Thor's Slayers

by CzarZelinsky

Thor knows more about Earth's exotic wildlife than Stargate Command could have imagined. Thor decides to rectify that situation. SG-1 might be a little better if they just had some Faith. (Buffy/Angel/SG1/SG:A Characters. Story could become M in the future.) [TS has not been scrapped, only placed on the back burner while I recharge and begin WotE]

25. My Faith Protects Me, My Kevlar Helps

— Thor's Slayers —

Chapter Five

My Faith Protects Me, My Kevlar Helps

---

Author's Note: Holy long chapter, Batman. Originally, this was a 5 or 6K word filler chapter. But then I decided I wanted a good action scene and... Yeah, I really wasn't expecting this beast of a chapter, but I did manage to shave off a few thousand words by adding them to the next chapter. Because of the amount of time and effort I spent on this chapter, there will probably be a delay in releasing chapter six.

---

#

December 30th, 2005

"Well hello, Faith, how are we feeling today?"

Faith glared at the annoyingly cheerful doctor from her bed in the infirmary. "We have been fine ever since Buffy made like Norman Bates on the bug yesterday."

Doctor Beckett winced. "Aye, she did seem quite keen on killing the beastie. And speaking of which..."

Faith followed the Scotsman's gesture to the doorway as Doctor Weir and Doctor McKay came into the room, the latter holding her kris that had yet to revert to its original state. The only thing that hadn't changed was the wavy shape of its blade found in most krises, something she was grateful for, though she wasn't going to lie and say the silver and gold look didn't work for her. Because it did, oh yeah, it did.

"Miss Lehane, mind if I ask you a few questions?" Weir asked as she came to stand by her bed.

"Could I stop you?" Faith asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes, you could. And you are under no obligation to answer; this is not an interrogation but we would value what you have to say," Weir answered firmly.

Beside her, still glaring at the kris, McKay snorted in derision.

Faith eyed him but nodded to Weir. "Guessing you want to know about that?" she guessed, nodding toward the kris.

Dr. McKay spoke before anyone else had a chance. "Now, as you know we tried more than a few methods of removing the bug, we tr—"

"Doc," Faith interrupted, "I was there. Get on with it, you want to know about my kris?"

"It is yours, then?" Weir asked curiously, glancing toward the blonde Slayer who was sleeping upright in a chair some distance away.

"Yeah, I told Buffy to grab it when we landed," she confirmed, her attention still on Buffy's slumbering form. Faith winced, adorable as she was, B was going to wake up with one helluva crick in her neck.

McKay huffed. "Okay, fine. Doctor Beckett tried to remove the insect with a scalpel with no luck. In fact, we nearly did the same thing your knife-happy friend did, to absolutely no avail. What is this and how did it change from an impressive looking but ornamental dagger into this?" The man held up the transformed kris, looking both agitated and extremely annoyed; business as usual for the Canadian.

Faith glanced back toward the man and recognized the look in the physicist's eyes. It was the look Sam would get when she had some ridiculously complex puzzle to solve and when Sam got that way, she wouldn't stop until she'd figured it out. McKay was probably the same way, but unfortunately for him, she didn't have the answers he was looking for.

"It's a kris, beyond that, don't really know," she answered with a shrug. Telling them that the strange and mysterious blade had been a gift from a green-skinned, horned, red-eyed, singing demon whose only hint as to its purpose had been a bit of cryptic advice seemed...unwise.

"You said you asked your friend to grab this...kris, specifically. Why?" Weir asked more diplomatically than her impatient colleague.

"It's complicated. Very complicated," she murmured, looking away from them to stare at her kris. McKay and Weir straightened slightly and looked very intently between her and the kris.

"Well bloody simplify it, lass," Beckett demanded, his brogue a little thicker than usual as his own irritation surfaced. "How did you even get this? Rare weapons are one thing, rare weapons that have bits of the Ancient language on them is quite another." The Scottish doctor pointed at a ring of writing around the pommel of the blade. "I may not know much about the language, but even I can recognize it well enough."

"Ancient?" Faith echoed numbly; she'd been so focused on the shiny blade that she'd entirely forgotten about the new inscriptions on the weapon,

"Oh, you didn't notice?" McKay asked sarcastically, and held the kris closer for her inspection.

Faith looked it over, let out a gusty sigh, and let herself fall back onto the bed. The intensity of their questions and depth of their curiosity made far more sense now that she realized their interest lay beyond the weapon's ability to kill the spider-bug-thing when all else had failed. "Will you hate me forever if I say my bartender gave it to me?" Faith replied weakly.

McKay eyes narrowed dangerously and neither Weir nor Beckett looked any more pleased with her answer.

"Let me ask this instead," Faith said slowly, licking her lips. "I saw the writing on the blade after it...changed, but didn't have any time to take a look before you, Meredith, carted it away. What does it say?"

McKay's lips tightened.

"We don't know," Weir said, lips twitching at Faith's dig at McKay, "not entirely. There appears to be writing in several different languages, some of which we have yet to identify."

"Oh."

"Oh, she says," McKay muttered sarcastically and then shook the kris in his exasperation. "What do you know about the dagger?"

"Kris," Faith corrected automatically, then waved off his impending tirade, "and if you keep shaking that at me, I will hurt you."

When the man finally stopped, she continued, "I know precisely bupkis, McKay, and that's the truth. I'm serious when I said a bartender, a good friend of mine, gave it to me; he said it'd bring me luck. All I know is that it's old."

McKay scoffed. "Old?"

Weir glared at McKay until he quieted. She brought a nearby stool to her bedside and took a seat, looking at her with an almost burning curiosity. "Faith, we haven't been able to get a precise age, but a preliminary analysis of your kris puts it at over 80,000 years."

"Oh," Faith murmured once again, suddenly feeling very overwhelmed.

"80,000 years?" Beckett repeated, eyes wide as he turned to Weir.

"At least," Weir confirmed.

Once she'd recovered from her shock, Faith asked, "how much of the writing have you translated or identified?" Faith paused, then gave them a confused look. "Wait, the thing isn't exactly a broadsword, how much writing can there be to translate?"

McKay glowered at her. "Each ring of words around the hilt are a unique language and from what we could translate possess significantly different meanings. We were able to identify Ancient, Nox, and half a dozen ancient Earth languages that shouldn't have even existed at that time! What we could translate means nothing; they're out of context because the words you're actually able to see is only a small portion of the overall inscription."

"What do you mean the words I was able to see?" Faith asked, furrowing her brows.

"Aside from the words circling the pommel, all of the other words that form the rings and that run along the blade," Weir began, "are actually comprised of hundreds, if not thousands, of letters or words themselves. We found out when Rodney...appropriated your kris for testing."

Faith and Beckett leaned closer to look at the kris.

"You can't see it!" McKay exclaimed exasperated, "remember the whole microscopic letters part?"

"The only words that don't have that characteristic are the Ancient words that ring the base of the hilt and the single word stamped at the base of the blade. The latter is clearly an old human language, but not one we've been able to narrow down," Weir added.

McKay nodded. "All the others are just as Dr. Weir said, like word art, but the language here," McKay said, pointing at the base of the hilt, "is straightforward and simple to understand." He paused and looked at his audience with a sniff. "Relatively speaking of course."

Weir gave him an annoyed look.

McKay coughed and hurriedly restarted his explanation. "Doctor Corrigan translated the ring at the base into something approximating 'spirit-jailer', but other than that ring, translation is impossible because all of the other rings have an underlying meaning stemming from the print inside. Even under constant study, it'll be years before we'll be able to identify the languages, narrow down an approximation of the words' meaning, and put it all into some sort of context that give us an accurate translation," McKay said, glaring at the kris he still held as if it were the bane of his existence.

"Spirit-jailer, huh?" Faith asked, gazing at the blade.

"Oh, of course, it's the name of the unbelievably old and physically metamorphosing knife she gets stuck on." McKay rolled his eyes. "How typical."

"How accurate do you think Corrigan's translation is?" Faith asked, eyes narrowed.

The others blinked.

"What do you mean?" Weir asked.

"I mean, could he have gotten the translation wrong?" Faith asked.

"Of course," McKay said, a little too enthusiastically, "as I said before, it's all a matter of context and we have precious little of it. I'd say it's quite easy to mistranslate something nebulous like 'spirit' incorrectly. It's always about context."

"Hey, Beckett. What happened to the insect thing?" Faith asked suddenly. There was a moment of baffled silence before Faith inwardly sighed. "I mean, have you learned anything from the pieces you've recovered?"

"Actually it's quite fascinating," Beckett said, his own study of the kris forgotten. "I'd say its feeding mechanism was disrupted by the blade in such a way as to drive the creature into shock. We might have been able to learn more about the insect's reaction to the knife, however Buffy was...quite expedient and thorough in her destruction of the creature. We used several of the samples we'd collected from you when you first came in and were able to determine that Miss Burkle's theory was correct; the insect fed on you the way the Wraith supposedly do. You'll be pleased to know that the limited degradation of your internal organs and cells began a rapid recovery the moment it was...removed."

Beckett turned to Weir. "I also believe, Dr. Weir, that if this happens again, and this bonnie knife here isn't available, that Miss Burkle was also right about tricking the bug into thinking that the victim is deceased as being a viable method to remove it."

Faith ignored them, still staring at the kris. "Hey, doc, you got any test animals we can hurt?" At their outraged looks, she huffed out a breath. "Not like that, just got myself a 'wee little idea'," she said.

"No, Faith, I have a very limited supply of animals available for in vivo testing and I'm not willing to let you hurt one for whatever mad reason you may have," Beckett informed her before narrowing his eyes. "And that is not what I sound like."

McKay shrugged a shoulder and held out a hand, tilting it up and down. "Little bit."

"Why are you asking, Faith?" Weir asked.

"Spirit-jailer doesn't sound right," Faith said.

"Oh, we'll be sure to correct Corrigan because of your sure-footed reasoning," McKay snarked. "Tell us, does it sound more like 'sharp-pointy-thing'?"

Faith took the kris from McKay, ignoring his sarcastic comment and feeble protest, and studied it intently. "The Lord taketh, the Lord giveth away."

"I'm fairly certain it does not say that," McKay said scathingly, "and you quoting the bible incorrectly neither answers my question, nor does it give me any comfort."

"Seems to me that you're missing some pretty important things here, Meredith," Faith said, the idea in her head beginning to solidify. "This was made only a little after the Ancients first left Pegasus, fleeing the Wraith, right? And this knife here, oh so conveniently interrupts a Wraithlike feeding when even a gunshot didn't. This...this is something they made, or helped make, in case the Wraith ever showed up."

"If your theory, which is quite flimsy by the way, why only one?" Dr. Beckett asked. "Surely we would have seen more of these if the Wraith had still been a cause for concern in the Milky Way."

"How many Ancient weapons do you see us finding all willy-nilly?" Faith countered. "When they Ascended, they picked up their shit to make sure we didn't step in it. Even then, you think they made a lot of swords and knives and crap like this? Nuh-uh. This one was left behind on purpose," Faith said, her own conviction ringing in her voice.

"Why do you say that?" Dr. Weir asked, confused by Faith's bewildering confidence in her own words.

"The word on the base of the blade, the other thing that doesn't have the whacky word art? I recognize the language and I'm pretty sure I know what it says," Faith said, a slight smile lighting up her face. "Doubt it's a language anyone here besides Buffy might know. Cubiform is like that, not easy to read and they all kinda look alike."

"It's 'Cuneiform'," McKay corrected, "but please, continue to inspire our confidence in you."

Faith waved his sarcasm off with a dismissive hand. "This is Sumerian. Don't speak it, can't read it, but I can recognize a couple of words. Back when I was a teen in Boston, a professor at Harvard who studied mythology and history helped look after me for a while during my time in foster care. She was a good woman. A real class act, you know? She taught me a lot of things and like you said, McKay, it's about context." Faith pointed at the symbol. "This, you could say means hunter, or soldier, or assassin, even something more poetic like Slayer."

McKay groaned audibly and Weir gave her a pained look.

"A weapon to fight the Wraith, even a feeding Wraith, any drone or space gun could do, yeah? A knife like this has to have a more specific purpose for the Ancients to have bothered to create it. Spirit-jailer...no. Like you said, McKay, Spirit is pretty open to interpretation, but jailer... Maybe it's not a jailer, but a protector, or a holder, or a keeper, they can all have the same rough meaning, right? But see, I've been thinking—"

"I imagine that your brain must hurt, after neglecting it for so long. Cubiform," McKay blew a raspberry.

Faith gave him the finger. "Dr. Beckett, what is a Wraith doing when it feeds?"

"It feeds on your life energy," Beckett replied.

"Life energy," Faith repeated, "like essence, or vitality—"

"Or spirit, yes, we get the connection," McKay said impatiently, "what's your point?"

"A knife wouldn't be a jailer; it makes no sense in that context. The Ancients didn't just make some fancy knife with all the language crap just so it could carve off a slice of Wraith," Faith said, excited now.

"Charming image," Weir said dryly, "but, at the risk of repeating Rodney, what's the connection?"

"The knife changed when it killed the bug, right? But what if it wasn't about the kill itself? A jailer, holder, or keeper, right? What if it wasn't about killing the bug or Wraith, but about keeping the stolen 'spirit'? The Wraith have to be close in order to feed, yeah? so what if this was a way for the Ancients to kill a feeding Wraith or heal their victims."

