This Chapter is a little different then the ones before.
Just give it a try.
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This time: Acastus Kolya
He remembered the sun, the taste of sweet clear water, the feel of the earth beneath his feet. He remembered his mother's laughter, but more than anything he remembered fear.
It was not hard for Acastus Kolya to imagine death or fear. He grew up along side them.
The Wraith came to his world when he was young. The Genii were ill prepared for the devastation of this culling. It had been years since the last culling and for a time they imagined they were free, they imagined that they were safe, but the Genii were not so lucky.
His family was not so lucky.
His people had for many years lived in caverns beneath the surface of the planet; But Acastus and his family had lived and worked on the surface. They were farmers, children of a simpler time, when the Genii were a great alliance of planets that could protect it's people and military might had no place in everyday life.
When the Wraith came… they took everything from him; his mother, his father, his faith… his humanity, the sun… all taken by a single Wraith dart.
The orphans that survived the culling were a strain on the system… some of the children were adopted into good loving families… but most of them were forced into the underground. They were given a choice, be laborers or join the military.
The fire of rage that filled Acastus left him no choice. He would strike at the Wraith in the only way he could, he joined the Genii military.
It was there, in the dark damp caves where Acastus dreamed of his mother's screams and the smell of his burning home… and fanned the fired of hate that had cooled in many of his fellow survivors, that he became something else.
People would say that the Wraith were a part of life… but Acastus refused to believe that… he refused to let death be a part of his peoples future.
He pushed himself harder, longer… stripping away anything that remained of Acastus the farmer's son, and became Kolya.
He was a natural, or maybe his rage made him strong and willing to learn, but it didn't matter, he caught the eye of the right people and was pushed through ranks quickly.
To Koyla it was time for an era of renewed Genii power. He would do whatever it took to bring his people back to glory, to make them strong again.
For all intents and purposes he was an excellent military commander.
Yet, beneath his loyalist façade there was a deeper purpose, a promise that he made to himself in his early years as a grunt. He saw the weakness in the Genii leadership and the in those who lead as the years went on and swore that he would end their reign. He swore to himself that the Genii would have a strong leader… and that leader would be him.
So he waited, watching for the cracks to widen, making the right friends, making a name for himself.
He fought and watched as those he had trained and fought along side, died… all the while letting this vow and the coming coup be his salve.
He remembered getting word that the city of the Ancients had resurfaced and was inhabited. He understood the importance of the city… the way that it could change and shape his coup… that it would be a strong bargaining chip.
He let Cowan attempt to double cross the Atlantians, knowing that he wasn't smart enough to pull it off… he let Cowan think that he was worried about the readiness of his strike force, but Kolya was a careful planner. He'd been training his men for months, preparing them for this mission.
So when the time came, when Atlantis was vulnerable Kolya was ready to strike.
It was easy to get there and thanks to the storm pounding down on them easy to take over. For a moment, Kolya felt like Acastus again… like a child with his dreams at his finger tips, but he had failed to anticipate one thing… one variable he had not calculated into his plan; John Sheppard.
It had cost him dearly. The loss of Idos, the only son of his good friend, and the general in his coup, Athor, had cut deep into his heart. He felt the loss of all of his men like little pieces of himself dying off.
That was not the worst of it. John Sheppard had exposed a weakness in him. John Sheppard, who, like him, was a solider and that the price of war was paid in blood and heartache… but Sheppard had something he didn't. People, who were willing to stand with him, people who were willing to call him friend and defend him even in the face of the blood on his hands.
He'd left that engagement with a hole in his shoulder and a good guess about what would happen to him when he returned home. He felt his rage build, felt that fire that had driven him consume his insides.
Blood dripped on the floor of Cowan's office and Kolya found himself hoping it would stain the cold cement. Hoping that even after he was cast away and forced to leave his people, that bright blood would remain… some piece of him to remind Cowan that things can change rapidly and when the world tilts sharply those who aren't ready for it are tossed asunder.
He watched the blood pool around his arm, his left arm hanging limp at his side, but his mind was not in the bunker… his mind was not on what he would do now. His mind was caught on one man. His mind was on the man that had laid him low. Around him, those soldiers brave enough to stand with him despite Cowan's fury wrung their hands and thought about the future… but Kolya replayed the events of the last thirty-six hours.
He watched the predatory stride of his enemy as he entered the gateroom. The confidence in his eyes as he took the shot… The darkness in him…
John Sheppard, a deceptively simple name for a deceptively simple man. There was darkness that Kolya felt echoed in himself. If they had met in some other place under different circumstance Kolya could almost imagine them as kindred souls.
It was no consolation to his savaged pride and the inferno in the pit of his gut.
So Kolya did what he was best at… he waited, he planned, he watched, and he trained.
He wanted to make them pay for what they had done. He wanted them to loose as much as he had. So Kolya, who had built a network of spies and rats for years, set his informants to watch for the Atlantians. To inform him of their every move, to let him know when John Sheppard and his team where on the move and what they were doing.
Kolya knew from the beginning that he was at a disadvantage. There was something about Sheppard; Kolya wasn't sure how he did it. Maybe it was by sheer force of will, but he could survive almost anything.
He proved it to. As Kolya's life got worse his anger toward the Military Commander of Atlantis grew. After all, if he had taken Atlantis or been able to get the ZPM on Dagan things would have gone differently, but he had a way to get it back and this time he was going to use Sheppard.
The Wraith had been his prisoner for years, long before his failed Coup and betrayal by Ladon Radim… long before he was exile from his beloved Genii.
It was hard to watch Sheppard be fed on by the Wraith, but Kolya steeled himself. He understood that it was a means to an end and would help him and his people in the end.
Sheppard's escape as an old man with the help of the Wraith had been the final blow. Kolya felt failure creep up on him. It was as familiar to him, something that he remembered from the first days in the Underground. Those days when he was sure that he would never be warm again, sure that he would never seen the sun again.
The last time they met, Kolya felt death hovering on the edges of his mind. He knew that one of them would die.
Knew that this was the last time he would lock wits and weapons with John Sheppard.
Maybe he had already given up, maybe he knew that their was no reason for him to keep fighting, but somewhere in the back of his mind Kolya knew that he was the one who was going to die.
At least he would die by the one person he'd meet in his life who he considered his equal.
It wasn't the way he planned, it wasn't glorious or for the good of the cause…
Still, John Sheppard, who was so similar to him in so many ways had the strength to carry on in this new dangerous galaxy. He only hoped that the Genii had a place in it as well.
In his last moments as he considered all of this, considered John Sheppard and his life, he felt the sun warm his face…
and slipped away.
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Next time: Elizabeth Weir