Note: I am so pleased to report that I managed to pass my exam :) It was a truly difficult one and took every waking moment of my days around work to get the whole textbook memorised, but its finally done (until the next one). Therefore, I am now free to start posting again, which makes me happy because I've really missed sharing this story with you guys. Thank you to all those who sent me good luck messages for the exam, and I hope everyone is healthy, safe, and happy.
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DAY 19 – Briefing
Chapter 20 - Recess
John shifted in his seat, looking up across the rows of seats above him. A break after the scientist Silvar's briefing had resulted in half the room heading out of their seats and disappearing into a side room where apparently there were snacks and drinks, but John and his team had kept to their seats, Rodney pouring over Silvar's report on his Alliance given pad like it had naked ladies on it rather copious amounts of scans, charts, and graphs. The rest of the room that had also chosen to stay in their seats appeared to be doing the same, all talking quietly huddled over the reports. A light chatter filled the tall room, the lights on full above, highlighting everyone's faces and uniforms.
Not for the first time since the recess had started, and Teyla had disappeared off with the other Elite, did John find his gaze straying up to the top corner of the auditorium's seating where the Genii delegation was camped out. None of them had left their seats either. General Maloo's dull terminator eyes were locked down on his pad, but one of the other Genii' gaze met John's. John held the man's stare, but the guy shifted his attention away. The Elite had apparently ordered the Genii to keep away from anyone from Atlantis, which John imagined was no small threat from the Elite, but he still would never trust a Genii. Especially if any of them happened to turn up outside Alliance territory, where the Elite couldn't police the Genii so easily; where 'accidents' could happen. John watched the three Genii huddled over Maloo's pad, seemingly in deep discussion over what they were reading, but John could easily imagine it was actually some new evil plot they were cooking up. Though he was pretty sure they wouldn't try anything today, not with the Elite here.
Still, he was not overly happy turning his back on them again as he turned around in his seat and instead looked out across the lower levels of seating. There were quite a few faces he recognised, not that he could remember many names, but he was getting better at identifying different Alliance clothing and hairstyles. Teyla had been coaching him on the different Alliance members and their cultural differences, but it was a lot to remember off the top of his head. Still, it was actually quite nice to be spending a day in the Alliance and not have everyone constantly watching him and Teyla, with loads of staring and pointing like at the Athosian Conference or when he and Teyla visited somewhere together. Today was a military and science briefing, not politics, and it was something of a relief really. Plus, now having listened to two briefings so far on the Skerti, he was especially grateful that he and his team had been invited today.
The Elite had already provided Atlantis with basic security details about the new Skerti threat, including the specific radiation that, if detected, was essentially an early warning system of the new dangerous jump drive. Still, none of that had the same impact as watching the re-enactment of Halling's fight against the Skerti. It had been like watching a scifi movie with its dark lit, fast paced fight, and the tense shocking moment as Halling had been locked in a losing battle against the clearly stronger Skerti, with only Seeal's abrupt arrival enough to break the stalemate to allow Halling the chance to behead the thing. Though, John had to wonder how the Skerti would do up against P90 fire, because it looked like the creature had shaken off the Elite stunner fire pretty easily. He just hoped he wasn't going to have to find out personally, because the thing had towered over Halling, who was far from a short guy!
"...look here, see?" Rodney's voice registered along with his elbow jabbed into John's side.
"What?" John frowned round at Rodney and made a show of rubbing his side. The guy had been jabbering on constantly since recess had started, but John had tuned most of it out. Carson, sat on Rodney's other side, looked like he was trying to make more of an effort, but it was all mostly technical babble that John just didn't understand, which didn't appear to be stopping Rodney from talking about it though. John had pretty much given up towards the end of Silvar's talk, the details gotten way too technical for him, but it had instead given him the opportunity for some light flirting with Teyla as they wrote each other notes, like being back in school. But she'd now disappeared off somewhere to meet up with the other Elite during the break and he was stuck here with the muttering Rodney.
"This, see?" Rodney insisted again.
John focused on the pad's screen where Rodney was pointing. It looked like a magnified image of an airport x-ray, all black with silver outlines across it that made no sense to John. "What am I looking at, McKay?"