"That's a lot of very loose deductive reasoning and assumptions based on the fact that you disagree with an expert's translation, on the basis of it 'not sounding right'," Weir observed. "And there's no evidence that it has any kind of healing or restorative properties."

Faith stood up, brushing past McKay and searched the area until she found what she needed. She set the kris down and used the scalpel she'd found to make a shallow four inch-long cut above her tattoo on her left arm.

"What are you doing?!" Dr. Beckett cried out.

"Pipe down MacDougal, it's barely a scratch," Faith retorted.

Faith took up the kris, spent a second judging the state of her sanity, and carefully placed the very tip of the blade into the wound. She didn't actually feel the blade enter her arm, probably stemming from the fact that her left arm immediately went numb. She cursed and hastily withdrew the kris out, letting it fall to the floor with a loud clatter. Her arm felt cold, impossibly cold, and she stumbled back until her back hit the wall. She closed her eyes, breathing harshly.

She might have slid to the floor had two hands not grabbed her and kept her upright. Two small, feminine hands. Fuck.

"You are so fucking stupid," B growled out, "and even stupider for doing this while I was in the room sleeping."

Faith winced, she had forgotten B had been there.

"I can't say I disagree," Beckett chimed in.

"Cubiform," McKay said simply, arms crossed and wearing a smug expression.

A pair of small, feminine hands grabbed her and lifted her so that she sat on the nearest bed. Faith took a deep breath and opened her eyes, lifting her left arm for inspection. There was blood left over on the skin, but wiping it away revealed her healed and unmarked, albeit numb, shoulder.

"This is the part where I get to say I told you so, right?" Faith panted, displaying her healed arm to the others.

Weir examined the shoulder with wide eyes and turned as Beckett returned with the kris, restored to its former bonelike appearance.

"What?" McKay exclaimed, to nobody in particular. "What? No! It makes no sense for your half-assed logic to actually be correct. No!"

"God, you people are such doubters," Faith said, letting out a deep breath. "When were the Ancients ever poetic about naming their shit, huh? They called themselves the 'Ancients' for Christ's sake. And let's not forget about their calling the big circular gates used to 'travel the stars' through other big circular gates an Astria Porta which means...wait for it...Stargate."

Faith laughed, rubbing her shoulder. "I told you! 'The Lord taketh, the Lord giveth away'. Spirit-jailer, hah. A weapon the Ancients made on Earth in case the Wraith ever came looking for them; stops 'em feeding and heals their victims. To some extent anyway. You can tell Corrigan that this here kris, is not a 'spirit-jailer', no, I think 'essence-keeper' is more accurate."

Faith felt very smug until the small feminine hand that had lifted her onto the bed delivered a stinging slap to her face.

"You are so fucking stupid," Buffy hissed, "why would you even test it on yourself? Beckett has lab rats."

"He wouldn't let me borrow one," Faith answered weakly, a hand held to her cheek.

"You are a moron and I'm still tired, so I'm going to bed. Don't join me," Buffy growled, and stalked out of the infirmary, letting out a stream of invective as she did so.

"Um, why would you join her?" McKay asked, looking confused.

Dr. Weir and Faith just looked at him until he went flushed a deep red. "Oh, come on, that's not fair!"

Beckett, on the other hand, wore an expression that was the very definition of woebegone. "You are a cruel woman to destroy a man's dreams so."

Faith snickered and stood up, still rubbing her arm to help remove the remaining numbness. Taking the kris from Beckett, Faith leaned up and kissed his cheek. She then winked at the stammering Scotsman, ignored McKay altogether, and sent a two fingered salute at Weir.

The head of the Atlantis expedition raised an imperious eyebrow, but glanced at Beckett, smiled, and waved Faith off.

---

January 9th, 2006

"Really? A Lord of the Flies planet?" Buffy asked.

"Pretty much," Sheppard said, looking sheepish yet somehow satisfied by the time he'd concluded his tale.

"I do not understand," Teyla stated, looking at Buffy with a confused expression.

"It's a book from our world. Bunch of kids get trapped on an island without any adults and go a bit crazy," Sheppard answered her.

"I see. Then it is an apt comparison," Teyla agreed.

"Pretty surprised Sumner didn't argue with Weir about sending the ZPM back," Faith murmured.

"He's not that bad," Sheppard said. At the look on Buffy, Faith, McKay and Stackhouse's faces, he cringed. "Okay, he's not that bad anymore. Think getting captured and doing desk work was good for him?"

"I dare you to say that to his face," Sergeant Stackhouse said, pointing a figure at the other man. "But you're not wrong, Major. Colonel's always been a bit stiff, but he's one of the better COs I've ever had. He's...eased off since coming to Atlantis."

"Can't say I'm upset, though he doesn't mind taking potshots at me every time we're in the same room," the Air Force officer groused.

"It's his way of saying he cares," Buffy said sweetly.

Louis smirked at Buffy's comment, but asked the major, "you got a mission today?"

Sheppard nodded. "Checkin' out a new planet, you?"

Stackhouse eyed the two girls with a miserable expression. "CQC training with our new trainers. We'll be with AR-2 and a few of the scientists."

Sheppard winced. "Have fun with that."

Faith smiled. "Don't worry, we'll take it easy on you, Lou."

Louis sent a pleading look toward the Air Force major. "Every time they say that, they still manage to hurt me in a new and exciting way."

Sheppard smiled, "well at least you're getting better, right?"

"You're up next when you get back, Sheppard, don't get too smug," Buffy said, crossing her arms and glowering at the tall man.

John Sheppard stopped smiling.

---

January 19th, 2006

"Hey you! Short, blonde, and gorgeous! Happy birthday! Wanna go on a date?"

Buffy looked over her shoulder to see her grinning lover, fully loaded out and looking more than ready to kick ass with her P90 angled downwards across her chest, kris strapped to her belt, and M9 holstered on the other side.

"I'd say your idea of a romantic birthday date seems to be quite different from mine," Carson Beckett observed with his typical Scottish lilt, maintaining his grip on the fishing pole even as he turned to examine the newcomer.

Buffy, after an embarrassing display of pleading, cajoling, and coercion on the part of the Scotsman, had been dragged by him to the West Pier for her first fishing lesson. He'd called it her birthday gift but she was reconsidering her estimation of whether the man was evil or not. Fishing was so not her thing.

The blonde eyed Faith speculatively. "We've never talked about role play, but I can tell you that that getup doesn't do much for me."

Beside her, Beckett nearly dropped his fishing rod. "Would you stop doing that! I've already figured out that you say those kinds of things just to embarrass me, you can stop anytime now."

"It's just so easy though" Buffy told him with a simpering voice as Faith snickered behind her. She turned back toward her lover. "What exactly are you proposing, Faith?"

"Wanna kill some Wraith?"

"Yes! Sounds fun, sorry Beckett, you'll have to find someone else to fish with you today. You should ask McKay; he needs more friends. Duty calls and all that," Buffy said cheerfully, waving her farewell.

"You could at least not sound so bloody happy about your 'date', it's quite disturbing," Beckett called after them.

#

"AR-3," Sumner addressed the four individuals in front of him in the conference room. "You'll be performing the first mission off-world that will put you in deliberate and direct contact with the Wraith since Sheppard's rescue operation. While Sheppard was on the Hoffan homeworld, we were given intelligence about a likely Wraith outpost on or around the planet designated as M4S-683. They were able to provide the coordinates from their last culling and we will use those coordinates, if possible, to acquire additional intelligence about the Wraith."

"I'm assuming we'll be sending AR-2 or some sort of probe out first ?" Louis asked. "I'd sure hate to walk into an ambush...or space for that matter."

"Your assumption would be correct," Sumner nodded. He gestured to Dr. Weir.

Dr. Weir sat forward. "As we all know, we have a limited amount of supplies on Atlantis. Those supplies been supplemented by our various trade agreements that we've made but most of our equipment and weapons are irreplaceable until such time as we are able to make contact with Earth once again. Several of our scientists have dedicated their time to finding ways to stretch what resources we do have, to introduce new technologies and resources we've acquired."

The others watched as she placed a small metallic ball roughly the size of a softball onto the table. "The fact is that while we'd love to send a M.A.L.P probe out with every team we send to an unknown planet, we simply cannot afford to lose the ones we have left. Dr. Grodin has been heading the project to find an adequate substitute," she said, indicating the ball. "This is a very simplistic probe that will provide enough data to determine if the area is immediately viable. Temperature, radiation, and breathable atmosphere detection, along with a fixed camera. Not much, but enough to know if you can step through and not be blown into space or into a firestorm."

"So, we send the shiny tennis ball through the Stargate and...?" Faith asked.

Sumner raised an eyebrow. "The 'shiny tennis ball' is scheduled to be thrown through the Gate in thirty minutes; AR-2 will follow once it's determined that it's safe to do so. Their mission is to conduct a preliminary survey, confirm the Wraith presence, and come straight back. If AR-2 is able to use a Puddle Jumper and stay cloaked, they should be able to be in and out within an hour. Unless AR-2 is discovered or Bates deems the Stargate's immediate surroundings as too exposed, then your mission will proceed. Dr. McKay has pointed out that it's possible they monitor the Stargate, so we're going to give them as little time as possible to react; you'll proceed immediately to M4S-683, by Jumper if possible. Your secondary goals are to acquire information about the planet and its inhabitants, whatever they might be. If there is a Wraith presence, you are to actively scout their positions and determine the size and capability of their force. Determine if there is a significance to their location and whether or not they maintain an active presence on the planet."

"Why wouldn't Bates be conducting this entire mission?" Buffy asked with a frown.

Sumner sent her a brief smile. "I said this would be the first mission to make deliberate and direct contact, Miss Summers. As I've said, AR-3's secondary purpose is to collect detailed survey and reconnaissance information. Your primary mission objectives, however, are to acquire information directly from a Wraith computer system, to capture a Wraith and bring it back to Atlantis, and to do your best to leave no Wraith alive to report your presence or activity."

"Doctor Kavanagh will be briefing you, Sgt. Stackhouse, on the data extraction system you'll be using," Weir informed him. "Meet him at the auxiliary lab on the East Pier when we finish here."

"Ma'am," Stackhouse acknowledged with a nod.

"If it wasn't obvious before, because we're predicting this mission to involve a sustained engagement with the Wraith," Sumner began, "Miss Burkle will not be joining you on this mission."

Buffy and Faith gave each other identical conflicted looks; it would've been nice to have the Old One on a mission like this, but it would be pretty hard to explain.

"'Primary mission objectives'," Markham echoed. "Gotta say, when I first joined the Corps, I never thought that'd mean flying a spaceship belonging to humanity's ancestors in a different galaxy from the lost city of Atlantis to go fight space vampires."

A chorus of agreement and laughter met the man's observation.

"Get the rest of your gear and get to the Gate room as soon as possible," Sumner said solemnly. "AR-2 will be on standby in Atlantis if you need assistance, however be aware that they're serving as backup for AR-1 while they're making first contact with the Genii, as well. Sergeant, keep that in mind if you have the sudden urge to be loud in your entry."

#

"Send the probe through," Weir ordered.

The former diplomat and the gruff Marine colonel stood in the DHD room, watching as the probe was tossed lightly through the Stargate by one of Sumner's men. The Puddle Jumper hovered, waiting for Sumner to give the final order to execute their mission.

"Dr. Weir, we're receiving probe telemetry," Dr. Grodin reported.

Weir strolled up to the man, looking at the results the probe was relaying. "What are we seeing, Peter?"

Peter Grodin's fingers danced across the keyboard as he attempted to sort the raw data for a proper analysis. "Annoying problem about the probe, ma'am, is that all the automated programming that we take for granted in the M.A.L.P we have to do by hand for the probe we've developed." The man continued typing, more windows popping up with a more graphic and readable display of results. "Not space. Breathable atmosphere with no immediately evident danger. Temperature on the cool side. Gravity appears normal, based on how long it took for the probe to drop to the ground from the height we tossed it here."

"Pictures of the area?" Weir asked.

"Collating...here."

Sumner approached the pair and looked over the images. "Dark out, but it's definitely a flat area, large enough for a Puddle Jumper to maneuver through."

"Looks like some trees in the background, maybe a mountain in the distance," Weir added.

"AR-2, your mission is a go, good luck and godspeed," Sumner told them through his earpiece.

The Stargate blinked out of existence the moment the Jumper zoomed through, leaving the Gate room unexpectedly quiet. Weir turned to Faith and the rest of AR-3. "Sergeants, ladies, go ahead and load up in one of the Jumpers and be prepared to execute your mission. We'll keep you updated of any developments."

Stackhouse's eyes flicked to the colonel, who gave him a wry nod. "Ma'am," the sergeant replied, and the four left at a fast walk.

Weir turned to Sumner. "Marshall, I believe I might have stepped on your toes there. I apologize, you're their commanding officer, not me."

"I appreciate that, Elizabeth. Perhaps you did, but if something were to happen to me, it's important that they'll follow your orders as well. God forbid they have to follow Sheppard's orders."

Weir grinned. "He's not that bad, Marshall."

"Man makes the right decisions, but he also invites trouble on every mission," Sumner said, his mouth set in a line.

The diplomat huffed. "Teyla says the Genii are a peaceful agrarian society. You really think he could cause trouble with them?"

"If there's a way, yes," the Marine replied instantly.

