I do not own Stargate, Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, nor do I own any of its characters. I make no profit off this story excepting in my own personal pleasure of writing it. This is set AU after the end of Season Five of Stargate Atlantis. It completely disregards the Legacy book series, so please no flames that it's ignoring those. Also a few characters may go a bit OOC because I feel like it. If you don't like it, don't read it.

AN: To clarify for anyone who's been waiting for alerts on this story, I've been going through this story and correcting some continuity errors thanks to someone's review as well as some truly atrocious grammatical and spelling errors that I sincerely apologize for. Also, here's the next chapter that has actually been done for a while, but I didn't have the energy to edit due to massive labor shortages at work. However, I'm on vacation this week so hopefully I will have another chapter for you by the end of the week (if you're lucky).

Chapter 32: Dakara

It took a few days to finish the planning of their strike on the Naari above Dakara. Part of that was caused by delays with the preparations and then arrival of the 'Fallen' as they opted to call themselves. The group was only thirty or so people, the majority of them elderly, though there were a few of their children who were middle-aged, and eager to meet their families. The whole matter caused a bit of ruckus, though it did reveal a few unknown members of the 'Ancient worshipping Cult' to the personnel that were still investigating them.

Still, John was more than happy when they managed to work out the entire plan and had everyone ready and loaded up on the Cthulhu, the Phoenix, and their newest ship, the Africana. The elderly of the Fallen seemed delighted to see the new ships, though more than a few of them questioned the name of Cthulhu. Still, they all seemed to be happy to see that what they considered to be a labor of love for them for their future generation, was being met with acceptance and an eagerness to embrace their heritage.

Personally, John didn't think they realized that in their current situation, the Lanteans would use whatever they could get their hands on, which was why many of the Wraithkin Hives had already been retrofitted with Lantean shields, cloaking, and wormhole drives. In fact, Bitterwind's hive would also be going with them to Dakara. John had sent two Jumpers, along with pilots to her hive to ensure that her teams for the incursion were able to enter the Naari ships along with the other teams as the darts lacked cloaking capabilities.

John stood in the helm and nodded to Col. Wu who took that as his command to relay to departure. Almost silently, one after another, the four ships opened wormholes and jumped through to the edge of the Dakara system, using precisely calculated coordinates. They had gone through while cloaked, so only the fact that their systems were interconnected, even the hive, allowed them to know where the others were precisely. Once all were present and accounted for, they moved forward in concert at sub-light, though it would only take them thirty minutes from their entry point to the planet itself.

John watched intently as the planet and the hovering ships came into view. Todd, who was next to him curled his lips back in a snarl at the sight, "Pathetic. I suspect the majority of their ships and power come from the stolen technology of their victims. Your is inherited or recovered, Wraithkin we developed our own. And their ships bare great flaws on a visual level alone, who knows how flawed they are below the surface. It's clear they didn't earn their power."

"Well, once we get enough of their language down to begin translating their computer systems, we can determine if that's the case, though, judging by their interest in Dakara, I'd have to agree," John shrugged. "Not like it matters for much longer for these guys. Whatever they may or may not have gleaned from Dakara won't be enough to save them from us."

Todd huffed agreement as he turned to go collect his strike team. Likewise, John followed. Teyla and Teldy would be leading the strike teams on the Cthulhu, Ronon and Swordborne were on the Africana with their strike teams and Semper and Dancingsword would be leading the strike teams from Bitterwind's hive. Dancingsword was still relatively inexperienced as far as Wraithkin combatants went, but Bitterwind had been adamant that her daughter, who was only 104 now, was competent in both combat and telepathy, and she trusted few others, still prone to the distrust of her time as a Wraith queen, to execute the vital job assigned to them.

The Wraithkin of Bitterwind's hive's teams had, John knew, received explicit orders to target not the language or tactical knowledge of the Naari, but more their motives and practices with their victims. Bitterwind claimed that having the information from a purely separate Wraithkin source, particularly that of a budding Queen, would be more accepted from the remaining Wraith Queens than from John, simply because he was so immensely feared by the Wraith. This would increase if the information came from multiple Wraithkin minds that didn't answer directly to John. The likes of Swordborne and Natureborne, two of the highest ranked in terms of positions they held before defecting from their respective hives, were considered unreliable sources because their loyalties were tied strictly to John and no hive queen at all.

