Chapter II
Episode II
The Return to Pegasus Galaxy Part II
Brigadier General Devon Heath Horton awakes in a Wraith Hive Ship cell. He remembers getting stun on New Athos. He remembers everything that happen on the planet from the Hammer fight with a Wraith fleet, several confrontations with Wraith soldiers and his capture by the Wraith. He looks at his watch and lucky for him it wasn't broken or taken. An hour passes before a Wraith lieutenant appears along with eight Wraith soldiers. "You'll come with us," the Wraith says.
"Where too," Brigadier General Horton asks. The Wraith lieutenant didn't answer. Heath look at them. he tries to make a break for it to see what the Wraith would do and the fire a single stun blast but it had no affect on him but he acted as if it did. They take him to the lair of the Hive Queen. He looks around and sees that all the exits are guarded by Wraith soldiers, out of the corner of his eye he sees the Hive Queen appear. "Why did you capture me and not my team?"
"We want information," the Hive Queen says to him.
"Sorry, but I can't help you," Heath replies.
"I thank you will," the Hive queen says. She moves closer to him. She raises her hand to force him to kneel. He can hear the voice inside of his head, but he resists her. "I haven't felt strength like this in a very long time." She tries again, but Heath remains standing. She looks at two of her soldiers holding him. They hit him in the back of his legs which cause him to go onto his knees. "Now we can talk." Heath just stares at her. "What are the coordinates for Earth?"
"I have no idea," he answers.
"You will talk in the end," she tells him.
"I don't think so," he answers.
"They all talk in the end," she replies.
"No i want you'll just have to feed on me."
"Where is Atlantis?"
"On Earth," he answers.
"Where is Earth?"
"In a Galaxy very far away."
"What are the cordiantes?"
"I dont know them. Rodney McKay on the other hand might." She starts to asks some more questions about Earth and Atlantis He refuses to answer any other questions. He can tell that the defiance is making the Hive Queen frustrated it will only be a matter of time before she tries feeding off of him. She tears open his uniform exposing his bare chest. She pulls back her hand, and slams it forward, he screams, but nothing happen. The queen removes her hand from his chest. She watches as the feeding mark disappears.
"Now I understand why the empress of the entire Wraith want us to bring you too her. You're the Hybrid that is Half-Lantian and Half-Wraith." They take him back to his cell.
On board the Hammer back at the planet where the Wraith took Brigadier General Horton, they are making sure nothing is wrong with the ship before they jump into Hyperspace. Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard and a team of marines went to the cave to retrieve the bodies of the dead marines and recover Ronon's sword. They return to the ship. Teyla, Ronon, and five marines are at the Beta Site with the Athosians. Colonel Carter has assumed command of the mission even though Colonel Caldwell is senor to her, but General Horton made Colonel Carter his second in command with John being third in command. Colonel Caldwell is ready to leave the Pegasus Galaxy and return to Earth, but Colonel Sam Carter overruled him. All around the ship is debris of Wraith ships, Darts, three F-302s and one Jumper. Doctor Rodney McKay arrives on the bridge. "How is everything Rodney?" Sam asks him.
"Everything is good to go," Rodney tells her. The Hammer jumps into hyperspace. They are on their way to the Beta Site. Colonel Cam Mitchell is checking out his F-302 to make sure its ready for the next encounter with Darts. Doctor Daniel Jackson is talking with one of the two dozen Ancients on board. They are on their way to the chamber which house ten ZPMs even though the ship only needs 1 maybe two to give the ship power so it can operate the three shields and the ancient energy beam weapons.
"So why you and the others never ascended?" Doctor Daniel Jackson asks.