#

The four members of AR-3 that were waiting on the Puddle Jumper all stiffened when their earpieces crackled to life.

"AR-3, your Jumper may deploy to the Gate room. Your mission is a go."

Faith squeezed Buffy's knee when the unknown technician's words echoed in their ears.

The two Slayers felt the shift of the Jumper as Markham and Stackhouse brought the Ancient ship down into the Gate room.

"You ready?" Buffy asked, anxiously looking over her gear.

"Fuck yeah," Faith said with a grin, hoping her confidence would bolster the blonde. "Come on, B, we just did this shit last month."

Buffy breathed out and nodded. "Wasn't expecting a gift quite like this, Faith," the blonde said dryly.

"Don't worry, B, your real gift is waiting for you when we get back to Atlantis."

The suggestive purr in her voice left Buffy with no doubt as to the nature of what that gift might be. Buffy blushed, but looked a little readier for what lay ahead.

"Alright AR-3. Good luck and kick ass. Ooh Rah," Sumner's voice echoed through their headsets once more.

#

Sumner and Weir stood side by side as the Puddle Jumper sped through the Stargate.

"You sure this is the right thing to do?" Dr. Weir asked quietly. "We haven't taken a risk like this before."

"Being determined to do the right thing at the expense of a wiser tactical decision is an excuse to exercise your own mental frailty and personal weaknesses. Learning about these Wraith, to measure their strengths and weaknesses in the field of battle, these will hold value in the future for tactical decisions, not right ones. The Wraith have terrorized, culled, and fed upon the humans for many millennia. Now, the Slayers will begin culling the Wraith and the leaches will be given their own monsters to fear."

Both Col. Sumner and Dr. Weir nearly jumped out of their skin when the cold, flat voice of Illyria came from behind them in a harsh whisper. There was no indication that anyone but her intended audience had heard, both of whom just stared at her.

"I'm assuming you're speaking of Faith and Miss Summers?" Col. Sumner asked.

The Old One nodded, still speaking softly, her voice utterly at odds with her sweet and happy appearance. "On our world, the Slayers are the monsters to your monsters. In this galaxy, it will be no different."

---

January 19th, 2006
M4S-683

"What is that?" Faith asked, looking through her night vision binoculars at the large structure that was clearly the hub of Wraith activity that Bates had reported. The Wraith Darts that occasionally zipped by supported that claim though no Wraith had been seen on the ground yet.

"I'm not sure," Louis murmured. "Night vision is great and all, but the fucking things don't really give you the best picture."

"Well we're supposed to sit tight and observe for a short time, anyway," Buffy pointed out. "We can at least use this time to set up a couple observation poles—"

"Posts," Louis, Markham, and Faith corrected automatically.

"See? You agree with me," Buffy beamed. "Use the remaining night and tomorrow's daylight to observe, meetup at the Jumper to get have a group chat and then kill 'em all tomorrow night."

Markham startled at Buffy's bluntness and glanced at Sgt. Stackhouse.

"You get used to it," Louis said sympathetically.

"God, I feel like it's been forever since I've killed something," Faith murmured quietly.

"Mostly," Louis muttered, appending his statement.

#

"So."

"So?" Buffy asked, continuing to peer through her binoculars.

"You and Faith?"

Buffy narrowed her eyes and looked away to stare at the man. "Got a problem with that?"

Louis shrugged. "Can't say I get it, but I don't think any less of either one of you for it. Plus, I know for a fact that both of you could kick my ass."

Buffy grinned. "There is that. How'd you know?"

Louis gave her a look of utter disbelief. "You expected McKay to keep a secret like that?"

"I'm going to hurt that man," Buffy growled.

"Well, that and you two were seen making out with an impressive display of enthusiasm in the mess last week," Louis added smugly.

"Crap," Buffy swore. "Stupid Faith and her fucking stupid streak. Who saw?"

Stackhouse chuckled. "AR-1 and Col. Sumner."

"Oh fuck."

"It wasn't that bad," the Marine said with a conciliatory tone. "Apparently, Teyla already knew and Sheppard looked like he'd already figured it out, according to Dr. Corrigan."

Buffy nodded. "Not surprised, Teyla and Faith became fast friends. Teyla likes fighting people she can't instakill and Faith likes having a woman around who is just as blunt as she. Not surprised about Sheppard either. Um...how'd Sumner take it?"

In the dark, Buffy watched Louis scratch his head for a moment before shrugging. "Um, Corrigan said he got quiet, shook his head, and told them to find another place to play poker for the night."

"Anyone take it badly?"

"Not the way you're thinking. Couple of assholes, even by Marine standards, want to bed the both of you and 'turn you straight'."

"Wow."

Stackhouse nodded and looked back through his binoculars. "I don't think it's a building, Buffy, and I think I know why the Wraith are still here."

"What do you mean?" the blonde asked, squinting.

"That's a ship, not a Hive ship, but definitely a ship. Looks like it crashed and I'm willing to bet the Wraith have been using it as a base of operations when they cull off-world," Stackhouse said.

"I see it now, too," she murmured. "There's probably gonna be a lot of bad guys in there."

"And maybe some people in line to be fed on," he replied. "We're going to have to be fast and quiet if we're actually contemplating an assault on that ship. We were planning on a small base, not a ship like that."

Buffy nodded. "If there're a lot of people being held captive, we'll only be able to fit a few into the Jumper if we free them."

"We'll figure it out, but for now we keep watching. We need to get as accurate of a count of their numbers as possible, see if there are any visible entrances, and patterns to ground patrols and Dart sweeps."

"Got it, Lou," Buffy murmured and got settled in for a long night.

#

"You see it?" Louis asked.

"It's a ship," Faith confirmed with a nod. "Smaller than the one we rescued Sumner from."

Louis nodded. "If it's the same general shape as the Hive ship, then about a third of that ship is buried. Make it less than a kilometer in total length.

"Which would be of the good," Buffy added. "Less area to cover and fewer Wraith lurking about."

"We think we counted a total of 20 individual Wraith but it's hard to tell with those big soldiers of theirs, but we did see at least six of the unmasked type," Faith said.

Buffy frowned. "Didn't see any unmasked Wraith, but there were patrols of five Wraith soldiers every 15 minutes on our side. Make it at least 20 of them if they never take a break."

"Meaning at least 50 Wraith, not even counting any inside," Markham said, crossing his arms. "Even with a smaller ship and crew, those aren't good odds."

"Never tell me the odds," Faith ordered sternly.

"Only saw two Wraith Darts. They landed on the ground every few hours to swap out pilots before going back out. 30 minutes between their patrols over this area," Stackhouse pointed out. "If I guessed correctly about how much of their ship is buried, it might be the reason they land on the ground and why we've only seen two: their hanger could be obstructed or damaged."

Faith nodded. "If we're gonna catch us a leach, we gotta go for one of the unmasked fellas. I never saw any on an actual patrol, but I did see them go to the ground level and disappear into a gap between the ship's buried section and the top of the rise the ship crashed through."

"Think they're going there to feed on captured humans?" Buffy guessed.

Louis nodded slowly. "That ship is pretty messed up and I could see a lot of tears and breaks in the hull, so it's possible they had to make use of the surrounding area to keep captives like they've been using for the Darts. If that's the case, it would also be the simplest method of capturing one of the Wraith."

"So why go in the ship at all?" Buffy asked.

"Intelligence," Stackhouse reminded her. "Wraith technology isn't as advanced as the Ancients' but there are a few areas that they operate on similar principles, according to Rodney McNerd anyway. With the information that AR-2 has collected on the last few missions, Kavanagh and Zelenka are confident they've developed a device and method for data extraction if we can find a computer interface inside."

"Go in, kill Wraith, hack an alien computer like it's Independence Day, capture Wraith, and free humans on the way out," Buffy repeated. "Got it. Easy peasy."

"At least the ship's internal lighting looks fine," Faith stated. "Might have to use night vision on the way in, but once we're in the ship we should be fine. If we time it right, sun will be rising and we can be as noisy as we want."

Louis shook his head at her before looking them each in the eye. "We have four problems to consider, however. One is that we simply don't have enough people here for a sustained fight; we should try to get the intel first and do everything else on the way out like you said, Buffy. Two, is that we'll need someone with the Jumper from the start because it's a damned certainty that we'll need a quick evac. That means only three of us are going into the ship in the first place, hence point number one."

"Guessin' that'll be me," Markham frowned. "I've seen each of you at the range and in the gym; I know I'm good but all of you are better shots. However, I am the best pilot here; I'll man the Jumper and keep it cloaked. Just radio in when you need the Darts to disappear or if you need an evac and I'll be there with bells on."

Stackhouse nodded at the other Marine. "Three is that one of our mission objectives is to capture a Wraith. Someone will have to carry the Wraith back to the Jumper. That means our three gunhands become two on our way out."

"What's the fourth problem?" Buffy asked.

"The fourth problem is a bit of a two-parter; however, it may not even apply or apply as much if we're dealing with a ship so much smaller than the other one. Fred said there were hundreds, thousands, of dormant Wraith on the Hive ship; those sleeping Wraith woke up the moment the Keeper died so if we do encounter someone like that, try to incapacitate instead of kill. Fred suggested the Keeper, which was the only female Wraith she encountered, has the same Jedi mind tricks that the other Wraith do, but almost certainly stronger. Meaning if you get captured, she might be able to do more than just make you jump at shadows, so do not captured. As I said, with a smaller, crashed ship there may not even be a Keeper or some equivalent but we simply don't know enough about them to do anything more than guess," Louis explained. "Faith, you got the life signs detector?"

"Tricorder, check," the brunette Slayer said with a thumbs up. "Even with your four problems of doom, Lou, smaller ship means smaller crew and easier to find a hard drive or whatever, like B said. We can do this."

Markham nodded. "Keep in mind we were only expecting a small outpost; you better come back with some solid intelligence or Col. Sumner will be pissed at us for actually trying to execute this plan."

"You mean the plan where we'll be charging into an alien ship with an unknown number of highly advanced space vampires onboard when we already know we'll be outnumbered more than ten to one? Or that they have two airborne vehicles to our one?" Faith asked with a raised eyebrow. "No biggie, we'll make like the Spanish Inquisition." Faith nudged him with a smile.

"What?" Markham asked, confused.

"Didn't you know? No one expects the Spanish Inquisition, Sergeant," Faith said, with a feral grin.

Stackhouse rolled his eyes. "Grab what you need, we're going in asap. Make sure to bring a few blocks of C-4, flashbangs, and a helluva lot of ammunition. Buffy, you mentioned you've used a shoulder-mounted missile launcher or RPG before? Grab one of the AT-4s from the Jumper, too. Bates apparently managed to shoot down one of their Darts with one, might make a great door opener, too."

"I thought you were a civvie," Markham asked with a puzzled expression. "When did you ever use an RPG?"

"High school was hell," Buffy answered blandly.

#

Faith breathed out in a steady, even rhythm as she and her two companions made the two klick journey from Markham and their Jumper all the way to the east side of the ship, apparently without being detected. With the amount of damage to the hull, it wasn't long until they found a small tear to use as their doorway, one that appeared to be rarely patrolled and that led to an actual corridor.

"Didn't bring your swords?" Louis asked quietly, looking almost disappointed.

Faith flipped out the expendable sword and collapsed it, much to the Marine's obvious delight. "That, my trusty kris, and all of the shiny and destructive instruments of death that Uncle Sam has provided should do."

Buffy tapped a hammer at her side. "Likewise."

"You brought a...hammer?" Louis asked, his feelings on the matter pasted on his face.

"Just you wait, Stackhouse, just you wait," the blonde replied with a grin. "Now let's stop with the stalling and play some whack-a-Wraith."

Faith looked down at the scanner. "Two of them just passed about 20 feet ahead of us through the corridor we're getting ready to bisect. We need to use hand signals or be vewy vewy quiet. If we come across any, try to knock them out or take 'em by blade."

Stackhouse flashed a smile. "Did you ever come across any computer or electronic terminals when you went in to rescue the colonel?" he whispered.

Faith glanced at Buffy, they both shook their head.

Louis blew out a breath and adjusted his grip on his M249. "Then we go in deeper and find any open terminals of any kind and try to interface with it." Stackhouse opened a vest pocket to pull out a small rectangular object that had about the same dimensions as a credit card but was at least an inch thick. "This should crack any open port and download the data into the memory. Kavanagh said it shouldn't take long, but you'll have to cover me when I start the process."

The two girls confirmed with a thumbs up.

"Faith, lead the way," he ordered quietly.

Faith glanced at the 'tricorder' again and began moving forward. She let the P90 fall across her chest and drew the kris from her belt, but her attention remained focused onto the device's display. Stackhouse was behind her while Buffy watched their back.

They'd made it about 100 feet into the ship before Faith sidled into an out of the way alcove and beckoned the others to join her.

"We've dodged about seven Wraith now, but I haven't seen any consoles or Wraith who were stationary for long enough on the scanner to be using one. We need to put up some kind of discrete markers up to use as breadcrumbs if we're going to go any deeper," Faith murmured almost inaudibly.

Louis removed a roll of red tape from his vest and pointed at the corridor they'd been using. At the junction between the ceiling and the wall was a small piece of red tape. Buffy nodded and gave them a thumbs up in acknowledgment. Looking down at her scanner, she spun her finger around in a circle and then pointed back to the corridor, leading the party back to its course further into the bowels of the Wraith vessel.