John snorted at the thought, knowing full well, that Bitterwind's people and those of other Wraithkin hives were just as loyal to him as those who were 'defectors'. They just kept their reputations because they had smarter Queens. Overall, John was fine letting Bitterwind make the call she had with her teams. All their teams were comprised of ten men/women, with a minimum of half of them being required to be capable of telepathy. They also all had a scientist in every team, just in case. John eyed Rodney who was practically bouncing at the idea of being back out in the field after so long, or at least as bouncy as the man got, which was to say, he demanded they got started, so they could get the oh so valuable data he coveted.

John smirked as their team crowded in tight into their jumper before he started it up and they followed Todd's jumper out, piloted by Andrew Nakamura. Once more, with the cloaking engaged, it was more a matter of slipping into the hanger bays of the two ships, four teams per a ship. According to the preliminary intel that Ellis had provided, each ship had two hangers, one presumably for their bigger ships, and one for their smaller. Todd's and John's teams went for the bigger hanger, which proved to indeed contain the anticipated larger secondary ships, though there were only two, presumably because they were so big.

They hung tight until they had confirmation from the other teams that they were in place and ready to disembark. The HUD had shown that the air within the ship and it's hanger bay was breathable, though it held some… odd components as well. Still, the Jumper's system had indicated they weren't harmful to humans or Wraithkin biology, so the tactical mission was a go.

The LSD said that the area was clear of other life signs outside their teams on the jumpers, so they were clear to disembark and cloak the jumper. John nodded to Todd's team and mentally instructed them to take the corridor on their side of the hanger and directed his people to the one on theirs. One of the things that John loved about his telepathy was that it made silent tactical strikes simple in the extreme, since you didn't have to talk out loud at all. Those who weren't capable of telepathy simply projected their thoughts and those with telepathy could pick up on it easily. John kept Rodney in the middle of their group, as both the most vulnerable, but also the one carrying the LSD. That meant he could easily give off a warning in his head and as every Wraithkin knew, even mentally, Rodney was fucking loud and vocal when needed, though he had also master the art of the mental babble for when he was interrogated by a Wraith, which meant that he could throw off a Queen as well as John could, even without his telepathic prowess.

John was a little uncomfortable as they proceeded through the ship, carefully clearing the area, which seemed to be mostly storage rooms, that there weren't anyone around. There weren't even guards, as if the Naari had never even conceived of the idea of invaders on their ships. The very idea was probably laughable to them. But then they also likely had no idea what telepathy was, so the Naari's overconfidence worked in their favor. Rodney called the group to a halt as they came to a bulkhead door and showed John there were several life signs beyond.

This was all John and the Wraithkin needed to carefully lower their mental guards. They had kept them up to prevent them from being overwhelmed by the sheer volume of unguarded minds within the ship, but now they lowered them just enough to reach out to those who were just beyond the door. For his target, which he chose to only go for one with the sheer number of Wraithkin present to help, John immediately went for what Rodney and Jackson needed, specifically, the language and it's relation to reading their systems. To his surprise, this Naari mind lasted almost 40 seconds before he had to pull out as the mind collapsed under the strain.

This was good because it meant that they had gotten more information from these than they had from those on the Apollo. It was bad because the amount of time they lasted was almost three-times the length of time that those on the Apollo had, meaning they had stronger minds, not so much so that they were a real risk to any of them, considering the mere act of entering the mind seemed to paralyze them, but it was still a concern in that some others might have even stronger minds. Still, there was one good thing out of all of it, John now knew how to open the bulkhead doors.

Rodney huffed in annoyance but waved for him to do so as soon as he was certain the Naari on the other side of the door were dead. They then proceeded, stepping over the bodies of what looked to be possibly a unit heading to the hanger bay. It wasn't long until they came across another group and John didn't comment when half of the casualties the Naari took were from lightsabers. After all, his people weren't trained to sit around and do nothing while those who were telepathic ripped through their enemies' minds. John felt a sense of bile rise up as he accidently caught some of the less savory parts of the Naari minds as he rifled through them. They encountered another six groups of varying sizes in short order and John mildly wondered if there was a silent alarm they had triggered. Only, in all the cases, none of the Naari had been expecting them. In one of the minds, he checked what they were doing and found that they appeared to have been preparing to go down in one of the larger ships to explore Dakara's ruins.