"A scan of part of the drive. This is exactly how the power relays run in Atlantis," Rodney answered.
"So it's the Skerti drive's power source?" John tried.
"No, the conduits," Rodney corrected with raised eyebrows as if John should be inferring something important from that point.
"And that's important because...?" John prompted him slowly.
"This is designed to run off a ZPM," Rodney answered impatiently.
"What, really?" John focused back down on the pad's screen with far more interest.
"This whole design screams Ancients," Rodney said almost bitterly.
"The organic components are nothing like Ancient construction, Rodney," Carson put in though.
"So they built it with the Skerti; their fingerprints are all over this thing," Rodney jabbed at his screen. "I'd bet a year's pay this thing was designed to run off a ZPM."
"But that doesn't necessarily mean its Ancient tech though," Carson said thoughtfully. The Doc was looking far more relaxed than he had been first thing this morning, but then maybe the lecture style setting was familiar enough to him. John shifted round in his seat so that he was facing Carson, Rodney between them.
"Yeah, because there are ZPMs just lying around for anyone to find and just MacGyver into their own tech." Rodney scoffed at Carson's point.
"We did," Carson countered. "We used it on the Gate back home to get here to Pegasus in the first place."
"That's different," Rodney argued, "Gates are already Ancient tech."
"The Daedalus isn't. We plugged a ZPM into our hyperdrive," John joined Carson's side of the argument. "Maybe the Skerti just scavenged Ancient tech to make this drive."
Rodney sighed impatiently. "If they did, then they knew more about building Ancient technology than anyone since the Ancients themselves."
"Whoever made the thing," John decided to move the discussion on to something more constructive, "clearly the Skerti don't need an actual ZPM to power the drive; they hotwired the thing into a Wraith Hive. What we need is a way to disable it, stop them from spontaneously appearing above Atlantis or anywhere else in the galaxy."
On the other side of Carson, Seeal leaned into view. "What's a ZPM?" She asked, clearly having been listening in.
"It's an Ancestral power source," John explained. "Looks like a big crystal."
She nodded. "And what's a halfpipe?" She asked.
John frowned at the sudden strange question. "A halfpipe?"
"From one of the songs you gave me: 'Heaven is a halfpipe'."
John grinned. "That's a good tune. A halfpipe is a kind of curved ramp used in sports-" he started explaining, angling one hand up to show her how it worked.
"Heaven is a halfpipe?" Rodney interrupted though. "That was part of your big 'musical cultural exchange'? Heaven is a halfpipe?!"
"It's a great song," John objected.
"Skater boy," Carson chuckled.
"I wanted to provide a wide variety of Earth music for Seeal to enjoy," John explained.
Rodney narrowed his eyes at him. "Did you include the Mozart I suggested?"
John held his friend's eyes for a pause. "There wasn't any space left," he lied.
Rodney scoffed loudly as he shook his head, but was already returning his attention to his pad.
"Anyway, Seeal enjoyed it," John pointed out smiling back at Seeal. "Who clearly has good taste in music."
"I enjoyed all of it," she smiled back. "But I have a lot questions," she added.
"Go for it," John told her. Now this was the kind of briefing he could get into, not technical specs on sciencey stuff.
"Why is there so much royalty making music?" Seeal asked.
John paused, replayed the question in his head, but still didn't get it. "What?"
"There's music by a Prince, Queen, a Lady, and a piece about a 'Rain King'," Seeal explained.
John tried not to laugh.
"Gaga gets in, but not Mozart," Rodney muttered from his pad.
John ignored him. "No, they're not actual royalty," he explained to Seeal. "They're just names."
"Except the band Queen, who are definitely royalty," Carson corrected.
"Okay," Seeal nodded. "So what's a 'car'? From context, I'm guessing it's a place of seduction."
Carson spluttered out a laugh causing Seeal to quickly lean away in surprise, but she was smiling at the Doc.
"A car is a land vehicle powered by a fuel-injection engine," John explained.
"But you're not wrong," Carson told her though.
"Depends on the car," John pointed out.
"Right, so I'm guessing that these car vehicles go very fast?" Seeal asked.
"Again, depends on the car," John answered.