Perhaps ten minutes later of slow but steady progress, Faith held up a fist and pressed herself against the wall in a crouch. Louis made his way up to her until he was looking just over her shoulder.

"What's up?" he breathed into her ear.

"Big open space ahead of us, ten life signs inside, all but two stationary." Faith shifted the display for Stackhouse and Buffy's inspection.

Buffy and Louis studied the life signs detector intently. According to the scan, they were about to enter a large circular space. Three dots were forming a sort of triangle in the middle of the room while the other five unmoving life signs were stationed at irregular intervals along the wall. One moving dot was circling the three in the middle, occasionally pausing before continuing to the next dot. The other moving sign was doing the same for the five on the outside.

"Captives maybe, but possibly Wraith working the consoles with their...supervisors? watching over them," Stackhouse suggested.

"Only one way to find out and it'll likely require getting all noisy. Otherwise we need to move in a different direction and keep searching, but that'll make it more difficult to get out quickly," Buffy hissed.

"Looks like there are two ways into the room," Faith said quietly, "the one in front of us and another about 15 feet to the right. As long as they can't pop up through the floor or drop down through the ceiling, we can hold here for a while."

"Yeah, but being able to hold off for a while means diddly if we're penned in here," Stackhouse pointed out.

"That's why we have our door openers," Buffy said, indicating the C-4, her AT-4, and tapping her hammer.

Stackhouse eyed her. "This is going to be weird, isn't it? Weird like the way you guys and Burkle can be sometimes?"

Buffy and Faith glanced at one another and nodded at the brown-haired Marine.

"Shit," he cursed quietly. "If they're Wraith, I'm betting at least a few of them aren't the big soldiers, but we can't carry one of the unmasked guys all the way out of the ship, so we kill any of the Wraith inside and hope we find another to capture on the way out."

"Once they're down, give them a pop or two in the head as well. Fuckers don't like to stay down and you don't want them to get their grubby mitts on you," Faith added. She slid the kris carefully back into its sheath and took the safety off her P90. "Ready?"

Stackhouse hefted the M249, made sure the bipod was folded and clocked open the bolt. He gave her a determined nod while Buffy gave her a slight smile as she raised her own P90. Faith waved a hand at herself and indicated the right and then indicated to Stackhouse to take the left. Pointing a finger at Buffy, she indicated for the blonde to cover them and take out any Wraith still standing.

Faith turned to face the room and held her hand up with all five fingers extended.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

#

Stackhouse watched as Faith flowed from her crouch until she was upright with her knees bent to minimize her silhouette. He was still in the process of doing the same when she seemed to practically fly into the area they were about to assault. The sound of a P90 firing in a burst echoed a bare second later. He winced at the explosive sound in the otherwise silent hallway but hustled to follow his teammate in, making it into the chamber just as the second burst reached his ears.

Turning the corner, he unloaded a hail of bullets into the unmasked Wraith that was only now reacting to Faith's gunfire. The hail of bullets from the light machine gun shredded the Wraith's chest and sent the Wraith flying back into the bulkhead. Stackhouse put another few rounds into the Wraith's head until he turned to his next target.

Close to him, he saw Buffy shooting towards the center of the room, reducing the head of an unmasked Wraith scrambling from a console into an unrecognizable red mass. She did the same to another Wraith who'd been at the center consoles and then had to duck several stun blasts when a Wraith soldier charged into the chamber from the right entrance.

The Wraith soldier would have continued his charge but the angle of his entrance meant he had been blind to Faith's presence. A fatal mistake, it turned out, as Faith's sword bisected the Wraith in half before removing the head from the separated torso in mid-air.

Stackhouse turned his attention back to the left side and depressed the trigger to let the SAW's rounds rip into an unmasked Wraith who had withdrawn a small pistol shaped device from his belt and was aiming it directly at him. The Wraith jerked repeatedly from the bullet impacts before falling to his knees and collapsing onto the floor. A quick burst from Buffy obliterated its skull.

Faith danced away from a blast sent by another unmasked Wraith armed with a sidearm, collapsed her sword, and riddled the face and throat of the Wraith with several small bursts from her P90.

In the center of the chamber, Buffy dashed around the console, trying to get the Wraith who had been using it for cover. The Wraith snarled and backhanded her. Or rather, it tried to and failed because Buffy caught the swing and performed a high kick that created a new elbow out of the Wraith's arm. The Wraith snarled in pain but slapped Buffy's P90 down with its good hand.

Stackhouse watched as Buffy, visibly annoyed, plucked the hammer from her belt and brought it between the Wraith's legs. After hearing about the Wraith, what they'd done to the Lanteans and seeing what they'd done to the Athosians, he never expected to feel sympathy for one. At that moment, Stackhouse felt genuine sympathy for the creature as a series of snapping and crunching sounds echoed in the chamber after the hammer's impact.

He watched as if it were in slow motion as the Wraith suddenly wore a strange expression on its face as it was lifted bodily into the air from the force of whatever the fuck that hammer was. He cringed as the red ruin of the Wraith's waist, upper thighs, and lower stomach became visible.

In his fascination, Stackhouse was nearly shot by another Wraith sidearm but a quick crouch cleared him from the Wraith's blast. He braced himself and pulled the trigger for an extended burst, watching with no small amount of satisfaction as the Wraith was torn apart by the bullets tearing through its body.

The Wraith that Buffy had made a eunuch out of slammed against a wall before sliding into a heap on the ground. Faith pulled her M9 out in a flash and unceremoniously shot it straight in the forehead.

The remaining Wraith, an unmasked one, looked genuinely scared of the three of them and Louis suddenly remembered the Athosian girl, Aleta, calling him a "Wraith hunter." Yes, he thought almost savagely, that is exactly what we are.

He watched as Buffy's seemingly normal household hammer was thrown at the Wraith. The Wraith merely sneered reached out to catch it and then howled in agony as his arm shattered apart. The hammer's course didn't waver and it slammed into the Wraith's chest with a crunch. The Wraith was flung back against the wall, pinned inches above the ground by the hammer that had created a crater out of its chest. The hammer had embedded itself through his body and into the wall, creating visible cracks in the surrounding structure.

"I want one of those," he said, directing a hopeful glance towards the blonde.

"Kill a God and get your own," Buffy replied absentmindedly as she admired her handiwork. She then went up to the Wraith mural that had been painted across the wall and withdrew the deceptively powerful hammer with a grunt and put it back into her belt. The Wraith, however, remained aloft as blood and other fluids slowly dripped from his remains.

Louis decided not to ask about the hammer and glanced around the room with its many flashing lights and gizmos. "Looks like we hit the jackpot. Can you confirm the entrances to this room?"

"Just the way we came and this one," Faith nodded towards the corridor the charging Wraith had come out of.

Louis took out the device he'd been given. "Check the bodies, make sure they're nice and dead. Then cover the entrances while I start the data extraction, there's no way they missed that."

Faith walked around quickly, putting a bullet into each Wraith's head with her M9 before putting in a new clip and holstering her sidearm. She shouldered her P90 and stood next to the entrance they'd come through. Faith pulled the life signs detector and studied it. "Six Wraith on their way to you, B. Four to me. 30 feet."

Buffy trotted to him, took the M249 from him and gave him her P90 before she crouched next to the doorway they hadn't come through. She looked intently at the weapon for a bit and sent a questioning look his way. "Ammo?"

"Probably got 100 rounds left," Stackhouse replied, then reached for a spare ammo box at his waist and gently tossed it to her.

Buffy caught it and sent a quick wink in his direction before she peeked around the corner. Apparently seeing nothing, Buffy deployed the bipod and went prone.

Louis shook his head in bemusement; he was sure glad he wasn't any Wraith that had to face his teammates.

He approached the console that was least visible to the two entrance ways and placed the device he'd been given on top of the unfamiliar computer that belonged to the Wraith. The display in front of him seemed to freeze for half a dozen seconds before recovering. On the device, a small green light began blinking that indicated data was being downloaded into the memory. A blue light would mean there was no more data to extract while a red light would indicate that the memory was full. He sighed in relief, apparently Kavanagh hadn't just been all talk and bluster.

Across the room from him, he heard the familiar staccato of a discharging M249 SAW and watched as Buffy began to fire in a long sustained burst. He winced at the waste of ammunition and the heat generating in the barrel, but she apparently managed to remember that particular disadvantage of using machine guns because she began using short bursts only a few seconds later.

Then the sound of a second firearm discharging echoed in the chamber as Faith's P90 began to spit out rounds as well.

#

Buffy cursed and rolled away from the doorway as a series of stun blasts impacted against the floor she'd just occupied. Getting to her feet, she tried to look around the corner only to jerk back as another stun blast splashed inches away. She growled in annoyance and considered charging them with her hammer before she paused and blinked. She held the M249 with one hand while she took a grenade off her belt, pulled the pin with her teeth, and began silently counting. She then stepped back several paces before tossing the grenade into the corridor at a slight angle to ricochet off the wall and toward the advancing Wraith party.

She ducked back around the wall and smiled when there was a guttural shout followed by the sound of an M67 standard issue grenade exploding. She spun around and began firing with the SAW at the two Wraith that hadn't been knocked down in the blast. She then fired a quick burst at the other wounded or dying Wraith, stopping only when she heard the clicking sound indicating she was out of ammo.

She smirked at the corridor now filled with dead Wraith. "I just knew that when we met I'd blow you all away."

Buffy ducked back into the room and looked intently at the gun for a moment. "Can someone reload this for me?"

"Fuck, seriously B?" Her exclamation cut off with another volley from the brunette's P90.

"I didn't spend as much time with this stuff as you! Pointing and killing is easy, but fuck the SATs were easier to figure out than reloading this," Buffy defended herself. She glanced away and took out her pistol and nailed a Wraith that was peeking around the curve of the hallway between the eyes.

She ran over to Louis, deposited the M249 onto the floor and took her P90 back.

"How's it coming, Lou?" she shouted as she assumed her former position.

"How the hell should I know? I just wait for the lights to change color!" the Marine yelled back.

There was a loud shout and a flurry of stun blasts shot down Faith's entrance, forcing the brunette to keep her head back.

"Fuckers want to get in close," the brunette Slayer called out in warning.

"Good, I'm bored. Also, it just occurred to me I should take this missile launcher off my back, just thought you should know," the blonde said primly.

Faith leaned closer to the lip of her doorway. "Hey fucknuts! I bet my blade is bigger than your blade!"

"You want to taunt them with penis envy?" Buffy asked incredulously, stepping away as stun blasts poured through the door.

"Technically, it's blade envy. Besides, I heard your little 'blow you away' comment, so you don't get to talk."

Buffy pouted, still hugging the wall but stepping several paces away from the entrance. She extended her hand and shot the Wraith that walked through that entrance in the side of the head with her pistol. Taking her P90 up, she stepped forward and peered around the corner again, managing to shoot one of Wraith soldiers in its unprotected throat before having to duck back.

"There's something wrong with both of you," Stackhouse said. "Light's blue, moving to one of the terminals on the outer wall."

Faith ducked and darted away as a bayonet made a wide sweep along the edges of the entrance way. Dropping her P90, she extended her sword as the Wraith soldier emerged into the room and thrust his bayonet at her. She batted away the first thrust and placed the Wraith in the path of an incoming stun blast that came from behind him. To her surprise, there was absolutely no effect and the soldier didn't so much as flinch. A hand reached out to grab her throat even as he began to thrust the bayonet toward her gut.

Faith grabbed his descending hand by the wrist and kicked the rifle to the side. She brought her face closer to its own masked visage.

"Listen up, leach. I don't know if you can hear me or if any of your fugly friends can hear me through you, but I just thought I'd give you all a heads up. You think you're the top dogs here?" Faith broke the wrist of the Wraith as it tried to stab her through the side again. Glancing over its shoulder, she saw one of the unmasked Wraith staring at her with an almost disconcerting intensity. Almost.

"So, you can hear me then?" she breathed.

The unmasked Wraith just stared at her and gave a minute nod.

Faith realized then that all of the gunfire had stopped, the only sounds being that of the groaning Wraith in front of her and the last echoes of their firefight. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Buffy glance down her entrance way and give her a thumbs up. Louis was crouched down by the center consoles and a flashing green light on the wall terminal behind him. She returned her focus to the Wraith in front of her, and the unmasked Wraith beyond.

"Good," she purred. "I've seen a lot of terrifying things in my life, Mister Wraith, and you are nothing compared to them. Like I said to this ugly piece of crap, you're not top of the food chain anymore. You want to know what you are? You're practice."

"What then, are you?" the Wraith asked neutrally.

Faith blinked. It was the first time she'd heard a Wraith speak and she wasn't sure what she'd expected. The Wraith didn't sound upset or angry like she might've expected, instead he sounded curious with a little disdain mixed in. It was obvious that the race was advanced, but it was easy to forget that when dealing with the faceless horde of fugly warriors they kept around.

"You are predators. Monsters to the humans of this galaxy, yes?" Faith asked.

The Wraith nodded.

"You're the terrifying creatures that lurk in the dark, that wait to steal them away if they travel too far from their villages."

The Wraith smiled for a moment. "Yes."

Faith made a show of shaking her head in something akin to disappointment, using the motion to check the data extractor. It was flashing red. She made eye contact with Louis and said in a level voice, "it's done."