John winced at this information because it meant that eventually the Naari of ship were going to pick up on something being wrong and it would be sooner rather than later. John sent off a mental warning to Teyla, Todd, and Jinto, who was Ronon's lead telepath for communicating between the groups silently. He received acknowledgements back, and the one from Todd felt slightly funny, but John couldn't focus on that as they encountered another group of Naari.

By the time they made it through the relatively long corridor of supplies to the first room with actual Naari in it, they had probably killed at least eighty Naari, and John knew that this was going to take a painfully long time to clear the ship. Fortunately, they had a phase two, once they were certain that they had gathered sufficient intelligence. The good news was that a good number of those that had been heading for the hanger bay had been scientists, probably intended to handle the running of the ship itself or maybe for their ground scans. Honestly, John didn't really care. He gave it another good half hour, putting them at an hour into the mission before he sent out a mental query if everyone felt they had gotten sufficient intel on the Naari. When he'd received back a confirmation, they shifted to phase two.

Phase two was a massive, joint, psychic blast, strong enough to take out the remaining Naari in one hit but not hurt any humans or Wraithkin on the ship, with their stronger mental shields. As soon as he informed them that they were switching the phase two, the group reformed in a different pattern. John and the other Wraithkin in his group sat down in a circle, hands linked, to build up their part of the psychic blast. The non-telepaths formed up around them and guarded them with the lightsabers active. It was possible this plan wouldn't work, and they still had to go through the ship manually to ensure that they had taken them all out, they would have to do the long haul of the clearing of the ship either way. This method was just to hopefully expedite the matter.

John could feel when everyone was ready, including the Wraithkin on Bitterwind's hive. It was then that he gave the order to attack. His mind was swept along with all the others as it slammed like crashing waved over the Naari in concussive blasts. These waves weren't meant to extract information or be gentle in the slightest. Even Rodney winced a bit as the psychic waves rolled over him and the other humans, but they weren't hurt, at least as far as John could tell.

After that attack, John could feel the others reigning in their minds while he stretched his out in a blanket-like manner. He could easily feel the minds of the other teams on the two ships. He also found, to no surprise from what he'd managed to gather from the minds of his kills, the clusters of imprisoned Unas and humans in cells throughout the ships. Those were all clearly terrified, and John vaguely picked up that a few of the Naari had dropped dead mid-torture session, and their victims had no understanding of what had happened.

He nodded before comming the ships with waiting further troops for the purpose of helping secure the ships, "I believe we're in the clear. You can start sending over the clean-up teams. Just be advised that there are humans and Unas prisoners on the ships. We're going to work on releasing them, but we could use some help with gathering them up as there appear to be a lot."

"Understood, sir. Our people were already on standby and will deploy immediately. Is there anything else we should be aware of?" Col. Wu asked.

"The air smells a little weird in general, the Naari smell nasty, and there are now a lot of their corpses hanging around. Make sure you bring LDSs with you guys too, it should help you locate the Naari's victims when you're on board," John quipped for the first half before giving genuine instructions for the second.

"Roger that, sir. We were already planning on having them equipped with them," Wu responded before they cut communication.

"Right, no need for stealth now. Let's move this mess along, shall we. Who managed to get a good practical understanding of the ship's layout?" John asked.

The answer to that was all the Wraithkin, because apparently they, like him, figured it would help with things. John nodded, "Alright, Ravenwing, Bloodborne, you two head back to the hanger to meet up with the troops and act as guides for them. We don't want anyone getting lost and this place is massive."

The two young Wraithkin heeded his orders without hesitation and headed back the way they came. From there, the rest began making their way to the nearest cellblock. Along the way, they had to shift a few of the larger piles of dead Naari out of the way so that they could move people back to the hanger more easily. John had no doubt that as soon as they got to the first group, they would be dealing with a lot of hysterical and traumatized humans who might be terrified of all aliens now and wanted to make the process move along as smoothly as possible.