"Doctor Jackson we were assigned to build the Hammer to be use against the Wraith to turn the tide of the war in our favor. We were told to stay and continue building the ship while the others return to Earth. We were told to wait for the arrival of Merenwen's son who would bring the downfall of the Wraith. We finish the ship after we came in contact with Merenwen's son. We placed ourselves in stasis until he arrive getting out every so often to check to make sure the ship was still in operational and to make sure the Wraith hasn't found the ship. We were the younger generation of what you call the Ancients." They arrive at the ZPM room. Doctor Daniel Jackson opens the door and finds a dead marine. The Ancient draws his weapon that can be use for stunning or killing similar to the one the Replicators use. The weapon is effective against Wraith, human and even Replicator with one to three shots. Jackson calls the bridge and asks them to send a medical team down to the ZPM room. He asks for Rodney to come down and check on the ZPMs to make sure they weren't sabotage. Rodney arrives prior to the medical team. He examines the ZPMs with the help of the Ancient. The dead body is taken to the infirmary. While Doctor Beckett is examining the body with the help from Doctor Keller eighteen maybe twenty-six Wraiths that somehow arrive on board the ship are heading straight for the bridge stunning anyone that got in their way. They see two marines guarding the bridge entrance. They stun the two marines. They Wraith enter the bridge stunning everyone on the bridge except for Colonel Carter. Mitchell and Teal'c are heading towards the bridge when they see Wraith Drones heading right for them. Mitchell draws his sidearm and fires on the Wraith, one goes down, but Mitchell and Teal'c run towards the nearest armory. They press the alarm on their way.
"What the hell is going on?" Rodney asks the Ancient working with him in the ZPM room.
"I don't know Rodney," he replies. Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard just enters.
"Rodney we have trouble," Sheppard says.
"What's the problem now, we just got here to check on the ZPMs."
"We have Wraith on board," he replies. "Now don't panic Rodney we have teams assembling throughout the ship."
"How did the Wraith get on board?"
"I don't know, I was hoping you can tell us?"
"I can't do it from here; I have to get to a lab." They follow Rodney to one of the labs onboard the Hammer. They make it to the lab without encountering any Wraith onboard. "Sheppard you remember those four Darts in the hanger bay the F-302s disabled."
"Yes what about them?"
"What if the Wraith Darts store their soldiers in the Culling device with an automated timer which releases them as soon as the counter reached zero." Major Rhodes, Lieutenant Jack, and eight of Major Rhodes's off world team are with him. "We need to get to the secondary bridge so the ancients and I can lock the Wraith out of the ship's system." They leave the lab and heads towards the secondary bridge. Four marines are ahead of everyone else. On their way they encounter a small squad of Wraith soldiers. A small firefight breaks out, several marines are stun, but the Wraith didn't stand a chance. They move the stun marines to an unoccupied storage room.
Back on the Hive, General Devon Heath Horton is trying to figure a way to get off the Hive. He wanders if the Wraith disabled the door controls until they come and get him. An hour pass and a Wraith soldier appear. Heath uses his Ancient powers to make the Wraith unlock his cell and then stun himself. The Wraith does as Heath commanded it too of course he could have use his Wraith powers to subdue him. Heath retrieves the stun pistol from the unconscious Wraith foot soldier. He leaves the area after he gets the whereabouts of the armory from the unconscious Wraith. He makes his way to the armory checking his corners for any Wraith who might be on patrol. He has to stun three Wraith Drones but they were spread out. He arrives at the armory and finds it full of not just Wraith weapons but also finds weapons from different places they have cullied. He finds his P90 and everything that was on him when he was captured. He even finds the same pistol Ronon uses. As soon as he exits from the armory, he sees Wraith soldiers running right towards him. He lets a burst of fire from his P90 and he sees a couple of them drop, but they kept coming and they return fire with their stun pistol. He runs away leaving a Wraith grenade waiting for them. The grenade explodes which causes the alarm to sound throughout the ship. He knows that every Wraith will be after him now. He decides to disable the ship before they make it too wherever they are going. He heads to the room that houses the hyperdrive. He sees no Wraith along his way he guess they think he'll go to the Dart bay to escape once they exit from hyperspace. He makes it to the room with the hyperdrive in it. He finds only a single Wraith Blade guarding they room. He kills him with his ancient powers. He plants C4 on the hyperdrive