Turning back around, she met the Wraith's eyes. "It's done."

The Wraith frowned. "What is done?"

"Your time as something to be feared. Your time to be the faceless monster that every human in this galaxy dreads. See, there are some creatures from where we're from and they're a lot like you. Not as powerful or advanced, but evil in a way you'll never be. We call them vampires, soulless creatures that drink the blood of humans to live. Not entirely dissimilar?"

The Wraith narrowed its eyes but said nothing.

"Like you, they're essentially immortal, stronger, faster, more durable than any human. Ask me why they don't farm their humans like you do. Ask me what hunts them."

The Wraith said nothing, just studied her.

Faith wrapped her free arm around the Wraith soldier's neck and gave it a quick jerk. The crack produced by its snapped neck echoed through the chamber. In a louder and harsher voice, she called out in a mocking tone to the unmasked Wraith and the two soldiers at his side, "alright you space vamp fucks, I'd say it's time to meet your Slayer."

She turned sideways to avoid the first stun blasts aimed her way then performed a front flip to close the short distance between her and the Wraith at the entrance. Landing directly in front of the unmasked Wraith, she leaned to the right to dodge a stun blast from one of the soldiers, and kicked out a leg to shatter the knee belonging to the other.

She rolled away to avoid a bayonet thrust and received a backhand from the leader as she got back to her feet.

Faith stepped back from the force of the blow and narrowed her eyes at him. "That's your one freebie. You're lucky you hit like a girl."

The Wraith threw a quick punch to her face, advancing to make room for the soldier still standing behind him. She grabbed his clenched fist and yanked it, and its owner, to her. Her elbow met the face of the incoming, unmasked, and very surprised Wraith, leaving him to drop bonelessly onto the floor without another word. A roundhouse kick disarmed the standing Wraith and a quick decapitation for both him and the kneeling soldier with the shattered knee left the unconscious, unmasked Wraith as the only living Wraith in the chamber.

A short distance away, Faith saw Buffy crouching, shooting down her passageway with her P90. Since she'd last checked in on her lover, a Wraith soldier had crumpled onto the floor in front of her, its head looking more like a smashed watermelon. She took the time to glance at Louis and saw that he'd finished reloading and was heading her way. She glanced down at the unconscious Wraith at her feet and chewed her lip.

"Here, you probably shouldn't drop these so often," Stackhouse said from beside her.

She gave him an embarrassed look as she collapsed her sword and accepted her P90 back. Faith took out the life signs detector and studied it. "How many Wraith did we kill?"

"At least 30," Buffy guessed. "I had a lot of action in my corridor."

"I know a thing or two about getting a lot of action," Faith replied slyly.

Stackhouse groaned. "Oh god, wait till we're not standing in pools of blood."

Buffy nudged the Wraith at their feet. "Wanna take this one?"

"Yeah, but we were pretty set on not doing that. All things considered, given that we're probably near the center of the ship, we should've seen a lot more Wraith than we did. Maybe the crash really did kill a bunch of them," Faith suggested.

"Can't rely on it and we still know there are at least 20 or so Wraith left, plus the Darts. If you really want to bring him, you'll have to tie his hands up nice and tight; all he needs to do is get a hand on you to start feeding," Stackhouse said.

"Oh, I got this!" Buffy said with an excited voice. She stepped over the Wraith and lifted one of its legs and then jerked the knee out of its socket. The blonde repeated the process with the other knee and then both arms. At the very least, that'll slow it down," she said confidently. She began by tying rope around its ankles before pulling its hands behind its back to place them in plasticuffs. An additional layer of rope around the hands were added for good measure. She then looped a new cord around the bound ankles and dragged the corpse to demonstrate.

"I'm...pretty turned on," Faith said, matter-of-factly. "You know Spike said you were good with knots and—"

"Be quiet if you want to live," Buffy warned her with a raised finger.

"You're both terrifying; this is the second time I've actually felt bad for the Wraith tonight," Louis said, shuddering.

"Was Buffy's prowess with that hammer so impressive that you felt...unmanned?" Faith asked, nudging him.

Buffy snickered.

Louis glowered at them.

"Alright, let's do it, and kick the Wraith in the head every now and then to keep it unconscious. Even hurt and bound, having him loose or struggling would be of the bad," Faith ordered Buffy. "So, we killed a shitton of Wraith, captured one, got the intel. Now we need to shoot our way out and get the fuck out of dodge," Faith recited, enumerating their objectives.

"And find captured humans and free them if possible," Buffy reminded her.

Stackhouse nodded. "Sounds about right. I'm not going to break radio contact until we're out of the ship and I don't intend to call in AR-2 unless things go downhill, but let's not get careless. We still have to finish the job, got it?"

The girls nodded.

"B, drag the leach and watch our back. Stackhouse, don't get shot, but especially don't let your pocket holding the thingy get shot." Faith glanced down, "I see Wraith closing in on us from our front, not so much on our six, stay a pace or two behind me so I can move if I have to."

"Let's do it," Louis said. "Noise doesn't matter at this point. Got the AT-4, Buffy?"

"Oh yeah. I really, really, want to use a missile launcher again."

"Alright, move out."

Faith began a brisk walk, not bothering to stay quiet and quickly covered the distance between the entrance and their current position. They'd occasionally run into a small group of Wraith, but Faith and Stackhouse were able to take each one down with minimal difficulty as Buffy dragged the limp Wraith behind her. According to the scanner, there were a small group of Wraith behind them, but they moved slowly, evidently cautious after seeing the room filled with their dead. But in front of her were nine dots, Wraith preparing some sort of ambush or barricade. Suffice it to say, neither one of the possibilities appealed to her in the least.

Glancing back at the scanner, she jammed it into a pocket and darted ahead, snapping her body to the right to face the waiting Wraith. Her bullets ripped into his gut but his heavy bulk took the punishment, leaving the Wraith still standing. Faith let the P90 fall to dangle at her hip from its strap and slapped his stunner away. She then unsheathed her kris and impaled the Wraith through the throat.

She and her two companions watched as the Wraith began to moan with a harsh, guttural sound of pain. Its arms and legs began to twitch and jerk violently as it fell to its knees with harsh grunts and gasps. It soon became obvious that it wasn't the throat wound that was killing it because the Wraith was shriveling up, wasting away right in front of them. Over the next five or ten seconds, its moans and mewls of pain became weaker and weaker until it was silent. As she withdrew her kris, the dried up husk disintegrated into a pile of dust.

"So..." Buffy said, looking at the now silver and gold kris, "that was interesting."

Louis looked at the dust, then at the kris, then at Faith, and nodded his agreement.

"Nine Wraith ahead about 45 feet away, four behind at...maybe 60 feet," Faith said.

"Plant C-4 in the hallway, Buffy," Louis ordered, "and you tell her when to blow it, Faith. We don't want them sneaking up on us."

Buffy began her task as Faith studied the display. "This is going to suck," she said to the sergeant.

"30 of the last 45 feet between us and the nine Wraith is a straight shot down a hallway. No cover and too much distance to cross without getting a faceful of Wraith stunners," Faith reported gravely.

Stackhouse frowned for a long moment before his eyes lit up and he turned around to face the blonde who was busily planting the leads onto a block of C-4 she'd attached to the ceiling. "Hey Buffy, ready to use that big tube on your back?"

Buffy smiled.

Faith studied the life signs detector. "B, I can't tell if they have a barricade or if they're just standing still ready to blast us away. Get the detonator out when the action starts because those Wraith behind us are gonna hustle up when they hear the noise."

Buffy nodded and turned to deliver a kick to the captured Wraith's head. The Wraith didn't respond to the physical blow beyond the initial jerk from the impact.

"Dump the leach while you fire ze missile," Faith suggested. "We'll come back for him after the Wraith in front are dead. After we clear this corridor and their position, we only have about 40 feet until we're out of the ship."

They advanced quickly until they reached the designated junction and readied themselves for the coming firefight. Buffy let go of the Wraith she'd been dragging and unslung the rocket launcher. Faith slipped behind her and kicked the Wraith in the head again and then again with more force to its dislocated right shoulder for good measure.

Faith turned back and joined Louis, crouching several feet away to put some distance between them and Buffy's impending AT-4 discharge. The AT-4's backblast might be fairly insignificant, but neither cared to receive the immediate ejection of smoke and gas right in the face.

Buffy held the launcher vertically over a shoulder while Louis checked it, who then tapped her back to indicate it was good to go.

"Three seconds," Buffy told them.

Faith took one last look at the scanner before putting it up and taking out a flashbang. Stackhouse did the same and added a frag to this mix.

Buffy blew out a breath. "Straight down 30 feet, in three...two..."

Buffy stepped into the corridor and went down on a knee, bringing the AT-4 down over her shoulder and looking through the iron sights at the end of the launcher. Moments later and a roar of noise and cloud of smoke filled the small passageway as the AT-4 hurtled the barely perceptible explosive projectile toward the Wraith's position. A mere second later and the explosion caused by the rocket's detonation produced a clap of thunder and made the floor beneath their feet shiver. The blonde Slayer dropped the tube and rolled to the side of the hall to make herself a smaller target and to return fire.

Faith leaned around the corner and flung her flashbang down the corridor, ducking back to allow Louis to do likewise. Buffy was already spitting out bullets from her P90 when the frag grenade detonated along with the harmless, but hopefully disorienting flashbangs. Faith then entered the hallway at a crouch, advancing while laying down her own fire into the smoke-filled hallway.

"Ready!" a male voice called out from behind her.

Faith fired several more bursts from her P90 to keep any surviving Wraith down while she waited for Buffy to advance. Once Buffy was directly across the hallway, she dashed sideways until she was directly behind the blonde. Louis then ran into the hall and dove onto the floor, the bipod of his M249 extended. The Marine began firing regular bursts from the machine gun into the opposite side of the hall while Faith took out the scanner to inspect their progress. The Wraith behind them were 30 feet out, quickly catching up to their position as the sound of battle reached them, but they were still 15 feet from Buffy's planted C-4. Ahead of them were only three life signs.

"Ladies, hit the deck!"

Buffy and Faith instantly went prone, just in time to avoid several stun blasts. Stackhouse answered their fire by unleashing a hail of bullets toward the source of the stun blasts.

Two life signs left.

The Wraith behind them were 20 feet behind them.

"B, blow the C-4 on my mark!"

Buffy reached down her prone form to retrieve the detonator from her waist, flipped the cap up and waited.

Faith watched the display, holding her breath... "Now!"

Buffy mashed the button down and a loud echoing 'boom' came from behind them. Glancing down, the scanner indicated the only detectable life sign behind them now was the Wraith they'd captured.

"Lou, B, two Wraith in front hugging the walls. Our asses are in the clear. B, you take the scanner and help Lou clear our way out. I'll grab our friend here," Faith offered.

"Got it," the sergeant acknowledged, folding up the bipod and rising to a crouch. Buffy did likewise, accepting the scanner and began using hand signals to indicate the Wraith positions.

Faith jogged a few steps back, ducking when she heard B shout a warning and saw a blast flying past her. She made it back to the Wraith and studied his fallen form, grimacing. Dragging him 70 feet just to get off the ship really was not a practical solution. She bit her lip but quickly made a decision as she heard the rapid report of P90 fire.

She adjusted her gear to have her remaining ammunition, kris, and grenades clipped or stuffed onto her front and then moved her pistol from her waist to an unoccupied ankle holster. She then crouched down and punched the unmasked Wraith solidly in the back of the head, picked his body up by his dislocated arms and draped his body over her shoulder. She would be able to keep track of his hands this way and she'd be able to make faster progress. Even if his hand was his weapon, at least this way the Wraith couldn't just take the pistol from her waist or pull the pin from a grenade with a stretch of his arm. Her P90 was draped across her chest and could be grabbed without even dropping the Wraith as long as she had a second or two of warning. Yes, this would do nicely as long as the Wraith didn't get handsy.

Carrying her burden, she peeked back around the hall to see her two teammates waiting for her while routinely making visual sweeps of the area. She jogged down the hallway until she reached them.

"Sure you wanna carry him the whole way, Faith?" Stackhouse asked skeptically.

"You know I'm stronger than I look," she said winking. She moved her hand from the Wraith's dangling legs to pat its behind. "Big boy here doesn't weigh too much."

Louis rolled his eyes. "Please don't fondle our prisoner, Faith."

"Let's go, nothing on scanner," Buffy informed them after giving Faith a light slap to the gut.

"So are we taking this lump straight to the Jumper or do we want to check for humans?" Faith asked.

"Once we pull out the Jumper, we lose our chance of a surprise evac, but dragging him around isn't a great idea either. Buffy, are you up for a little solo action?" Stackhouse asked.

Faith's eyebrows rose and she leered at Buffy.

"Oh shut up, Faith. Yeah, what are you thinking?" Buffy asked.

"Faith and I will take the captive and our extracted intel back to the Jumper; those are our primary objectives so let's make sure those are squared away. While Faith and I are accomplishing that, Buffy I want you to take the scanner and kill any Wraith you can find. Get their attention and keep it away from us so the Jumper can stay undetected when we get back to it. See if you can get a look at the gap where we saw Wraith coming in and out of during our recon. I'm thinking if there are humans, they'll be there because I saw no evidence of any onboard," the Marine sergeant said definitively.