They finally reached the first of the cells after shifting several sets of bodies out of the way and going down a shaft that was apparently the only way up and down levels as the Naari had apparently never invented the idea of an elevator if John didn't miss his guess. At least that's what John's stolen knowledge told him. Granted, this species was all about being the strongest and smartest, so maybe they thought that the idea of elevators were for the weak. At least they'd had the prudence to make the shafts wide and with multiple ladders, to make it so that more people could go down or up at once. John wondered mildly if there was some system in place to ensure that there weren't people going up and down on the same ladder, and his brain supplied the answer in the form of half of them being used for up and the other half for down, and if a fool used the wrong one, well, fighting and tossing someone down the shaft was viewed as perfectly acceptable if they used the wrong ladder, were too slow moving, or had pissed off the person in some other fashion.

John huffed and rolled his eyes before comming the Phoenix again, "Wu, see if you can't send a bunch temporary locators for the transporter as well. These guys don't know what an elevator is and we're likely to be having a lot of injured people who wouldn't enjoy climbing up or down a bunch of shafts to get out of here."

"Already thought of that, sir. Not in terms of the lack of elevators, mind you, more in terms of speeding up the rescue operation and the fact that there might be some people too injured to safely move and that needed to go directly to the infirmary," Wu replied easily enough.

"See, this is why I picked you to work with SpecOps. You think of details that I miss sometimes," John commented before they moved on and to the first set of cells. John found it peculiar that they had a bunch of cells spread throughout the ship, rather than having them all in one section, but the answer to that was also supplied with his mind and the outer area of the cell block. Simply put, they were spread out for Naari pleasure convenience.

John grimaced at the shrieking of the little girl, maybe no more than six, strapped to a table, completely nude, with multiple lacerations. The girl's shrieks of terror at the door opening turned quickly to sobs as she saw them, the girl begging, in what was clearly French, for them to help her. Rodney, the most fluent in the language, being from Canada, was the one who reacted first and with John's help, they released the sobbing child, who immediately clung to Rodney as if for dear life.

"She's from Earth," John couldn't help but note with horror. "They have people from Earth on this ship."

It was the only explanation. After all, while there were ample numbers of worlds that spoke with various dialects of ancient languages, both in Pegasus and the Milky Way, all of which would naturally be translated by the stargate systems as long as nothing was damaged, the more modern Earth languages didn't have the same advantage. In fact, there had been a great deal of effort on the parts of the Nox and the educators in general to teach those who had survived a single common language of English, as the majority of the survivors were English speakers due to the fact of the Stargate having been in the U.S. and thus that was simplest.

"Poor thing must have been tortured for the past year. Look at her, she's skin and bones," Rodney huffed angrily as he soothed the little girl.

John signaled for them to proceed into the cells, leaving Rodney to tend to the girl. The cells were occupied by equally emancipated people of various ages, all of whom started clamoring with excitement as they saw humans who were clearly there to rescue them. John pulled on his decent skills with speaking French to get them to calm down and explain that they were all going to be rescued. There were questions about the Wraithkin, but John explained carefully that they were trusted allies and had helped kill the Naari with their telepathic skills. With this, John went over to the system that was supposed to control the locks on the all the cells and with a few minutes of fiddling and probing his own mind for the necessary information, John unlocked the cells all at once. He then carefully questioned them on their physical strength before determining they weren't strong enough to manage navigating the shaft. Thus, he just guided them back to the shaft, instructing them to wait there until such time as the teams with the necessary transporter locators reached them. He left one of the Athosian Wraithkin, Kerran Tworal, with them. Kerran might not have been able to speak French, but she was human enough, at least in appearance, that the rescued prisoners wouldn't be as nervous around her as they were with those who were blue and had pointed teeth.

From there, they moved on to two more groups of prisoners. One was a mixture of Unas and more Earth humans, this time, by John's best guess, Middle Eastern and spoke Arabic. John's Arabic was atrocious, but he was able to say enough to convey that the prisoners were being rescued. As for the Unas, they got lucky in that one could speak English and translated for them to the others. The third group was from South Africa and there were thankfully plenty of English speakers among them who knew enough of the other languages spoken among those present to translate, and this was by far the largest group of Earth survivors they had located so far at almost 30 people. Once they had been conveyed to the nearest shaft, they were immediately met with the secondary teams that immediately got to work sorting the rescued prisoners out. The most awkward part was that all of them had been stripped naked. John suspected that none of them had had their clothing since the very start of their torture.