"But the faster the better, right?" Seeal asked pointedly.
"Sure," John grinned.
Seeal rolled her eyes dramatically. "So males are the same in both our galaxies then," she muttered and Carson chuckled again beside her.
"Not everyone loves driving fast on Earth," Carson told her. "There are speed limits, but there are still thousands of fatal car accidents each year in just his country alone."
"I noticed your accent is different to theirs, are you from a different planet in your galaxy?" Seeal asked Carson.
"No, I'm from Earth, but from a place called Scotland," Carson explained, "which is part of a United Kingdom." Then he gazed away for a second. "Though a planet Scotland sounds wonderful..."
"I'm not from the same place as Sheppard either," Rodney put in. "I'm from Canada."
"Which is another kingdom?" Seeal asked.
"Country," Carson corrected for her.
"What's the difference between a country and a kingdom?"
John quickly tuned out of the geo-political lesson as he'd spotted Teyla and Halling walking across the floor of the auditorium. The two Elite nodded to each other and Teyla broke away, starting back towards the steps that would bring her back up here. Halling was heading back towards the narrow stage, so it looked like recess wasn't going to last much longer.
John kept his eyes on Teyla as she made her way up the stairs, nodding and chatting briefly to various people as she passed them, seeming to know pretty much everyone here. Or maybe they all just wanted to say hi to an Elite warrior; he'd seen that pretty much whenever she went within the Alliance. Teyla never seemed to mind though, said it was part of her job as an Elite to be walking proof that the Wraith could be defeated. Essentially she was a celebrity of sorts, a kind of warrior rock star. He wondered if that made him a groupie?
She finally reached the level of their seats and started to head along the narrow space towards him and her empty seat to his right. Those whose legs were in the way, immediately got up to let Teyla pass by, and John stood up too, not that she needed to get by him, but it felt like the gentlemanly thing to do.
Her dark eyes met his as she got closer, her lips lifting into a beautiful smile. He smiled happily back at her as she moved past a lady with ridiculously long hair and finally reached her seat.
Acutely aware that they were in public and that loads of eyes were on them, John kept his hands at his sides and just held her gaze as they both sat back down.
"Where you been hiding?" He asked, making sure he kept a polite public distance between them, but he made sure to press his knee back in its spot against hers.
"Just a routine check-in with the Facility," she explained.
"Anything new?" He asked. The bright overhead lighting cast shiny sparkles in her lovely dark eyes. The urge to lean in and kiss her was almost overwhelming.
"No, nothing new of interest," she replied. He was almost certain there was a flirtatious edge to her voice and the tilt of her cheek as she had said the word 'interest'.
If only they had just five minutes alone together today...
Okay, he was now just gazing into her eyes.
In public.
He pulled his eyes away and looked quickly up towards the row of seats above them, but the big Satedan was still off getting a drink. Good.
"Did Doctor McKay find Silvar's briefing interesting?" Teyla asked, glancing past John towards the still muttering Rodney.
"Yeah, he hasn't lifted his nose from the report since Silvar finished," John replied.
"That is good," Teyla smiled, all warm glowing skin and dark eyes. He wondered if he could get away with just briefly touching her arm or leg, just feel...
Teyla cleared her throat and glanced away, breaking the moment.
Right, yep, they were at work.
"So, no sign of these Skerti then?" He asked weakly, wincing at the rather pathetic comment.
"No, nothing," Teyla shook her head seriously though. "We have found no mention of them in any historical recordings, at least nothing that sets the stories apart from any about the Wraith. And we have found no indication of any suspicious activity out beyond the border, even on the deep space scans Atlantis kindly provided us."
"Yeah, we've got nothing too," John frowned, annoyed that he couldn't be more helpful.
"There are no reports of anyone encountering any new spacecraft or aliens," Teyla added unhappily.
"So, either the Skerti are really good at hiding or anyone who has run across them hasn't lived to tell about it," John concluded.
Teyla nodded. "That is our conclusion as well, so we have begun focusing our attention on any reports of missing people out beyond the borders. Normally such incidents are explained by encounters with the Wraith..."
"But now we know there's something else out there..." John nodded. "If there's anything else that Atlantis can do to help, let me know."