"What about the Wraith Darts?" Faith asked, sending a worried look to her lover. "All three of us will have to avoid their fucking culling beams and strafing runs."

By way of reply, Louis checked the ammo on his M249 and handed it to Buffy. "At least 150 rounds left on this box. I saw Sheppard shoot a Dart down with this thing, I'm betting you can too. Try to use your sidearm to take care of any individual Wraith to conserve ammo. I'll take Faith's P90 and give her a second pistol so you can keep your P90 as well."

They nodded in agreement, exchanged equipment, and made their way across the segment of their path back to the entrance of the ship. When they finally reached the tear in the hull, Buffy inspected the scanner. "Three dots coming from behind, but more than 50 feet back and moving slow. I see nothing in front of us except for a couple of Wraith that are about 20 feet at 10:00 o'clock. Looks like they're moving our way, too."

Louis nodded after a moment. "I'll take the lead and take 'em out, then Faith and I are gonna book it for the Jumper."

Stackhouse held the P90 to his eye and darted into the open, immediately taking down one of the two Wraith soldiers on his left before taking a knee to avoid the stun blast sent by the other. With a quick roll to the side and rising to a crouch, he dispatched the other Wraith with another neat grouping of bullets to the chest. He then ran to the laid out bodies and put a bullet into each of their heads. Faith ran after him, still holding the limp Wraith over her shoulders as she looked at the brightening sky.

"Take a few clips of ammo," she ordered him, and waited for him to dig them out of her tac vest. They both turned when they heard the sound of the M249 from behind them. "Come on, we need to go."

Louis led the way, regularly making a slight shift in direction or taking cover behind thick foliage. After just a few minutes, they heard the distinctive sound of a Wraith Dart and the accompanying sound of an explosion. Faith glanced back and watched as the Dart began to circle around the crashed Wraith ship while a plume of smoke rose in the air in its wake.

"Come on, she'll be fine," the Marine hissed.

Faith nodded and continued their rapid leap frogging back to their Jumper, making use of the trees and anything else they could find whenever a Dart passed overhead. They had less than a klick to cover now and had yet to encounter a single Wraith on their way out, the likely explanation being the comforting and familiar sound of gunfire in the distance.

"We need to hustle," Faith told him. "She'll run out of ammo soon; she didn't get much practice on the LMGs and likes to hold down the trigger."

Louis nodded, a slight sheen of sweat covering his face even if he wasn't breathing too hard. "Noticed that too." There was a sudden pause as the sergeant stopped to let her pass him as he watched their rear for any signs of pursuit.

Faith kept running, zigzagging through the slowly brightening forest until she finally saw the clearing where they'd hidden the Jumper. She felt a slight movement of the Wraith's leg her hand was wrapped around and grimaced.

"Lou, think the Wraith is waking up," she called out.

"Hold on," he called out.

She did so, his footsteps getting closer until she heard a wet 'thud' by her ear. She saw and felt the butt of the P90 slam into the back of the Wraith's head. The leg stopped twitching. "Fuck, dude's gonna wake up with one helluva headache."

"Yeah, I'm all broken up about it," the Marine quipped. He ran in front of her and turned back around, beckoning her to continue. "Roughly 150 meters, he should be able to see us in a few moments. I want to avoid using the radio if possible, so hopefully he'll let us onboard when the Darts aren't in a position to see us."

Faith nodded as she breezed past him, no longer bothering to zigzag now that they'd entered the clearing. She could just barely make out the sound of gunfire in the distance and increased her speed. She could hear Louis curse behind her as he ran behind her, struggling to keep up. She was worried Markham wouldn't see them and that she'd end up running right into the Jumper, but the ship finally decloaked when it was just 20 feet away from her. She ran around into the open hatch of the Jumper.

In the cockpit, Markham turned around from his seat to glance at the two members of his team. "Buffy?" he asked worriedly.

"She's making noise to keep them occupied, but we need to pick her up," Faith said quickly, using materials in the Jumper to tie their Wraith captive more securely.

"See you got the Wraith, how about the intel?" Markham asked, watching as Faith looped thicker cords of rope around his dislocated limbs. She then wrapped another piece of rope around the Wraith's neck and looped it around the leg restraints, keeping the Wraith's neck and torso angled toward its now slightly elevated legs. All in all, it looked both extremely awkward and excruciatingly painful.

"You need to stay in this ship and I still don't trust this Wraith enough to leave you alone with it, not if we need you focused on rescuing us. Sending just one of us alone back to Buffy is asking for trouble, too. Have you seen anymore Wraith fighters?" Stackhouse asked.

"Negative, just the two we first saw. Looks like they're still doing strafing runs and running an occasional culling beam. Hopefully that means Blondie is fine," Markham replied. "Should I call in AR-2?"

Faith looked at Stackhouse, who looked back at her.

"If we shoot the Darts down," Faith said confidently, "then we shouldn't have any problem mopping up what's left on the ground."

Markham and Faith looked at Stackhouse, who stared at their unconscious captive for several seconds before nodding firmly at his team.

"Let's get in the air and take down those Wraith Darts," Stackhouse said, patting the pilot's shoulder. "And let's go get our girl!"

"You got it," Markham acknowledged, and placed his hands on the controls.

The Puddle Jumper's hatch sealed shut and Faith heard the vibration and movement as the Jumper began its ascent into the air.

"Faith, the moment Markham fires the first shot, radio Buffy and get an update," Stackhouse ordered.

Faith nodded and withdrew her radio from her belt, watching Markham begin to move toward the downed Wraith ship and the two Wraith Darts that zipped around it like flies circling a carcass.

There was a slight thump and she watched as a trio of drones launched from the Jumper smash into a Dart preparing to strafe the area. She clicked the radio twice and waited for a response. A moment later and Buffy's voice came through the radio along with the sound of an irregular series of small bangs. The Jumper wheeled to the right and Faith saw a Dart just barely miss colliding with them.

"Hey guys, doing okay here. Got a few people here that wouldn't mind getting off this planet though. Wouldn't mind you, hold on—" A guttural Wrath voice echoed through the radio followed by a crunching sound, a whimper, and a loud thump. "Ha, I totally nailed you!"

Faith rolled her eyes, "stop making like its hammer time and focus!"

"Right. Okay now, but hurry up. Got tenish people here. If you still have the captured Wraith, might want to make sure they stay away from him or they'll form a lynch mob," Buffy recommended.

"Okay, so where are you?" Faith asked impatiently.

There was a pause. "Next to the ship. I don't know, I suck at directions!"

Stackhouse cursed.

Faith lurched as the Puddle Jumper suddenly performed a steep dive.

"There's a Dart trying to get on your ass," Buffy advised somewhat lamely.

"Oh really, you think!" Faith shouted. "Markham?"

"Those damn Darts are fast. I could go invisible but the Wraith would just wait or start strafing the ship again," the pilot replied, not looking away as he veered right to avoid the weapons fire coming from behind.

Faith chewed her lip for several moments in which she nearly fell on her ass from the Jumper's maneuvers. "Okay, I have a plan, but it could be retarded."

"Oh that fills me with so much confidence," Markham yelled.

Faith stumbled to the other side of the Jumper and removed the remaining AT-4. "Markham, fly towards the ship in a straight line and open the rear hatch."

"What?!" Markham shouted incredulously. "If I stop maneuvering, they'll just shoot us down!"

"Just do it! And shut the partition so I don't fill the cockpit with smoke!" Faith yelled at him. "Lou, hang onto something and grab that Wraith. It's about to get a little breezy."

Faith wound a rope around her waist and tied it to one of the metal braces on the ship. She sat on the floor and brought the AT-4 over her shoulder. She scooted down and used a leg to brace herself against the rear wall of the Jumper, feeling the ship mark a sharp downward turn before settling in at an even heading. The hatch suddenly slid open, generating a howl of wind that nearly deafened her as all the unsecured items were flung around the inner compartment.

Faith's eyes narrowed, watching through the ironsights of the AT-4 for any hint of the Wraith. Not even two seconds later, there was a flash of movement that Faith managed to track. Settling in behind the Jumper, the Dart lined up for a presumably nice, easy shot. However, the slowly brightening sky of the early morning also made the Dart a big, fat target for Faith.

If this actually worked, she was going to get some mad points from the fellas.

She sat, one leg braced against the wall of the rear compartment, took aim, and fired.

Faith felt the weapon in her hands shiver and watched the unguided rocket burst out of its tube in a blur, arcing directly toward the Dart that was chasing them. She held her breath, praying that the Dart had stayed true to its course, that she hadn't misjudged the distance, and a dozen other things. The Wraith must have seen or detected the incoming rocket because it tried to veer away, but only ended up presenting a larger target. The projectile slammed into the side of the Dart, causing the ship to fireball and spiral into the forest below.

"Holy crap, Lou, you see that shit?!" Faith shouted over the gale.

Louis just grinned and shook his head before banging on the cockpit partition when the smoke cleared the vehicle. It immediately slid open to reveal the face of an incredulous Markham. Seeing Stackhouse and Faith's grinning faces, he turned briefly to close the rear hatch before turning back.

"Did you really just do that?" he exclaimed, voice loud in the sudden quiet of the Jumper's interior.

"I want to see Bates beat that!" she crowed. "You see any more Darts?"

"Nothing on our scanner and not since we first blew up that first one; that might really be all they had," Markham stated.

"Then let's go pick up Buffy and her new friends," Stackhouse advised the other sergeant.

Faith held her radio to her mouth. "B, you still good?"

"Yeah, but I'm out of ammo and the hammer isn't much for long range. I'm with about ten people, pinned down in a shallow gully. Scanner shows 13 dots moving on me. Get your ass here, Faith!"

"Where's here!?" Faith shouted, annoyed. "Are you by the ship, in the forest, where!?"

"I don't know, it's still pretty dark out! I'm in the forest like 200 feet from the ship. I was heading in the general direction of the Jumper when the Wraith began chasing us. I—shit! Hurry Faith!"

"Faith, want to watch the Wraith in here or help Buffy?"

The brunette raised an eyebrow as she put in a new clip of ammo into the P90 she'd reappropriated from Stackhouse. Louis rolled his eyes and turned back to Sgt. Markha. "Land the Jumper 50 feet away from the east side of the ship and circle around until Faith radios in for extraction. Faith, you watch your ass and keep sharp; we aren't done with this op until we exit through the Stargate. Feel free to call in an airstrike if needed."

"You got it, boss." Faith froze the moment the words left her mouth, closing her eyes as memories of the Mayor flashed through her mind.

"Faith!"

Faith jumped at the voice that shouted into her ear. She shook her head to clear it and looked back to see Stackhouse watching her with worried eyes.

"I'm cool, Lou. When are we landing, Markham?"

"Ten seconds!"

"Watch the leach, Louis," she advised, and turned to face the rear hatch.

The Jumper landed and the moment the hatch opened, Faith was out like a flash toward Buffy's approximate location. She then skidded to a halt, listening carefully. "Oh my fucking god, B, you and your fucking orienteering." Faith did a 180 and began running west toward the nearly inaudible Wraith voices and stun blasts.

She ran and ran, hearing the growled orders of the Wraith and the frightened cries of humans becoming louder and louder until she finally slowed her pace when she was about 150 feet from her estimation of Buffy's position. P90 held to her shoulder, Faith cautiously moved another 30 feet deeper into the forest until the gully finally became visible. The moment the Wraith became visible, Faith hid behind a tree, withdrew her range finder from the vest, and slowly peaked around to get an accurate reading on Wraith activity from both her and Buffy's position. From her vantage she could see every one of the masked and unmasked Wraith, all steadily advancing in the clearing, occasionally shooting stunners at the lip of the gully to keep the humans down. Still hoping to recapture them, Faith guessed.

Unfortunately for her, the Wraith were spread out across that open clearing and had completely encircled Buffy's gully. She was 75 feet from the closest Wraith, 110 feet from Buffy, and approximately 140 from the most distant Wraith relative to her position. They were too spread out and some were too far to make this quick and easy and the moment she started firing they'd all know where she was. She needed a quieter way to kill a few of the Wraith until using her P90 wouldn't draw immediate and overwhelming return fire. She might be the Slayer, she might be resistant to their stun blasts, but resistance didn't equate to immunity and the moment she was hit she'd be vulnerable, even if only for a short time. She looked down at herself and around the forest, looking for a source of inspiration to make a plan. She'd never been good at plans, never. She'd always been a spur of the moment kind of gal, all about getting in, stakin' the vamp, and getting...

Faith looked around the forest that was suddenly just brimming with ammunition and smiled. Well, she had said she'd be their Slayer, guess she'd just have to be all old fashioned about it. The Wraith were moving forward but at a slower rate, possibly due to the thrown dagger which had just embedded itself to the hilt into the masked forehead of a Wraith soldier. Good girl, Faith praised her lover silently, now just sit tight and I'll do the rest.

12 Wraith left now.

Faith found the best specimens around her and used her kris to give them some semblance of a sharp point. She didn't have time to make many, but she only needed enough to take a few of the Wraith out without her position being made instantly.

Faith ranged in on the crashed ship and then the Wraith behind the tree again. She lowered the volume, changed the channel, and brought her radio to her mouth, speaking in a loud whisper. "Markham, I could use that airstrike Stackhouse offered."

"What's your position?" the pilot immediately asked.