He forced himself to turn away and focus on the task at hand though. Those on his team that didn't know the layout of the ship, McKay excluded, went back to the Phoenix with those rescued so far. Those who did know the layout were split up into new groups with locators and medics to locate more people. John took his group, comprised now of scientists up to the bridge, where he and McKay worked out that, yes, they had managed to go undetected long enough to take out the entire crew without an alarm or warning being sent off, and no, the other Naari ships in the area didn't seem to be interested in joining them in the immediate time frame. Upside was that they found the ships' systems held not only the means to locate all the other Naari ships in the near vicinity, that being the cluster of star systems closest to them, but also a compendium of who's ships they were and their relationship with these ships. Aka, how recently they'd fought each other over some resource they wanted and thus how much tension and resentment was between them.

In an odd sense, it was logical, just strange that they actually made lists of 'who we hate least' and 'are they near us'. Then again, this was a species that literally lived for torture, torment, fighting, and all-around awfulness, so it made sense that they were wary of their potential threats from other ships. John shook his head though as the weird feeling had been building up in his senses since they arrived on the ship spiked as Todd walked onto the bridge. Todd, in contrast, jerked back violently.

"Dr. McKay, is there any particular purpose you require John and cannot use someone else to analyze the ship's systems?" Todd asked, a slight strain in his voice that made John's dick perk up and notice.

It was then that he realized, or at least partially figured out something weird was going on. Thankfully McKay shook his head, "As long as it's a Wraithkin who's learnt enough of the language to translate, I can use anyone really. Why, what's wrong?" He asked, noticing that John and Todd were abnormally stiff.

John decided that blunt would be best in this case, "I think there's something quite literally in the air that's making us horny as hell, and we need to go see Jennifer to check if there's something bad going on that the Jumper's systems didn't pick up on."

"What? I feel fine," Rodney remarked. "Are you two sure you're not just horny in general because you had a successful mission?"

"Dr. McKay, I feel much as I did in the build up to our first breeding cycle. It is a distinctly different sensation than merely being horny," Todd nearly snarled. "Furthermore, encountering such minds as those as the Naari does not generally induce sexual desires, given their basic nature."

Rodney backed down at that and John got a suspicious feeling. He opened his comms to all personnel, "Alright, I need to know if anyone who's either Wraithkin or bonded to a Wraithkin is feeling what seems like an intense sense of a need to… well… to mate with your significant other."

"I am feeling a strong need for the presence of Kannan," Teyla admitted first. She was followed by a slew of others who were all in bonded pairs like John and Todd, excepting Teyla, Dancingsword, both the Tworal who were also Athosian Wraithkin, and Semper, all of whom also felt the same urge to mate, in Dancingsword's case, it would be her first time as she was generally considered too young for a female to have the mating urges. Teyla and the twins were even more baffling.

"Right, everyone who's got those urges, if you are under my command, head directly to the Phoenix. The others can handle this, I suspect we need Keller to examine us and figure out what's causing this," John ordered abruptly. He didn't add that as soon as Keller had her scans and blood samples, he was going to drag Todd back to their rooms and fuck him senseless, mostly because he was pretty certain that the others were of a similar understanding. "As for those of Bitterwind's crew, I suggest you get checked out with your version of medical and then… deal with what needs to be dealt with."

With that, he and Todd departed from the bridge, along with two other bonded Wraithkin who had been present as well. Rodney could easily handle the rest with a translator and John knew there were plenty of those around among the Wraithkin after this operation. John and Todd were careful not to touch and John got the feeling that if they did, they would lose themselves, the sensation of need building rapidly now that they were together. They made directly for the Jumpers.

Jennifer had to admit she was completely perplexed. She had roughly two dozen bonded Wraithkin carriers, all of whom had their mates on the mission to handle the ships over Dakara, claiming they could feel their breeding cycles starting up. Oddly enough, most of them weren't due for them for a minimum of at least six months, most weren't due for over two years, and one was even more perplexingly, already pregnant from his most recent breeding cycle, two months prior. Even odder was the fact that Kannan was also there saying that he was feeling extremely disoriented, short of breath, and like he needed to go to Teyla immediately.