Another lovely big grin swept across her golden face and he got the feeling he'd said just the right thing. "We will," she agreed as, down at the front of the auditorium, the warning chimes rang out. Flirting time was over then. Still, there was going to be a lunch break soon and then group chats later.
"You're going to be part of the military reps group share later, right?" John checked. People were now flocking back into the auditorium, the noise level rising as everyone headed up the stairs and back to their seats.
"Yes, most definitely," Teyla nodded. "And I know both Silvar and Imseti are particularly glad to have Doctors McKay and Carson present for their group conversations as well."
"Good," John nodded. Because, of course, that was why they were all here today – information exchange. Not flirting opportunities.
From the stage the chimes rang out again and John forced himself to look away from Teyla. Except, where had he put his electronic pad? He glanced down and around his legs, only for Teyla's hand to appear holding his pad. Oh yeah, he'd put it on her chair; he hadn't even noticed she'd picked it up for him.
"Thanks," he took it from her, his fingers brushing over hers.
"You are welcome," she replied as the lights lowered in the room, everyone back in their seats. As she let go of his pad, her hand gently ghosted down and across his thigh before returning to her lap.
More than a little pleased that she'd been the one to take the quick risk of a brief teasing touch, he gave her a knowing look in the lowering light before he made himself focus back on the stage below.
Heading across the stage was the scientist, and Carson enthusiast, Imseti, while above her the massive image of the Rogue Hive still turned slowly.
"Greetings again, everyone," Imseti smiled up at her audience. She had the look and attitude of a Professor and seemed very relaxed talking to such a big group. "Thank you all for being here. May I start my briefing by mentioning that I will be presenting detailed images of the dissented Skerti alien, so those of you with a more delicate stomach may wish to glance away to the written notes at such points. That warning complete, may I now introduce you to," Imseti turned with a flourish towards the wall of screens behind her, "the Skerti." The turning Hive ship was abruptly replaced with a giant image of the dead alien, fortunately not yet dissented.
A rush of whispers filled the room.
The Skerti had looked big during the movie version of it fighting Halling, but somehow its dead body seemed even bigger. Maybe that was because the body was clearly bigger than the metal dissention table it was laid across in the photo, its lower legs and its long arms propped up on side tables in the picture.
"As you have all seen from the re-enactment of Honoured Elite Halling's battle with the alien, the alien shares some visual similarities with the Wraith, but there are significant differences. This Skerti stands at an impressive height of two point two metres, has pale skin, extensive surface veins, and elongated limbs. We have confirmed via genetic tests that it is female, although we cannot know for certain how many sexes there may be for their species. In the Iratus insect we know that females are larger than the males, and among the Wraith, the Queens of most genetic branches are as tall, if not taller than the males. However, we cannot know for certain if this particular female's height is standard for her species and/or gender."
A slideshow of various photos of the body started to run on the wall above Imseti as she talked.
"The Skerti has only four digits on each hand and foot, with each finger on its hands equipped with a long extendable claw." A photo showed a close up of one long, dark blue deadly looking claw that definitely looked like it was out of a horror movie. "The Skerti' eyes are similar in appearance to a Wraith, with a white eyeball, large yellow iris, and a slit pupil. Its teeth," a new photo appeared of the Skerti' dead lips being held back by gloved fingers, "are more Human-like than we see in the Wraith, but, unlike Humans, the Skerti' teeth are a silvery colour and the upper canine teeth are far longer. We also discovered that, not unlike some reptiles, the Skerti can extend its fangs forward. As you can see in this image, the Skerti' jaw is disproportionately larger than we see in Humans or Wraith."
In the picture, the gloved hands were now lifting and shifting the Skerti' head forward, the long fangs now jutting forward and the big bulky jaw hanging below. It looked like something out of a vampire movie!
"The explanation for this adaption is most likely due to the Skerti' chosen diet, namely blood. Within the Skerti' stomach and upper bowel organs we found a large mixed sample of Wraith blood that we have been able to identify as coming from at least three Wraith and presumably represents the Skerti' last meal before she was killed."
John tried not to grimace at the picture of the glass jar filled with thick bluish-red blood on the screen.
