A/N: It was never my intention to leave any of my WIP stories pending for any length of time. That said, I'm right in the middle of preparing my book (finally!) for self-publishing, and time has gotten away from me. Once the book is live, my distraction level should decrease significantly (I hope).
The Wraith Todd sent this time to stay with Jennifer was completely different from the one before, to the point she was taken aback.
She'd always assumed that being broody, silent, and secretive was part and partial of being Wraith, but the cheerful Wraith before her was either an aberration, or Atlantis knew far less about the Wraith than anyone had ever assumed.
"So, what do I call you," Jennifer had asked when the Wraith had dutifully moved closer to help Jennifer read a long string of Wraith text.
There had been no hesitation at all. "Blue." The name was offered up so easily and was so innocuous that Jennifer guessed it couldn't be his real name. After all, weren't the Wraith all about maintaining their image of being fear and awe inspiring?
Blue simply didn't fit.
But as the hours wore on, she began to revise her opinion. Whether or not Blue was the Wraith's real name was a question she doubted she'd ever get the answer to, but she was forced to admit that the name fit.
"The commander stated I am to attend to your needs," Blue confessed at one point, and when Jennifer raised an eyebrow, he added with a blush—a blush! lord almighty, Wraith can blush!—and an awkward smile, "My prior hive didn't keep humans, and I'm unfamiliar with what I am sensing from you. I don't know how often hunger or your other needs stir, or how they may feel. But I'll learn quickly," he added eagerly. "Soon I'll know exactly what you are feeling at any given time."
That caused Jennifer herself to blush, to her own surprise. "I'm not hungry right now," she said, but her stomach chose that moment to rumble and belly her words.
She was rendered speechless when Blue laughed. "I will have food brought to you."
Later, after food arrived, Jennifer asked the question that had been looming in the back of her mind. "You can sense what I'm feeling?"
Blue bobbled his head in response, and Jennifer couldn't decide if he was just young, or naive, or both.
"Can all Wraith sense that?" she pressed, hoping he'd say otherwise. The idea that Todd constantly knew what she was feeling had her want to give in to the childish urge to hide from him and prevent him from seeing her intimate self.
Again Blue nodded. "Though obviously those of us who keep humans in our hives are better at understanding them."
In other words, Jennifer thought to herself in a wave of acute embarrassment, Todd knows everything I've been feeling. Everything. How embarrassing.
She'd never had that closeness with anyone before, not even Rodney. To be fair, Rodney was rotten at reading emotions or the mood anyway, but even so, she'd always had the comfort of being her own person in her own space.
Now it sounded like that would be impossible on the Wraith ship. On one hand, it was a good thing she hadn't seriously contemplated escape—or, to be more accurate, had immediately dismissed it as an impracticality, given the fact that she was on a Wraith ship in the middle of what was most likely deep Wraith territory—but on the other, it meant that Todd, her prior Wraith guard, and everyone else were intimately aware of her person at all times, and for Jennifer, that idea was more than a little hard to stomach.
But then Blue surprised her. "We are aware of each other's emotions at all times, Jennifer." He enunciated her name slowly, stressing the Jenn and making the 'i' long in a way that was eerily reminiscent of Todd. "But it is polite to refrain from speaking of it unless the bond is close."
From that, Jennifer took away two things. One, that the Wraith were far more of a psychic race than even Teyla had guessed, and two, that some sort of social code kept them from deliberately intruding on each other's thoughts even though it must be second nature to do so.
She was mollified. Even if Todd knew what she thought, it sounded like he wouldn't remark on it, so she was just going to act as though Blue never told her.
There had been silence after that while she'd eaten, but once she turned back to the code, Blue answered each of her questions as quickly as she'd asked them. Unlike Todd, he wasn't intellectually capable of being her equal—not that he was lacking, but more the feeling she had that his intelligence lay elsewhere, given that he understood science well enough to answer some of her more complicated questions—and so she still struggled to make progress.
What she really needed was someone who understood Wraith genes. Back on Atlantis, that would have meant Carson, but here on Todd's ship, it meant Todd himself. Without him or a viable way of testing the chromosomes to see what would influence what traits, she was left to guess and poke around without much success.
The best she'd been able to accomplish was marking all the spots on the chromosomes that matched a human equivalent, after Blue had uploaded her own sample to compare to. Those, at least, she felt safe in noting as not related to Wraith feeding.
Whatever Todd was doing, she hoped it was equally important to the task at hand.
.
Guide's lips thinned as he felt the stare of his second.
Obsidian was the only other Wraith aboard Guide's ship that knew the feel brunt of what Guide had done. Not all of it, and certainly not Guide's past as a queen-slayer, but Obsidian knew of Jennifer, Atlantis, and what Guide was working to achieve.
Obsidian also knew the truth behind Steel Flower and her human life as Teyla.
What do we do? Obsidian was young compared to Guide, but far older than most of the newest members who had joined Guide's hives after losing their own queens. Other Wraith had deflected by choice, caught up in the drama and power-plays, but most had fallen to Guide because they still desired a place to call home, and that was the one thing denied to a hive that had committed the greatest atrocity and allowed the demise of their queen before the demise of themselves.
Obsidian was different, and he continued to intrigue Guide. Obsidian had left a war-queen, Dark Night, when she was in her prime and had several under-queens that owed her allegiance. In the world of queens and politics, Dark Night was a queen to flock to.
But when Dark Night had demanded Obsidian be her consort, instead of agreeing, as most males would have without question to such an honor, Obsidian had sought sanctuary elsewhere in a rival hive. When that hive had fallen into Dark Night's army, Obsidian had sought another, and then another, continuing to evade the queen who pursued him out of rage.
Dark Night had eventually fallen victim to one of her own sub-queens, but his hive had not forgotten the slight. And it was Dark Night's replacement, Silver Tongue, who vowed to enact retribution in order to consolidate her own position.
Silver Tongue had taken advantage of the power vacuum left by Guide's imprisonment. Obsidian had observed from a distance as three rival queens sought to take control of all the remaining hives, but Silver Tongue currently held the advantage by way of numbers and sub-queens. She'd absorbed most of Guide's leaderless fleet.
The other two rival queens, White Flower and Firestorm, had been left scrambling for crumbs, but what they lacked in numbers they made up for in cunning and ruthlessness.
All three queens were converging on Guide's position.
A jump would alert them to our presence, Guide intoned as he stared out at the vast expanse of space that would soon become a battle ground. There is little we can do but wait.
The queens had likely chosen the same area of space for the same reason Guide had: it was beyond the reaches of Atlantis, but close enough to habitable worlds for supplies, and in an area that could be easily enough defended.
And when they notice us? Obsidian moved to stand just behind Guide. What then, Commander?
Despite the approach of Silver Tongue, there was no hint of apprehension in Obsidian. Silver Tongue's punishment would likely be long and drawn out, to better set the example of her power, but Obsidian remained unexpressive.
We do what we must to continue our mission. Guide's words were just as impassive. Our species as a whole must survive.
A sense of grimness swept through them both at the ominous words, but if Obsidian understood Guide's intentions to eradicate any who stood in his way, queen or not, he never said a word.