A/N: I realise that for each chapter less and less people are reading, but such is life (famous last words). I'm going to continue this because, believe it or not, I actually enjoy writing this story and would like to continue. I admit, it is disheartening to know that I have like…what, four, maybe five readers? Oh well. Ooh, bonus points for anyone who knows the person who was responsible for the famous last words "Such is life". Anyhow, thankyou to everyone who keeps reading and reviewing, you make doing this worth while.

SGASGASGA

When Michelle next awoke she had no idea where she was, though from the very organic design of the cell and the web-like structures acting as bars, she could hazard a guess. Suddenly her throat felt very dry. Looking around, she saw the other members of her team scattered around the cage, all unconscious. Crawling over to each of them in turn she checked their pulse and then shook them awake. None of them seemed to be badly injured, thankfully, though all of them – herself included – had rather nasty bumps on the back of their heads, thanks to their Kelnari captors introducing them to the butts of Kelnari guns. Their guards had obviously knocked them unconscious so they would not know where they were being taken – or would not resist.

After making sure that everyone was relatively unharmed and coherent, she crawled over to one of the cell corners and huddled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them protectively. Before coming to Atlantis she had not exactly been the most sociable person. In school she had preferred to distance herself from other people, and while attending the Academy had made her a little more open, it was not until she reached Atlantis that she truly understood the value of having lots of friends. Even so, it was hard to break old habits. Occasionally, especially when in very trying circumstances, she could not help but to fall back into her old ways.

After a while of staring blankly at the cell door, Michelle began to zone out. Her mind drifted back to what seemed like years ago, standing on her favourite balcony on all of Atlantis, surrounded by beautiful architecture, seemingly endless ocean and a gorgeous star-filled sky, with James kneeling before her, holding out the most beautiful ring she had ever seen and asking her to marry him. Her response had been instantaneous. Back then everything had been perfect. She had just come to live in the lost city of Atlantis and the man she loved was proposing to her.

Thinking about James made her mind drift further back, before Atlantis. James had always been for her when she needed him. They had first met at the Academy. He was almost two years older than her, but they were in the same year level. He was fairly smart and always very witty with a great sense of humour, though she noticed that he did tend to become very nervous in some stressful situations. He had been there after Iraq, helping her get rid of the bad memories. Looking back, she supposed that must have been about the time she began to think of him as more than just a friend. They had started dating about six months later, although they had always been careful to keep their relationship from their superiors.

Michelle was shaken from her reverie by someone gently shaking her shoulder. Bringing herself back to reality, she saw Captain Pearce looking at her with a concerned gaze. "Huh?" she mumbled, rather unintelligently.

"I was just asking if you were alright," he said softly.

"Oh, sorry. I guess I just zoned out a bit, but I'm fine," she said with a forced smile, although as she did she realised the pain pounding through her skull like one of the Atlantean uber-hurricanes. Damn it, she thought, concussion.

Pearce didn't seem too convinced by her answer, but let it slide. "Alright, just let me know if you need anything. They took all our weapons, but we still have our tac vests, so we have basic field medical supplies and some power bars and water, which should help us a bit. Lt Reese and Dr Ingram are trying to brainstorm a plan of action, but for the moment I think the only thing we can do is wait." Pearce, she had found, was good at keeping a clear head in dangerous situations. He seemed to be a few years younger than Colonel Sheppard and had arrived recently on the Daedalus. He wore his chocolate brown hair in a cut very similar to that of Major Lorne, another of the new soldiers who had arrived on the Daedalus since the siege.

A loud sound in the corridor drew the attention of all four team members. Webb grimaced at the sound and brought a hand up to her throbbing temples, drawing a questioning glance from Pearce. "Concussion," she grumbled reluctantly, keeping her eyes locked on the corridor as a white haired Wraith and two Wraith guards came around the corner and walked very deliberately towards the cell. As they approached, the plant-like webs that constituted the cell door withdrew.

The 'Lanteans all stood up and faced the Wraith, trying to stay as calm as possible, although Doctor Ingram could not hide the look of utmost fear on her face. Lieutenant Reese stepped forward, "What do you want?" he demanded.

The two guards stopped on either side of the cell door, each holding a stunner, while the white-haired Wraith continued into the cell until it stood barely a foot away from Lt Reese. "We wish to know the location of Earth," it hissed, staring down at the soldier.

"I'm sorry, but that's classified information .You're going to have to get security clearance before I can disclose that information." Well, now the Wraith looked thoroughly pissed – as if it hadn't before.

"You will tell me the location of Earth, or you will have the life drained from you – year by agonising year!"

"I'm sorry, but you don't have the required security clearance," Lt Reese persisted. Michelle had to hand it to him, it took a damn brave man to stand up to a Wraith, let alone crack jokes in it's ugly face.