Faith rolled her eyes. "I am 150 feet due west of the ship, make it 46 meters. Buffy is trapped in a gully with rescuees 34 meters southwest from my position. Requesting drone strike 43 meters southwest of my position; hit between the gully and the treeline and I'll get you a date with Doctor Simpson if you manage to hit anything."

There was a moment of silence on the radio.

"I thought she said she'd gone 200 feet east, toward the clearing our Jumper was in," Louis asked over the radio.

"She can pluck a fly out of the air with chopsticks, she can swing an axe or hammer better than a lumberjack, and can fire a gun with pinpoint accuracy more consistently than anyone on Atlantis. But a compass is to her as McKay's sciencey explanations are to us non-geniuses: strange, incomprehensible, slightly intimidating, and mocking."

"Fine, coming about and...think I see the gully...yeah, we found Buffy. Firing in five seconds."

"You'll really get me that date?" Markham asked hopefully.

"Yes, as long as you hit something!"

Faith slid the P90 behind her back and held a stake with one hand and the other two she'd made with the other. She counted to three and dashed out from behind the tree and ran straight toward the nearest Wraith almost directly in front of her. She drew her arm back let the first stake fly, not stopping to watch the result as she threw a second and third stake at the other two nearest Wraith.

The brunette put her hands to her mouth and screamed, "B, hit the deck!"

She unslung her P90 and swung it around to raise the reflex sight to her eye. She took a heartbeat to aim and fired two quick bursts at the Wraith standing 20 feet to her left, watching as the Wraith's neck was shredded by a neat grouping of bullets while the rest impacted against his chest with significantly less obvious results. She cursed herself quietly, those goddamn soldiers could take a lot of punishment anywhere but their neck and head; she really needed to tamp down her instinctive reaction to take out the heart.

There was a thunderous boom as the drones fired by the Puddle Jumper slammed into the opposite side of the gully. The drones cratered the ground they impacted, producing a momentary gout of flame and clouds of thick, black smoke. Faith had seen at least one Wraith disappear entirely as a drone hit the area in front of his feet, but Faith had stopped watching by then, locating and shooting yet another Wraith soldier, this one further away to her right. She ducked away from a stun blast before crouching to return fire from her P90, watching her rounds strike his chest armor with a series sparks, a slight adjustment and she watched several bullets take the Wraith in the neck and head. She was unsure if the Wraith was actually dead but couldn't follow through because she had to take cover behind a small rocky outcrop to avoid another Wraith's stun blast.

Faith stood slightly and emptied the few bullets left in her clip at the source of another stun blast. She ejected the clip and prepared to shove in a new one when she heard a footstep close behind her. Faith spun around just in time to avoid the bayonet thrust that would've taken her in the heart, feeling it spear her near the collarbone instead. She grunted at the impact, but remained standing, letting the empty P90 drop along the strap to free her hands. The Wraith soldier loomed over her, its neck bloody from the wood stake that had skewered it and seemed to exude menace. She had to bite her lip to prevent the scream from escaping her throat when he twisted the bayonet in her chest before she could react.

By dint of will, Faith reached out with her hand and clamped down onto the Wraith hand holding the rifle, ensuring that the Wraith couldn't twist the blade, push it deeper, or withdraw it. When he tried to do so, she only barely managed to match his inhuman strength from her disadvantageous position, producing sensations that were...less than pleasant. The Wraith tried to kick her her legs out to free its hand and blade, but her own leg kicked his aside. Making a frustrated noise, it reached out with a naked palm, his intentions clear.

"Let's see who gets drained first, bitch," Faith hissed.

She tried to bring her knee up between his legs but he slapped it aside, using the moment to withdraw his bayonet from her chest, spin the rifle around, and shoot her point blank in the chest. He then brought a leg up and kicked her in the chest; a surprising demonstration of limberness, she thought numbly. She felt her body fall limply to the ground half a dozen feet away, the nerves in her body screaming at the sudden and overwhelming shock of pain from the stun blast's impact. One disadvantage of being resistant to Wraith stunners was that she wasn't immediately knocked out, but instead had to suffer through the blast's painful effects until she recovered. When she'd last experienced the effects of a stun blast on the stupid bug planet, she'd imagined the most comparable sensation would be what Luke Skywalker must have felt at the hands of the Emperor. And...yep, seemed about as painful now as it did then.

She twitched and jerked as she momentarily lost control of her body, but she was still conscious, she was still aware. She could see the Wraith walking toward her with heavy, ominous, footsteps from the corner of her eye, seemingly unhurried even as yet another explosion shook the ground as the Puddle Jumper made a second strike.

The Wraith jerked the stake from its neck, bent over her, and brought a hand down to feed from her open wound. For his trouble, she stabbed his outreached hand with the kris and kicked his legs out from beneath him. The Wraith toppled over and she was on top of him in a flash, pushing the kris down until she had impaled his hand to his chest, watching as his body began to shrivel just as the other Wraith had, eventually turning to dust.

"I win," she growled, withdrawing her kris and sheathing it. She looked up and immediately threw herself sideways to avoid a flurry of stun blasts, grunting as the pain in her wound flared upon hitting the ground. Faith searched her surroundings until she located her P90, barely managing to evade another stun blast as she picked it up and hit behind the rock outcrop again. The only thing that fucking Wraith's kick to her chest had done was give her time to recover, the moron.

Her chest wound ached and she still felt a little off from the stunner, occasionally feeling a limb or muscle twitch, but she was good enough to fight. For Buffy, she had to be.

As if the thought had angered some petty god that watched over her, a stun blast missed her face by about an inch as she ran to a nearby group trees for a better position and new cover. By her quick estimation, there were three Wraith left standing from the Jumper's airstrikes and from her own attack. The other two Wraith she'd staked were unmoving, each Wraith sporting a stake impaled through the base of their neck.

Faith found a good spot to observe the area surrounding the copse and watched as the remaining Wraith found their own form of cover against the Jumper still circling in the skies above. The good news was that Buffy and those captured in the middle were safe-ish. The bad news is that taking out the remaining Wraith was going to be a bitch and a half. There were two about 15 feet at a two o'clock position from her, and only about five feet from the edge of the gully. That needed to change.

The last one was far enough away that she wasn't going to worry about him for now. She was ready to break cover and attack when a flash of movement in the trees caught her eye. Perhaps 90 feet away, a small group of Wraith, three soldiers and one of the unmasked leaders, were running through the forest in her direction. She cursed and took a knee, hissing at the pain in her chest while pressing the P90 tightly to her shoulder. She set the P90 to semi-auto, took a deep breath and carefully aimed through the reticle, trying to make out their forms in the dim morning light. She ignored the two stun blast that went wide of her and pulled the trigger.

One shot and the Wraith leader toppled to the ground with a bullet between the eyes. She now targeted the Wraith soldier who was looking sideways at his fallen leader, presumably in surprise. Good, give me a nice side profile, she thought.

She pressed the trigger again and a small hole appeared in one side of the soldier's head while a spray of red burst out of the opposite side. One of the Wraith fired another stun blast, again going wide but now uncomfortably close. Faith tapped the trigger three times, one impacting against the center of the Wraith's chest, the other two into its masked skull. She doubted the chest hit had done anything, but a headshot was a headshot. She switched targets and repeated the procedure, killing the remaining Wraith soldier with two shots to the head. Being motionless for so long had its consequences, however, as her injured upper chest took the last stun blast the Wraith had fired.

It wasn't as debilitating as the last blast; they seemed to become somewhat less effective after subsequent blasts, but it still felt like fire ants were crawling into her wound and biting the exposed flesh, ripping and tearing—

Faith vomited onto the ground, her arm clamped against her bleeding wound.

She probably shouldn't have pictured that.

She spat bile from her mouth and took a quick drink of water from her canteen to clear the taste from her mouth. She heard a terrified scream from the gully, followed by the unmistakable sound of Wraith stunners. A sickening, crunching sound echoed in the clearing and Faith watched the crushed Wraith fly past her into a nearby tree. Huh, guess B and her hammer of ball smashing is okay, she thought somewhat stupidly, mind still fuzzy with the blinding pain in her shoulder.

Faith waited a moment, took a deep breath, and stood slowly, bringing her P90 back up to her injured shoulder with gritted teeth. Two Wraith left, and she had no idea where they were. She ignored the sensation of blood slowly dripping down her chest and looked warily at the quiet forest around her, looking for anymore wouldbe Slayer...Slayers. Seeing none, she moved quickly, bent low to the ground as she searched for her targets. She saw no movement on the far side of the gully, but she did see a Wraith soldier pulling out a circular device, handling it like a grenade as he stepped back from the gully, obviously preparing to toss it down. Faith narrowed her eyes. No way, fugly.

She straightened, aimed, and shot the device out of the Wraith's hand before firing a burst of rounds into the Wraith's ass. Oh god, she'd been wanting to do that for a while, just to see what would happen. She ran toward the Wraith, or meant to, but her right leg collapsed the moment she put her full weight upon it. She cursed as her leg twitched violently for a few seconds, and groaned as her chest was jarred by the impact. Fucking stunners.

The Wraith grunted but didn't even stagger back and was already bringing his stunner to bear on her. She brought herself to a crouch, aimed at the Wraith, and fired. She proceeded to swear viciously when all she heard was the unwelcome sound of a click indicating an empty clip. Teach me to waste bullets on shooting a Wraith in the ass.

She rolled left to avoid a stun blast and got to her feet, letting the P90 fall behind her on its strap. She ran toward the Wraith, sidestepping the first stun blast and ducking under the second, picking up speed as she raced across the open clearing. Faith jumped over a blast and saw the Wraith reverse his rifle to bring his bayonet out to play.

Faith was running at full speed now, flicking out her sword and praying very hard that her body didn't spaz out for at least another five seconds. Her shoulder hurt, she'd gotten stabbed again, and she wanted to pay the pain forward. The Wraith thrust the bayonet forward and she simply pirouetted around the blade, bringing her sword up to...disarm him. Rifle and arms fell to the grassy forest floor, but she didn't stop, bending low to take one of his legs off at the knee. She turned around to behead him as began his descent toward the ground, punting the separated head like a football in the direction she'd last seen the remaining Wraith. She held still, listening and watching the area intently before she collapsed her sword, reloaded the P90, and held the rifle to her shoulder watchful as she took a few steps closer to the gully.

It was suddenly very, very quiet in the large clearing.

"Uh...honey? I'm home?" Faith asked, not willing to risk a hammer to the face by peeking below.

A blonde mop of bedraggled hair popped over the lip of the gully. "We clear?"

"Looks clear. You have the scanner, you tell me," Faith prompted, looking around again. Of course, the moment she said those words, a scream came from the gully below. Faith didn't hesitate to jump in, landing awkwardly at the bottom as one of her legs twitched. There were maybe a dozen people in the gully: men, women, and children, all of varying age and condition; they looked dirty, hungry, and scared. Four of them were obviously unconscious from stun blasts they'd taken, likely when she'd heard that first scream, Faith guessed.

But it was the snarling unmasked Wraith who held her attention, dragging a pretty, young woman with him as he moved back, one of his hands gripped around her throat.

"Where the fuck do you guys even come from?" Faith shouted derisively. "I haven't seen a single Wraith female. Do you just fucking make like Arnold in Junior? Or do they just not want to be seen with you in public?"

The woman gasped in pain and aged perceptibly in front of her eyes.

"You believe yourself to be amusing?" the Wraith hissed. "When my Queen discovers what has happened here, she will hunt you across the galaxy. No chattel will be allowed to stand against the Wraith."

"So what do you want?" Faith growled. "You want something or you wouldn't waste your time being so chatty."

"Put down your weapons, take her place, and the rest shall go free, even the ones that fly in the Lantean ship. My Queen would be greatly pleased to make your acquaintance," the Wraith purred.

Faith looked at the Wraith for a long moment, her anger rising at the arrogant cruelty in his eyes and at the woman's pained face. She glanced back at Buffy and whatever Buffy saw in her eyes made the blonde flinch.

"Sure," Faith told the Wraith lightly, and began to unstrap and drop her weapons, quickly creating a large pile on the dirt.

"Be thorough, amusing one," the Wraith told her with a display of sharp teeth. The woman held by the Wraith cried out in pain as grey began to streak through her hair. Faith heard a shout of dismay and anguish from one of the women in the crowd behind her; the woman's mother, she guessed as her anger rose to a pitch. Faith held her hands up and approached him at an even pace.

The woman cried out weakly, her hair now completely gray, face becoming lined with wrinkles.

"Your pretty little blade on the wrist, too, amusing one," the Wraith snarled, "and the knife!"

"Oh, of course," Faith exclaimed sweetly and began the process of removing her wrist sheath for her extendable sword.

"And the knife!" the Wraith reminded her.

"I need the knife for the girl," Faith said indicating his hostage, taking out the kris and holding it with the point facing herself.

"What do you mean?" the Wraith snapped.

Faith walked closer to him, stopping only when the girl moaned in pain. "Look you paranoid piece of crap, put the girl right in front of you. I'm going to stab her and put her out of her misery, then feel free toss her to the side and do what you want."

The Wraith stilled, looking at her with curious, narrowed eyes. It smiled and held the girl upright in front of him as she'd asked. Faith held eye contact with him as the girl began whimpering and trying to edge away from her and the kris. The Wraith adjusted his grip to keep his hand from Faith's reach and stepped back slightly. She flipped the dagger upright, nodded at him, and thrust it into the girl's belly.

