set root in a solar system entirely their own. Never had such an event happened before among their kind. Lost and abandoned Warriors and Drones had joined the gathering, their own pain and loss fulfilled with purpose once more. Purpose led by a gathering of powerful Queen minds.
But all of that was now lost.
He had witnessed the start of the brutal attack by the enemy from the forward station of the Cruiser his Queen had placed under his personal leadership. It had been an honour, especially for him, to lead his own ship and that position was what had saved him.
His distant Hive, his Queen inside it, had been one of the first to face down the approaching enemy, their ships lining up outside the gathering's defensive line.
None had expected what had happened next – ships and bases losing power and communications in an instant and then detonations on each planet, ripping apart and destroying everything that had been built.
Out on the far edge of the solar system, he had watched from the Cruiser with dread – predicting what was fast occurring.
His Hive, his Queen, far away on the frontline had been one of the first to engage the enemy. Within moments her ship had been destroyed, targeted in fiery death, her mind screaming her last command to avenge her and their kin.
He could still feel that horrific moment of her death, followed by the still lingering quiet where her mind had used to touch his. All those around him felt the same since that moment, the other ships he had convinced to run with him had lost their own Queens and Hives, as had the many fighters lost out and alone in the stars that he had packed into the ships' bays. Their new weak gathering of Warriors and Drones were lost, depressed with lonely anger, and none knew what to do.
So, he had led the way, ordered a route that took the small group of damaged ships away from the battle, but not with it to their backs. He predicted that the enemy would chase them once the battle was over, and he had to protect those surviving, so he had ordered a course running close to the enemy's own territory instead.
The territory of the cattle that had somehow risen up: the Armoured Herd.
The others in the group thought him mad for this course, but that was not new to him, and besides, the aching hurt of their lost Queens gave them little more than weak protests. The shock of the attack, the losses, it was all an aching emptiness in them.
He had no idea how to fix that currently, but he knew the first step was to ensure that he kept this group alive and gave their ships time to heal.
And it would give him time to think, because that was what he was so very good at doing.
He had been hatched thousands of years ago during the height of the war against the old Lanteans, but he had been part of a mutated batch. He was not sure if his first Queen had been experimenting in some way, or if there had been some contamination, but most of his hatch had been weak, physically mutated and had been killed quickly. But a few of them, him and three other brothers, had been allowed to live. What had gone cruelly wrong with the rest of their hatch, had formed unique intelligence and enduring body in him and his three brothers, and fortunately their Queen had recognised what they could offer her.
He had been the last of the entire hatch to be birthed, and since had always lingered in hibernation cycles far longer than most, which had resulted in his given name: Long Sleep. His two Queens had allowed him those long hibernation sleeps though, for after those long rests he would often emerge with new ideas on ship systems and weapons potential. He had been greatly fortunate that he had been spared an early death and able to explore the depth of his strange ideas and thoughts.
Of the three of his hatch brothers who had also been allowed to live, two had been killed in battle against the Lanteans of old. Whereas his third brother still lived somewhere, but his mind was shut down and away, as if he were imprisoned somewhere dark and alone.
Which left Long Sleep, the clearest of mind, leading these tattered remains of his kin.
And the pain lingered inside – another Queen lost, murdered, and the empty echoing of silence where her mind had once been.
All he could do for now was keep this collection of survivors alive, to keep them moving in the vast expanse of space.
Lost and lonely.
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The Former Wraith-held Nest System
Burnt desiccated remains surrounded her, ash drifting in the low oxygenated air, smoke still rising in the distance.
Some pieces of buildings still stood far in the distance, but here, closer to the centre of where the generator had detonated, little remained.
Behind the seal of her glass mask Teyla could not hear the debris crunching under her boots, but she could feel it. It gave away in pieces under her, a mix of burnt organic Wraith matter and ash, as she moved onwards towards the centre of the detonation point.
For several days now she had been assisting in searching all of the planets and moons in the former Nest System, seeking out any Wraith that might have survived and lay in hiding. The few that had been found had been on two of the moons, and Si had been the Seeker to hunt them out.