"From the remains of the Wraith bodies discovered in the Queen's Chamber and in the Queen's escape craft, the Skerti appears to feed by piercing its victim's neck with its canine teeth and drinking blood directly from the main carotid artery and veins of the throat."
Okay, that was even more vampire-like.
"The Skerti appear to be able to digest and absorb the blood it consumes as we would process our own food, the Skerti possessing a thin but working bowel; however," Imseti paused dramatically as she triggered the next slide in her horror show briefing. "As you can see from this magnified image of Wraith blood cells taken from the Skerti' last meal," Imseti continued as a massive picture appeared on the screens of a shrivelled up browny blue thing. Two seats down from John, Carson leaned forward in his chair. "The Wraith blood appears to have been 'drained' of its life-force and fluids, just as we see outwardly in victims that have been fed upon by the Wraith." There was a rise of whispers around the auditorium.
John glanced to Carson again, who had the same slide of the blood cell glowing on his pad's screen.
"Therefore, our current conclusion is that the Skerti' consumption of blood is a different method of absorbing life-force as we see in both the Wraith and genetic ancestor the Iratus insect. This may also suggest that the Skerti might be able to live for thousands of years, as the Wraith have done, and could, perhaps, even hibernate, which might be a clue as to where the Skerti have been for the last ten thousand years since the days of the Ancestors."
There was more whispering.
"Regardless of age, our genetic tests of the Skerti have confirmed our suspicions that the Skerti is a genetic cousin of the Wraith. We believe," Imseti changed the slide now to a simple diagram, "that the Wraith and Skerti are different species that branched off from an original hybrid creature that was formed by a combination of both Human and Iratus insect genetic material."
Carson nodded as he scrolled through his pad's information, which looked like DNA stuff. If Carson agreed with Imseti' conclusion, then John was onboard. Wraith cousins, got it.
"However, there are other significant anatomical adaptations that make the Skerti very different to the Wraith," Imseti continued.
The slides went back to close up images of the dead body.
"As seen in the re-enactment, the Skerti was able to withstand energy weapon blasts, though we did find some bruising and skin charring in those locations on its body. But, clearly it is not as affected by the kill setting as a Wraith would be. As the Skerti are a different species to the Wraith it is not wholly unusual to see some differences in such reactions. We know that among Humans, some people are affected more severely than others by stunner tech as it depends on a natural variation of the electrical frequency we all create. Therefore, it is likely that the Skerti have a different sensitivity to the energy weapon blasts, but we should hopefully be able to tune our current weapons into a frequency that will stop them as easily as they do the Wraith and Humans. We are currently undertaking tests on the Skerti cells, but obviously such testing is limited when dealing with dead tissue in place of a living test sample.
"Moving on to the Skerti' body itself, though very large, it is actually considerably more slender in build than either Wraith or Human. The Skerti skeleton is surprisingly light in weight, with far less calcification compared to our own. The skeletal components are closer to the Iratus insect exoskeleton compared to the more Human calcium-based skeleton as the Wraith adopted. This means that the Skerti bones are surprisingly fragile, particularly around the chest, where the ribs are quite thin. In battle, we would recommend attacking the chest, as the vital organs of the lungs and heart are in the same place as Humans, and so a puncture through the thin bone protection of the chest should allow a quick efficient kill strike. Though," Imseti smiled, "decapitation, as in Honoured Elite Halling's demonstration, is also highly effective."
Light laughter ran through the Auditorium, but John frowned at the images on the screen.
A blood-drinking, fanged, immortal creature that you can kill best by stabbing in the heart or cutting its head off? This was starting to get a little too close to Bram Stoker. He glanced at Rodney and Carson, but the two of them were too engrossed – Carson on the briefing and Rodney was still focusing on the technical stuff about the drive.
"However, the Skerti are far from weak, as you saw in the re-enactment," Imseti continued on. "The spread of musculature heavily favours the limbs, in fact there are five times more musculature in the limbs than the abdomen and chest. The limbs are disproportionately long compared to the rest of the body, and, again as seen in the re-enactment, the Skerti was able to climb the wall and across the ceiling of the Wraith escape craft. This is partly due to the extra muscular grip of the hands and the claws, but also from a fine fur-like gripping layer across the creature's hands and bare feet. These hairs, coated with a fine oil, allow the creature's grip to adhere to almost anything, which is inherited from the Iratus insect. Along with the Skerti' lighter body, it is likely that the creatures can hold themselves upside down indefinitely, which the Iratus insect prefers to do."