The Wraith chuckled as the woman Faith had thought to be the girl's mother screamed in despair. Without a second thought, he tossed the girl's corpse aside, knife still embedded in her gut.

"Turn around," the Wraith ordered, circling a finger to emphasize his meaning.

Faith did so, letting her back face the Wraith. She glanced at Buffy; her face had gone pale and her eyes were wide and even though she held the Troll Hammer she was obviously aware of her own powerlessness at the moment. The brunette Slayer closed her eyes and let out a breath as the Wraith's footsteps approached her from behind. She felt one of his hands reach out to grab her around the throat just as he had with the woman. She wrapped her hand around the Wraith's wrist before its palm made contact with her neck and twisted until she felt the bone break beneath her fingers. Faith mule kicked the Wraith in his right leg hard enough that his femur snapped and tore through his flesh. She spun around and grabbed the Wraith by the front of its weird dress-thing and pulled him forward to deliver a satisfying headbutt.

This one was evidently a more capable fighter than most of the others because he was able to throw a quick punch that managed to connect with her face. Her head snapped back but she managed to prevent herself from stumbling back. The Wraith, even with his right leg unable to function, was still standing as he tried the same maneuver. She stepped back and then advanced quickly.

She batted away the stunner pistol he tried to withdraw with his injured hand and was rewarded with a solid punch to her injured collarbone. A searing spike of pain tore through her arm and she had to concentrate on dodging his attempt to put a palm on her cheek to feed and heal itself.

"Oh fuck you," Faith growled, batting away another attempt to strike her and giving the Wraith a solid punch to its face, followed by another, and another. Another series of blows and she let the Wraith stumble back with a shattered nose, crying out as his leg finally gave way beneath him. He was able to keep upright on one knee; that was good, she wasn't anywhere near done with him. She advanced toward him, her rage over his actions...her actions, fresh in her mind. She paused briefly to let a weak swipe of his uninjured hand fly past her before grabbing hold of it.

"This, buddy, is going to hurt," she hissed menacingly at him. Faith twisted the arm to an uncomfortable angle and brought it lower to the ground. She then brought her knee up into the elbow with as much force as she could muster. The arm suddenly went limp as the bone fragmented, but she wasn't ready to stop. She brought her knee up again, and again, and again until the arm felt like a limp noodle..

The Wraith tried to slap her away with its broken hand as it screamed, but Faith just grabbed the newly available wrist and squeezed, feeling the already broken bones shifting and fracturing into smaller pieces under her grip. She pulled both of its arms together to make a cross over its chest before kicking the Wraith in the face. Again, and again, and again. She knew he'd have fallen to the ground by now, but she held him upright by his crossed arms, using them as leverage as her booted right foot slammed into his face again and again, blood splattering across his face from his shattered nose and jaw. Faith didn't want this Wraith to die, no, this Wraith she wanted to suffer, to die in agony for what he'd done. For what she'd done. She switched to her left foot and started on his face again.

She'd promised herself when she was in prison that she'd never let someone else make or convince her to kill someone the way the Mayor had, but more importantly, she'd promised herself that she'd never ask for that chance. This Wraith hadn't asked or ordered her to kill the girl, but if she hadn't complied with his demands then she would have been the cause of the woman's death. She wasn't naive, she knew it wouldn't have been her fault, but knowing it and believing it are two different things. And so she'd asked the Wraith for the opportunity to kill someone and whatever the circumstances and whatever the woman's fate might be, she'd broken that promise. Whatever her intentions, it was he who had put her into that position.

Faith kicked the face of the Wraith again, and again, and again before letting his shattered arm fall limply to his side. However, she maintained her hold of the arm that merely sported a broken wrist. She smiled grimly at the slight rise and fall of the Wraith's chest. Not dead then. Good.

She tugged the Wraith forward by the hand she still held, twisting to allow the limp body to topple face up onto the ground. Positioning herself above him, Faith lifted the hand she'd kept hold of and stomped on the side of its elbow with enough force to destroy the joint. She repeated the motion over, and over until Faith let the hand fall to the ground. She stood above the Wraith breathing in harsh, ragged gasps of air.

She let her knee fall onto the Wraith's chest, hearing something crack beneath her. She leaned in and began slamming her fist into its face over, and over, and over, watching with morbid satisfaction as its face became unrecognizable through the blood, torn flesh, and cracked, exposed bone. After a couple of minutes, she straightened looking down at the broken body of the Wraith in front of her. The Wraith was as still as a corpse, and given the lack of chest movement, that appeared to be the accurate term. She leaned further down, put a hand under its chin and another across the top of its head and began to twist until the loud crack of its snapped neck was like a thunderclap that echoed throughout the silent clearing.

Faith stood up and straightened, ignoring the pain from her stab wound and kept her eyes fixed on the lifeless mass in front of her. She could hear Buffy and Louis in the background, getting people seated and situated on the Puddle Jumper but she remained where she was, panting, damp hair obscuring her vision, and skin glistening with sweat. Her boots, hands, and jacket sleeves were dripping red in the dawn sky.

"Yeah, I'd be most pleased to make your Queen's acquaintance, too," she murmured to the corpse, "and what I'll do to her will make what I did to you seem like a walk in the park."

Faith took out her canteen, drank some of the water before using the rest to clean herself as best she could.

There was a clatter behind her and Faith glanced up to see her bone kris laying a few feet away from her on a pile of loose stones. The woman she'd stabbed, now returned to her youthful appearance without so match as a scratch to show from the ordeal, was being held upright by two of the freed men. The men and the woman stared at her with wide eyes that held a gamut of emotions. Awe. Wonder. Confusion. Relief. Gratitude. Fear.

The last one hurt, but she didn't blame them for being a little freaked out after the kind of show she'd just put on. Fuck, even Illyria would have kept her shit together, or at least made it quick.

"Thank you," the woman whispered, less fear and more gratitude evident in her soft voice.

Faith nodded and bent to take the kris as the rejuvenated woman was taken back to the Jumper. Faith began to slowly pick up her discarded gear, putting things away methodically before she realized she was being a coward by delaying. She didn't want to see fear in the others' eyes, not from the strangers, not Lou or Markham if they'd also seen, and B... What Buffy had seen would probably bring back some not so pleasant memories of a certain psycho-Slayer in Sunnydale. Faith closed her eyes, exhaled deeply, and picked up the rest of her gear before making her way to the Puddle Jumper.

None of the strangers inside would meet her eyes, though to be fair, most were concentrated on huddling together as they tried to process their sudden change of fate and fortune. The captured Wraith was awake and looking pained and very sour about his situation as he sat awkwardly in the corner of the Jumper. Buffy sat between him and the rescued humans and only briefly met Faith's eyes before looking away. Stackhouse was in the other corner, pistol in hand as he watched the Wraith. He caught her eye and nodded to the cockpit before slapping a hand against the partition to catch Markham's attention.

The wall slid open and Faith stepped inside without another word, taking the copilot seat next to Markham. She strapped herself in, hissing at the newly applied pressure to her injury. She fell silent and watched the forest canopy disappear below the viewport as the Jumper rose into the air.

"Remind me never to piss you off, Faith," Markham remarked lightly from the pilot's seat.

"Fuck you," Faith replied in a soft voice. "Let's go home."

"Three minutes from the Stargate, get ready to dial Atlantis and send our IFF signal," Markham ordered, taking her words to heart and letting it go. "You're still getting me a date with Simpson?"

Faith nodded and settled in for the short flight to the Stargate. Glancing down, she clenched a trembling hand into a fist and waited for Markham's go-ahead to dial the Gate.

---

Several days after AR-3's departure...
M4S-683

The man looked around the clearing, at the many Wraith corpses that littered the area and felt his lips pull back in a smile of satisfaction. An informant among the Hoffan people had revealed that a group of strangers had come to this place, searching for the Wraith, and had lived to tell of it. The strangers' description matched those of the small party that had recently visited his planet and caused trouble that could have so easily been avoided. But whatever he and his people might feel about those strangers, any victory against the Wraith was a victory for the Genii and what he'd found on this planet had left him reluctantly impressed.

The strangers had visited a great deal of damage upon the Wraith, enough so that it would have been difficult, perhaps even impossible, for the Genii to match with their current weapons and technology. But that was, after all, why they had followed those strangers to this planet: to find technology for the Genii that might compensate for the Wraith's premature awakening.

Admittedly, there had only been two of the small Wraith ships, both destroyed, and what appeared to be a relatively small amount of Wraith in the area, but that didn't detract from the strangers' victory. His people had combed the area, scavenging for parts and weapons while looking for clues as to how the strangers had overcome the Wraith. Aside from the ship's interior and the immediate area surrounding the ship, the clearing he stood in was the only other place that bore any evidence of the battle.

And what a battle it must have been, the man thought, looking not only at the battered corpse in front of him, but also remembering the decapitated Wraith, Wraith cut in half or slashed to pieces, some crushed completely to death, and the many found who'd been riddled with projectiles so similar to their own. But the Wraith at his feet in front of him...

Only one person had done this, one of Ladon's technicians had reported. A woman or a young man, judging by the footprints in the dirt and the hand shaped bruises found on the corpse. Sora had been in agreement with Cowen that the strangers, for all their technology and advanced weaponry, were unusually soft in spirit. And given the size of those bruises, it would have been a very young man. Too young.

The Wraith had shown no signs of being bound or hampered in any way and yet it had been beaten to death with such precision and with a degree of ruthlessness and cruelty that was uncommon even among his people. He had found himself in agreement with Sora; somewhere on Atlantis was a woman who had beaten a Wraith to death before breaking its neck for good measure. The Wraith were stronger, faster, and more durable than any man; so what manner of woman could do this? Would do this?

One he'd very much like to meet, was the obvious answer to his internal musing.

"Commander!"

The man looked up to see the young woman he'd just been thinking of jogging toward him, carefully averting her eyes from the battered corpse at his feet.

"Yes Sora?"

The young redhead stood straight. "We've encountered only a small number of Wraith in the area surrounding the ship, but not so many that our men were unable to handle them. Ladon and Dahlia are already in the ship, taking samples and recordings."

"Very good, Sora, very good. I know that things have been difficult since your father was killed under such regrettable circumstances, but I know that he'd be proud of your being here to help arm our people against the Wraith."

The young woman straightened and gave him a proud smile. "Both Radims believe they'll find enough information or resources that we'll be able to do many great things. Both have stated, however, that the prisoner's cooperation would be...helpful." Sora grimaced as she finished her report, looking disgusted at the thought.

The man nodded thoughtfully. "Sora, were you aware that the Wraith will cannibalize each other when they begin to starve?"

Sora blinked at the seeming non sequitur. "I've heard it, yes."

"Then inform our people that they are to take a Wraith alive, if possible. Our prisoner can enjoy him as a treat so long as he cooperates," the man ordered softly. "Do not worry Sora, your father will receive his due justice when we take Atlantis for the Genii."

"Thank you, Commander."

The man nodded and continued examining the corpse at his feet before making his way to the crashed spaceship that was visible over the treeline.

---

Author's Notes: Chapter title taken from Dresden Files. Thanks Jim Butcher for writing awesome books. This chapter originally lacked the entire Wraith attack sequence. After saying earlier in the story that the third part would have more action, I wanted to make sure I followed through. Aside from the Wraith scenes, this chapter was mostly about further development between our heroes, and about the kris. There's also a pretty good setup for yet another big action sequence down the line. If you can't guess what's coming, shame on you.

There was a bit of an explanation for the beat down scene with the Wraith, namely that killing an innocent was something she'd promised herself that she'd never do. First, no, Faith did not know for certain that the kris would heal the woman or to what extent. Add in memories of the Mayor and the professor she killed and things get a little tense for Faith. I'll go a little more into it later, but I really wanted to emphasize that, though she's become undeniably happier and stable, she's still a young woman with a shitty background and a life that never got much better until very recently. The situation the Wraith placed her in was a reminder of a past she'd so much rather forget. Remember when Faith was in Buffy's body, beating the shit out of herself? There was a little bit of that, too.
The scene was partially inspired by the movie Unleashed. In the movie, Jet Li is basically owned by a douchebag who raised him to be his little attack dog to make money in fights. Whenever his collar goes off, Jet Li basically goes ape shit and just wails on people, which is kinda how I was trying to portray Faith during that scene.

As for the long kris sequence at the beginning, I thought it deserved an explanation even if it really is pretty flimsy. I'd been alluding to it every now and then so I wanted to give it some time. In regards to the kris's age: don't forget about the modified timeline. Lanteans fled 100,000 years ago, not 10,000, so that's why the Keeper in the hive used that number regarding "rich feeding grounds" and why the kris's age is plausible. The connection to the Slayer hasn't really been explained, but what Ancient is physically capable of going 1v1 with a Wraith, so...Slayer is the answer. Hope the explanation of the kris and its properties didn't disappoint.

Canon discussion: The ship I was trying to describe that crashed on M4S-683 was a Wraith cruiser. Their approximate size runs from about the length of the Daedalus (~225 m) to 900 m in length (depending on who you ask). To put it in scale, Hive ships are about 11,000 m in length.
According to canon, after the first Wraith stun blast, they don't actually cause anymore pain. Given that Faith, in this case, was not truly stunned, I am inferring that the stun blasts will continue to cause pain until she was stunned. Throwing that out there for any canon purists.