engine. He gets out of the room but as soon as he was out he sees another Wraith patrol heading straight for them. He is sure they recognize him; they fired Stunners at him but messed. He fires the rest of the clip he has left in his P90 at them and then reloads knowing he can be struck by a stunner at anytime. After the brief firefight with the Wraith he knows that he doesn't have enough ammo to kill every Wraith on the ship so he decides that he'll be captured again, but he'll hide the gun like Ronon uses in one of the cells that he will make the Wraith put him in. he makes it to the cell without running into any more Wraith, but he knows that they are looking for him. He hides the weapon then he goes towards the bridge to cause more trouble for the Wraith. He goes over his inventory in his head while he makes his way to the bridge has fifty rounds for his P90 plus a spar clip, his pistol with two spare clips, two fragmentation grenades, and one flashbang. He sees a squad of Wraith coming down the hallway; he pulls the pin off one of the fragmentation grenades and rolls it towards the Wraith. They didn't even see the grenade. The grenade exploded Heath knows that the grenade wouldn't kill the entire squad, but it would slow them down. He uses his .45ACP to the kill the survivors. He knows that more would be on their way now. He leaves the area. He is just outside of the bridge, he tosses his last flashbang. As soon as it goes off he enters the bridge and kills the surviving Wraith. Once the bridge is in his control the Hive ship emerges from hyperspace. He seals the bridge and heads over to the weapon counsel because he sees another Hive ship in orbit around a planet. He guesses they emerge from hyperspace to allow the ship's hull to regenerate. He powers up the Hive ship weapons and begins firing onto the other Hive Ship. The Hive ship returns fire but the other Hive ships and cruisers fire on the ship that is firing on the Hive ship the general is on is. It didn't take long for the Hive ship to be destroyed. The Wraith Queen and every Wraith on board the Hive are on their way to the bridge. The C4 on the hyperdrive detonates killing several Wraiths. Heath can hear them trying to break through the door to the bridge. They finally manage to gain entrance to the Hive but not before Heath manage to destroy one of the cruisers. The first Wraith soldiers through the door are immediately cut down. Heath kills plenty of Wraiths with his P90 but he had to make sure that they stayed down because a couple of them got back on their feet. The Wraith rushed him it takes two dozen stun blast or maybe less to knock him unconscious. The Wraith Queen has him taken back to another cell and she places guards to make sure he doesn't escape again. The Wraith who allows him to escape she fed on him.
Back on the Ancient Warship the Hammer Rodney McKay and the others arrived on the secondary bridge. "Okay gives me a few minutes to access the controls." McKay and one of the Ancients name Learn begins trying to figure out what happened. Learn was the first to get in and figure it out but she allows Rodney to do it instead. Rodney brings up on the screen how many of the crew is alive and dead. It even shows which ones are stuns. He then shows how many Wraiths are still onboard. They look at the screen and see three dozen Wraith are onboard the ship and out of the 3 dozen a dozen Wraith are dead. All of a sudden the Hammer exits hyperspace.
"The hyperdrive just cut off." John says.
"It doesn't just do that?" Rhodes says.
"No it doesn't do that maybe the Wraith shut it down so they can change course and take us to a Wraith Stronghold so the Wraith can get their hands on this ship and the location for Earth." Rodney says.
"We'll find out McKay!" Jackson says to him.
"I'm working on it," Rodney replies. He starts taping onto his portable laptop.
"Doctor McKay I can answer that question for you so you don't have to try getting the information from the ship." Alexander says to them.
"What happen to the ship?" John Sheppard asks.
"First there is nothing wrong with the ship. However this ship does have Wraith onboard and we place protocols into the ship that will not allow this ship to fall into the hands of the Wraith."
"What kind of protocols?" Rhodes asks.
"Until every Wraith onboard this ship is dealt with all controls are locked out including the people with the gene." He looks at Rodney trying to access the ships controls. "The only controls available are those that can vent the atmosphere out of areas in the ship. So until every Wraith is dealt with hyperdrive, sub-light, beaming, and communications. Weapons and shields are already up and activated. The Energy Beam Weapons are on automatic they'll destroy anything that comes within range." The Ancient name Alexander tells them. "We have 4 hours to cleanse this ship of Wraith before the ship self-destructs and I must point out the hanger bays are locked and even if McKay figures away to gain access to the ship controls the Jumpers and F-302a will be targeted and destroyed."