John didn't need to be reminded of how the Iratus bugs could hang from the ceiling.
"Another similarity between the Skerti and the Iratus insect is that the Skerti' eyes appear to be far more sensitive to light than a Wraith or Human. The Skerti' pupil cannot close to the same degree as a Wraith or a Human, and the sight-assigned aspects of the Skerti' brain are far more enlarged and sensitive. This means that, as we saw in the re-enactment, the Skerti will prefer dark environments and are able to see clearly in the dark. It is possible that they evolved to hunt mainly at night."
Another vampire link.
This was getting weird.
"Though, one area that is noticeably different to the Iratus and Wraith is how the Skerti communicates," Imseti triggered up a very gross image of the alien's dissected throat and upper chest. "The Skerti has no vocal cords and appears incapable of speech. Honoured Elite Halling and staff member Seeal reported that the Skerti could make sounds, but they were simple hissing breaths of sound, not recognisable speech. It appears then that the telepathic communication it used is its main source of communication, and its brain shows this clearly."
A series of photos played of the top of the Skerti' skull being removed, then the fleshy brain being extracted and then sat de-skulled on a table. John grimaced at the images, but could tell, without any medical knowledge, that the brain looked weird.
"The areas of the brain that we know are more highly developed in both Wraith and Human Seekers, are abnormally massive in the Skerti' brain and there is actually an entire new lobe of the brain grown on the top. We are still carefully dissecting the Skerti brain, but our findings so far show that this 'telepathic lobe', for want of a better name at this point, has neuron linkage to every other part of the brain other than the brain stem.
"Honoured Elite Halling has reported that the Skerti' telepathic ability extended to her being able to, in some way, read his mind and that the experience was almost overwhelmingly painful. We know that telepathic communication is possible, not only among the Wraith and Seekers, but by some on Pelydr and in stories about the Ancestors. However, the Skerti telepathy appears to be unique and possibly a significant challenge to face."
Weren't vampires telepathic in some stories? Dracula was supposed to be able to hypnotise his victims, wasn't he?
John leaned his shoulder against Rodney's and whispered to him and Carson, "Is this sounding all a little Dracula-like to you guys?"
Rodney glanced up from his pad. "What?"
Carson glanced round. "A little," he agreed quietly.
"You think that was Dracula?" Rodney asked.
"No, not Dracula, obviously," John rolled his eyes. "But we've seen before that myths back home turn out to be about actual aliens. What if Bram Stoker heard stories that came down from the Ancients that came to Earth from Atlantis?"
"It's an idea that's already been discussed about the Wraith," Carson whispered back. "I believe Dr Daniel Jackson wrote several papers on the theory."
"Yeah, but the Wraith don't drink blood and they come out during the day," John argued. "These guys fit the vampire myths far better."
"Especially the vulnerable chest," Carson nodded thoughtfully.
"Yeah," John nodded. "Maybe the Ancients spread the stories just in case any Skerti ever made it to Earth and-"
Teyla's hand was a sudden warm weight on his right knee, drawing John's attention to her.
"What is going on?" she whispered as he looked round.
John noticed that people sitting on Teyla's far side and those on the row of seats above them were all looking his way. Oops it appeared he and his team had been spotted whispering and had caused a bit of a scene during the talk. Still, this was possibly really important.
He focused on Teyla and kept his voice low. "We've got some stories of something like the Skerti back home," he told her.
Her eyes grew wide and round. "You do?"
"They're just stories, which we kind of thought might be about the Wraith, but there's a lot that tracks with the Skerti," he whispered back quietly. "Maybe the stories came from the Ancestors that lived on Earth?"
He could practically see the hope blossoming in her eyes.
"You guys haven't been able to find any intel on the Skerti," John whispered, "maybe it's because you've been looking in the wrong galaxy."
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TBC