The carriers commented that it sounded like he was being called for a Queen Breeding, which Jennifer took to mean that Teyla was essentially in heat and wanted Kannan in her presence an hour ago. Still, she took as many scans as she could, along with blood samples, of all the carriers. After all, whatever was causing this was clearly a biological reaction of some sort and given that none of the carriers or Kannan had been exposed to anything, she had to assume that it was to do with their sires, and Teyla who were on the mission, due to their telepathic bonds. What could possibly trigger the off-balance breeding cycle was unknown just yet, but Keller was damned determined that she would figure out what it was.

After all, if she could find out how it was caused, they could repeat the exercise in a controlled environment with volunteers, and possibly figure out the last bits of Wraith/Wraithkin breeding on a biological level. This would enable them to both intentionally trigger pregnancies, which would be a huge leverage factor for the Queens who could only have a single child once every hundred years, and also possibly block the pregnancies for couples that don't want to get pregnant that cycle, though that wasn't likely to occur for a good, long while, considering the difficulties with having children survive to adulthood the Wraith/Wraithkin had suffered up until now. At least, this was all if it actually triggered the Wraithkin breeding process and not something that just made them incredibly horny.

So, Jennifer took her samples and when the Phoenix arrived back ahead of everyone else, loaded down with a group of horny sires, with a few of their carriers in the mix, and Teyla and the Tworal twins also affected by whatever it was causing this, the infirmary was a swift buzz of activity. John and Todd were sent through the scanners first, as well as taking their blood before they departed without even Jennifer's permission, presumably to have a ton of sex. Teyla and the twins were nearly as aggressive as John and Todd were. Teyla went first and then the twins, who were both eyeing every passing male in their proximity. Before the twins scans and samples were taken, two Wraithkin sires, both of whom were probably extremely excellent specimens showed, and were reporting the Queen's Call, which Jennifer took to mean, these were the guys that the twins had chemistry with. Jennifer carefully questioned the girls while the two sires were examined and a few additional side comments from others present confirmed that both girls had been making overtures that were returned by the two sires in question, so Jennifer let the girls haul their horny partners in crime off.

From there it was a blur of getting the most aggressive sires scanned first before more than a few tossed their carriers over their shoulders and made for their quarters. This action was not copied by the sire with the pregnant carrier, both of whom were intensely confused by it. They were also the calmest of the bunch, most likely because they were already pregnant, so that sire was the last to be checked out, and both were recipients of the longest examination.

When done, there were over fifty samples of blood to analyze along with numerous scans. Of course, before they could proceed, they were interrupted by Bitterwind, Semper, and Dancingsword, who all wanted the more comprehensive examines available along with that for Dancingsword's hastily picked partner for the breeding process. Once they were done, Jennifer slumped into her seat and Carson looked at her sympathetically.

"If yah think about it, this will probably grant us new insights into Wraithkin biology," He offered.

"Oh, I know, it's all just so baffling. They had to have all been exposed to something, something specific that triggers breeding cycles in the females, their partners, either bonded or not, and bonded sire-carrier pairs and in all those cases, their partners don't need to be present. Just one being exposed is enough to trigger this phenomena. The question is what?" Jennifer wondered.

"Well, considering that it happened to those who were on both ships, it has to be something consistent between the two that all of them were exposed to… the air maybe? Maybe there's some component in it that triggered this?" Carson suggested.

Jennifer nodded in agreement and asked the Phoenix to send down the scans of the air from the Naari ships over Dakara. From there, they got to work going through the blood samples. Jennifer was never so grateful for the assistance of the Ancient tech as she was in this as the Ancient version of a MAs spectrometer was infinitely more efficient and didn't require any longer processes to get results. They just popped in the blood samples as is, connected them to the person's file, and the machine would pop out results within a half hour. It could also do up to twenty at once, which mean in an hour and a half, they could get answers that would take days with the human Mas spectrometer.