The Wraith hissed furiously and drew it's hand back, before plunging it toward Lieutenant Reese's Chest. He screamed as the hand made contact, but the screaming didn't stop then. It just went on and on as her had his life drained away just as the Wraith had promised. Michelle couldn't bear to watch, so as her team's leader was aged before their eyes she was forced to look away, feeling the bile rise in her throat. Dr Ingram burst into a fit of hysterical tears, making Pearce walk over and turn her away from the horrid spectacle, trying his best to comfort the very scared scientist. Even he was not able to bring himself to look at the way Reese's body withered, still screaming almost inhumanely.

Once the Wraith was done, all that remained of the stoic soldier was an old, withered body. Captain Pearce ushered Dr Ingram over to a corner of the cell, planting himself firmly between the scientist and the Wraith.

The Wraith drew it's head back and sniffed the air as if searching for something, looking around the cell until it's eyes came to rest on Captain Webb. As it headed toward her she accepted the unspoken challenge by taking a step toward the Wraith, despite every fibre of her being urging her to step away from it, to run!

"You will tell me the location of Earth, or you shall meet the same end as your comrade!" The foul thing said, it's eyes glittering maliciously as though it already knew that she would undoubtedly give it the information it desired.

She braced herself, then answered, "I'm sorry, but Lieutenant Reese was right – You don't have the proper security clearance."

For a brief second Michelle swore she could see a look of astonishment cross over it's pale features. "You," it sneered, "you are with child, and yet you would still defy me?"

"'Fraid so," she answered, shrugging, "I never was really good at the whole 'sharing' thing, sorry…wait, no, I don't think….nope, definitely not sorry."

The Wraith growled angrily at her defiance, and began to pull it's hand back again. For a moment Michelle was sure that this was it – end of the line. Then, as she straightened up a little, she noticed something. The little flick-knife that she hid in a secret pocket in the waste-band of her pants was still there! When Pearce had said that their weapons had been taken she had just assumed it was gone too, her head pounding too much to really concentrate. Reaching up as fast as she possibly could, a swift kick of adrenaline giving her just the boost she needed to push away the shroud of fog that had been occupying her mind from the concussion, she pulled the knife out of it's hidden holster, flicking it open, desperately trying to beat the Wraith's hand as it's plundered ominously toward her chest. Before the Wraith had noticed her movements, the knife blade was driven through it's hand, then it's heart, then across it's throat before it had a chance to fall.

Captain Pearce reacted quickly, tackling one of the Wraith guards to the ground. The other shot with it's stunner, narrowly missing Webb's head. She ran at it and tackled, much in the same way that Pearce had to the other guard. Using all her strength she forced it's head forward and drove her knife into it's neck, to where she assumed it's carotid artery (if it had one) should be.

As she had done that, Captain Pearce had managed to wrestle the stunner off his guard and stabbed it the Wraith through with the long, pointy end of the stunner. They still had no idea why the stunners had those pointy ends, because the only thing they were ever used for, it seemed, was to stab the Wraith.

By the time both the guards were down, the first Wraith was beginning to get up again. Pearce wheeled around and shot it with the now blood-covered stunner, then he shot the bodies of the other two Wraith for good measure.

"What do we do now," Michelle asked him, trying to weigh up their options in her mind, but inevitably failing as that annoying fog had returned. She walked over to Dr Ingram and helped the shaking scientist up from where she had huddled in the corner when the fighting began.

"We should keep moving," he said, retrieving a smaller stunner-pistol from the immobile body of the white-haired Wraith and handing it to Dr Ingram, who had now stopped shaking a little, but was still quite obviously scared within an inch of her life.

Michelle nodded in agreement, "No doubt they will have alerted the other Wraith to our escape. Goddamn telepathy. We should leave this area of the ship immediately."

"So we're definitely a hive?" Pearce clarified, "I thought we must have been, but I wasn't sure."

"Judging by the size, this is too big to be a cruiser, and the Wraith don't seem to have any stationary bases of operation, so I should think it's relatively safe to assume that we're on a hive. Now, if I remember what I've read about hive ship schematics, we should be on one of three prison levels. Only the back half of the prison levels have open cells, so we're definitely in the back half of the ship," she wracked her brains for more information, but that damn fog was proving to be very, very annoying," um…the direction the corridor is going means we're on the left hand side of the ship. If we continue down to where it ends, I'm pretty sure we should be able to gauge what level we're on by looking at where the corridors head from there."

SGASGASGA

I apologise for the mistakes in this chapter, but I honestly couldn't be bothered proof reading it (sorry). Instead, I set to work on another chapter. You see, I realised that in order to do the little teasers at the end of the chapter, I had to have the story done at least one chapter in advance (smart move --).

Coming up:

Chapter 5 – Escaping

Despite be able to move a little more offensively now it was still very slow going. Pearce had taken one of the larger knives that they had picked up and given the other to Dr Ingram, instructing her carefully that should she need to take down a Wraith, the best way would probably be to catch it by surprise and slit it's throat, making sure to push it's head forward first so that the artery that carried the main blood supply to the brain would not be protected by the windpipe.