"Why would you do this?" John asks.
"This ship was going to help us win the war against the Wraith and the technology in this ship can help them accomplish their mission to fine you world and Cull it. Plus it can give them new and powerful ships. We must not let that happen."
"What about Todd?" Major Tristan Rhodes asks.
"He's in stasis therefore no risk to the ship."
"Well it looks like we got work to do to take this ship back from the Wraith."
"Actually we don't have to take back the ship the way you're thanking John. We can take it by venting the atmosphere from the areas that are compromise." An Ancient name Lucy tells them.
"How do we know which areas of the ship are compromise?" Jack asked.
"We use the Life signs detector which we brought up before we loss access to everything on the ship." Rodney tells them. He looks at the Life Signs Detector and sees that the Wraith are on the bridge, in the hanger bay and several are patrolling the seal of corridors between the bridge and the cafeteria of course that is where they are holding the stun crew members but they the cafeteria door is seal tight. Rodney presses a series of button on his touch screen laptop and those sections start to vent atmosphere. After 45 minutes he makes those sections breathable again. Another minute pass and Rodney sees on a screen which shows the ship turn from red to green. "The ship is back under our control." They cheered. They go to the mess hall where Colonel Carter and Colonel Caldwell were just exiting out of.
"Nice work Rodney," Carter tells him.
"Thanks," he says.
"Yeah good work Rodney," Sheppard and Mitchell tells him. The bridge crew returns to the bridge after the security teams clean the bodies of the Wraith out of the bridge and corridors. Another group is taking care of the bodies in the hanger bay. They send the Darts back out into space by beaming them out. Colonel Carter just to be on the safe side order and deck by deck search and a compartment by compartment search just in case before they jump back into hyperspace. They arrived at the Beta Site where Teyla and Ronon escorted the Athosians too. Lieutenant John Sheppard, Major Lorne and Major Rhodes board a Puddle Jumper and descended to the planet below.
Brigadier General Devon Heath Horton awakes inside of the cell. Two Wraith soldiers are present inside of the cell. They have their stun pistols pointing directly at him. He realizes he's in the cell he wanted them to put him in anyway. A couple of hours pass a Wraith Cleverman appears along with several Drones. The Drones are those with mask over their faces and the Cleverman are those that have none. They take him to the Queen of the Hive and present in the throne room is her Hive Master. She looks at him. "You've been busy trying to kill us. You attack one of the Hive's that is loyal to the emperor and you had to make us destroy the ship. I wish I could kill you but then I would be killed by the empress." He stares back at her. "Take him back to his cell I don't want to see him until we reach the stronghold." They take him back to his cell. He hopes Colonel Carter and the others are hot on his trail. They basically throw him back into his cell. A Wraith Worshipper appears she is carrying some food for him. The cell door opens three Wraith Drones enter pointing their stun pistols directly at him. She sits the food down and leaves. Once she was gone the Wraith Drones leave one at a time. General Horton grabs the plate of food and begins eating it. Another hour goes by and a Wraith officer appears and two Wraith Drones are behind him. The cell door opens for the third time and the officer enters.
"Leave us," he says to the Wraith Drones guarding the cell. They obey his command.
"Who are you?" General Horton asks him.
"I'm Gall Chief among Cleverman aboard this Hive," he answers. "I'm loyal to the Wraith Royal Family."
"What does this have to do with me?"
"It has everything to do with you. Don't you know the linage you come from?"
"I know my mother was a Lantian Princess and my father was a Wraith Prince but that is all I know," he answers.