Once they were finished, the results were obvious. There were elevated levels of Coenzyme Q10 in their blood as well as the ships' atmospheres, along with krypton, of all things, and xenon both in much higher levels than in human atmospheres. Interestingly enough, the oxygen levels were almost 10% higher than Earth norms, but the nitrogen levels were far lower, making up only 54% of their atmosphere, compared to the Earth norm of 78%. The offset was made up in the krypton and xenon. Their combined presence seemed to result in the triggering of the natural biochemical releases necessary for the breeding process judging by their blood samples. Jennifer figured that meant that this would be a full breeding cycle, excepting for the couple that was already pregnant, which had a whole slew of implications. Of course, the true results wouldn't be known for a few days, at least in the terms of the carriers and sires. Jennifer had only a rudimentary understanding of the Queens in terms of how frequently their mating occurred.

It ended up being less than a day for the Tworal twins and Teyla and Kannan, before they reported back in. More scans showed that their systems had stabilized, and Jennifer ordered the women back into her office in a week to check for pregnancy, as it could be caught earlier with the Ancient scanners. The next day, Bitterwind, Dancingsword, and their partners were back for more scans. The results for these were more immediately obvious, as Wraithkin Queens had early enzymes they correlated to pregnancy. This made Bitterwind incredibly smug, as she'd only had a child four years prior. Another child so soon was not only unheard of, it was considered impossible. Bitterwind told Jennifer that while starvation alone might not be enough to persuade the remaining Wraith to take the retrovirus, the promise of accelerated fertility in Queens as well as bonded carriers would have them lining up in a heartbeat.

The next to emerge were the already pregnant pair, which was no surprise, and they were barely behind the females, their systems calming much quicker due to the already present embryo. After that, it was a trickle as the sire-carrier pairs returning to her infirmary over the next few days, John and Todd being the very last. By the point they showed up six days later, Rodney had worked out the Naari's systems on a rudimentary level and they'd towed the two ships through a wormhole to the original Athosian homeworld for intensive examinations and experiements.

Jennifer eyed the Sheppard couple as they entered her infirmary, "Finally done? You two are the last of those effected."

John cleared his throat and shrugged, "What can I say, I can't help that I have more stamina than most Wraithkin do." He was a little too smug with that comment.

"Right, well, considering the results of all the others, including the ladies, you guys are probably pregnant again, but Todd, hope up here to make sure of that," Jennifer waved him over to the scanner. Once the scans were completed, she nodded in confirmation. "Congratulations, you're pregnant again. You guys along with another twenty-seven Wraithkin couples. We're facing a baby boom."

"You figure out what caused it?" John asked.

"As far as I can figure, it was a perfect storm of Coenzyme Q10 in the atmosphere along with elevated levels of Xenon and Krypton that your bodies absorbed triggering the enzyme for the mating cycle in those on the Naari ships. And that in turn triggered their partners. Interestingly, Semper's triggering Bitterwind confirms definitively that Queens can form permanent bonds as well. This is supported by the fact that while Semper triggered Bitterwind, the Athosian Wraithkin women in the unit and Dancingsword only summoning their 'chosen partners' after they arrived, but Kannan being aware and waiting eagerly says that the permanent bond, if formed, will automatically call the male to his Queen, but there isn't a permanent bond necessary for the females. That means there is some difference as it didn't impact the unbonded sires and carriers who went on the ships. This is probably because the Queens don't require the permanent bond to reproduce."

"Right, so, no female wraith or anyone within a bonded pair, for both the sires and carriers, are going on the Naari ships, got it," John seemed to get the point.

"Pretty much. But, I don't think you really need to since Rodney said that you guys successfully killed the Naari with your psychic attack," Jennifer pointed out. "After that it's a matter of just sending just about anyone in to extract their victims."

"True. We should go find Rodney too. He had this whole plan of using me to download all the intel on the Naari into Atlantis's systems using the chair and the others telepathically funneling the information through me," John shrugged and took Todd's hand in his before they departed.

Jennifer sighed. She'd noticed that Todd, like all the other carriers had reverted to their more submissive natures that came with pregnancies, along with the sires being more protective and smugger too. At least there wasn't the looming threat of a wannabe neo-Nazi group to try killing Todd this time round. The Ancient worshipping cult wasn't that kind of threat, thankfully.