Teyla had been able to tell from orbit that this last planet held no life except her and the Military scanning vessel that was circling overhead, scanning deep into the planet to ensure there were no buried Wraith bunkers. Teyla was certain there were none. There was no hint of the cold sharpness of a Wraith mind close by.
Nothing living remained on this world.
If the generator had not exploded with enough force to flatten a continent, the barrage of the battle from orbit had done the rest. The planet had burned bright and fast in the scans she had studied from the battle. As the undetected buried generator had blown, a fireball had lit up the sky of this planet and the fire had raged outwards, the atmosphere itself fuelling the growing destruction.
That had been days ago, but Teyla could see the thin plume of smoke ahead of her, the centre of the detonation where the intense blaze still had some embers glowing.
She climbed up and over a dust and ash covered lump and stepped down and under a temporary archway that was formed by two burnt twisted pieces of Wraith structure, and finally reached the edge of the crater.
The crater left by the explosion of the generator had appeared large from the orbital scans, and even larger from the scanning vessel when she had flown over it a short while ago, but standing on the edge of it now...
She could hear her own breathing loud inside her mask as she scanned the vast wide hole in the planet's crust.
Leaning closer to the crumbling edge, she peered down into it. Debris littered the inside, a landscape of falling rock, mountains of ash, and twisted broken shapes.
This explosion had helped win the battle for the system, but the destruction...
Teyla had no love for the Wraith, none at all, but to see such devastation. So much death and ruin, it made her fear that this war had turned humanity into something horribly lost.
If there had been any plant or small animal life living among the Wraith's grown structures on this planet, there was nothing left of them now. There was only this horror of obliteration and a planet that would perhaps take generations to recover.
The scanning vessel flew by again, the rushing movement of the air stirring up the ash around Teyla as she watched the vessel pass overhead.
She had to wonder if there would ever come a day when these scenes would stop.
Could there truly ever come a day when there would be no more war?
When no shivers of destructive power would haunt landscapes like this one anymore?
Perhaps even a life in which she never had to be a part of such things.
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Atlantis
It was late in the City.
The lights were lowered, most were in their beds, while those awake were hard at work. Some of those were in the main Infirmary, but even they moved quietly in respect of the night.
The soft tones of those working the Infirmary tonight drifted in through the open doorway into Carson's private room. The only light emanating in on him glowed through that doorway at the foot of his room, down the far length of his hospital bed.
To help with his injuries, to help the fluids and swelling of the vast areas of burnt skin, the head of his bed was always raised. In the reclined position, he was always facing that open doorway looking into the light of the Infirmary beyond.
He couldn't see much through that sliver of a view, but it glowed with light and efficient, kind voices. Nurses and personnel constantly crossed into his view and out of it again just as quickly.
Plenty of people had been visiting through the door during the daylight hours, Rodney practically spending every waking hour at Carson's bedside. And twice a day, like clockwork, Carson had to undergo his treatment.
The Elite had sent one of the top Doctors, or 'Healers' as they referred to them, the woman quiet but professional as she talked to him. She and Keller washed him twice a day and the Elite Healer smeared a strong smelling thick ointment over his burns. It wasn't as painful an experience as he had expected, but then his medical brain knew that was not a good sign. The burns to the left side of his body, waist up, covering his left arm and over the left side of his head and face, had been deep enough to have killed his nerve endings. It meant he wasn't in as much pain as he could be, not that he was in anyway comfortable, but it wasn't a good sign really.
The Elite ointment was working though, he could see the changes already in his skin, but it was a removed observation that he numbly absorbed as he nodded along with Jennifer and the Healer's quiet comments.
He appreciated their work, but was grateful once the daily ordeals were over, and he was back lying reclined in his hospital bed, staring at the open doorway.
But, it was the night-time, like now, that he preferred.
He was left alone, no chattering around him, no pity or whispered worries. In the darkness of his room at night he could watch that doorway...
...and let the ghosts haunt him.
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TBC