"I'm going to tell you a story about all of this how your parent met. If you are truly Merenwen's son you'll be able to sense if I lie to you, but I'm not going to." He pauses. "During the war with the Lantians is when you parents met but not for many years until after we conquered much of Pegasus until only Atlantis remain. No one neither Wraith nor Lantian foresaw the day that your father would marry a Lantian and have a child. I was your father's Hive Ship master when we attack your mother's cruiser. We boarded the cruiser the Lantian put up a good fight many lives were loss but we manage to capture a good amount of the Lantians and your mother was among them. One by one we fed on them first went the warriors that were wounded in the fight until only your mothers remain. We knew she was Lantian Royalty just by looking at her. Your father summons her to the throne room where he plans to interrogate him. He interrogated her as I'm sure you're aware how we do that but he didn't feed on her. Her will was strong and she resisted better than anyone before her especially to a member of the Wraith Royal Family. He orders her taken back to her cell. He confined in me that he felt something towards your mother then he had never felt before towards one of his pray. Several days later he asks her to join him for a meal. She was surprise to see him eating fruits and vegetables just like a human. That was when he told her that some Wraith are not so different from humans than what she was told."
"How is it possible for vegetables and fruit to sustain you I have never heard of such a thing?"
"I shall explain but after I finish this tale." He pauses trying to recall where he left off. "He tells her the truth on how the Wraith where created because many Lantians didn't know the truth and if you had saw the reaction on her face you would've known she was shock." He pauses to see if Heath would ask what is the truth but he didn't so Gall continues. "Your mother was a prisoner onboard his Hive for many months and then one day she was release on an unhabited world with a Stargate. Your parents had secret meetings after she was release and sometime after that they married and conceived you. When you were conceived your father was proclaim Emperor of the Wraith. Sometime after you were born the Empress found out about you and ordered your death and your mothers. So your father knew the only place safe for your mother and you were Atlantis."
"What was your part in all of this?"
"I was a good friend of your fathers and I watch over your mother when your father was dealing with kings and queens. My job was to keep her safe and later to keep you and her safe. I will tell you this when ever your father was in the presents of your mother he never fed on anyone."
"So why does my Wraith Grandmother hate me so much?"
"You're a hybrid between the Lantians and the Wraith, but the reason she despises you so much. Your Lantian grandfather led an attack on fleet of Hive ships supported by cruisers after he found out that his daughter was pregnant with you which was unnatural. He attacked the flagship with your Wraith grandfather on it in hopes he would stop your parents love for each other but of course it didn't happen. The Lantians save the planet that was being culled at the time many Wraith ships were loss in the engagement and only three Hives mange to escape but they were badly damage. Your Wraith grandmother before your father was crown emperor of all the Wraith declared the total annihilation of all Lantians especially the Royal Family at the time she had no clue that you were born . A Wraith Armanda returned to the planet where your Wraith grandfather was killed and culled it and then they level the Lantian base on the ground. Shortly after that you father became the emperor and he still saw your mother and you until one day your grandmother found out and sent her loyal Wraith to kill her and you on numerous occasions. I and other Wraith had to kill our own kind to protect you and your mother that is why your father decided she and you would be safer in Atlantis. Your father loved you and he still does he thanks you are dead."
"Why does he think that? I'm sure he has heard of a hybrid amongst the humans who occupy Atlantis now?"
"The Empress has a lot of pull and I know the day he finds out about your existence his the day she'll take over. Your father has ruled the Wraith for centuries and exiles many who tried to cull planets that have been forbidden to them."
"What are you talking about?" Heath looks at him with a puzzle look.
"You haven't discovered all of the Pegasus Galaxy and other areas we control. Deep within a section of the Pegasus Galaxy lies the City of the Dead where our Royal Family lives and is defended by thousands of Drones, hundreds of Cleverman or in your terms soldiers and officers. The skies above are full with 9 Super Hives, dozens of Hives, and numerous cruisers and other support ships. Within that section of the Peg Galaxy lays five planets that have never seen cullings like other areas of the Peg Galaxy that you have been too. The humans of these worlds have grown in numbers and are only culled here and there. The Wraith in the part you know are the ones that have repelled and therefore the Royal Family is allowing them to fight a Civil War and the survivors will be either destroyed or pull back into the foil. You must rest the hyperdrive is repaired and we are fixing to reenter hyperspace. We will talk again I am sure." He leaves. General Horton sits down and wonders about everything the Wraith told him. He still has plenty of questions to ask, but that will be for another time. He felt them enter hyperspace. He wonders what fate awaits him at the end point and what the Wraith plan on doing with him.