Stargate Genesis

Episode 19

"Hungry and Angry"

/Author's Note: Season One is almost over, but Stargate Genesis isn't over by a long shot! Subscribe to our author alerts to stay updated on future stories and Stargate Genesis Season Two, coming next year./

Colonel Sheppard ducked as Todd's hand rushed passed his ear and slammed into the wall of the decon chamber. When he glanced up he was dismayed to see that the Wraith had left a hand shaped dent in the aluminum.

"I thought this was supposed to be a sparring match," said Sheppard angrily, but Todd didn't hear him.

Pupils dilated, the Wraith grabbed him by the back of his shirt and threw him across the room. John rolled as he fell and got back up none the worse for the flight.

"Alright fine," he said. "We'll do it your way."

He rushed him, twirling both rods as he came. Todd followed them closely, but was unable to tell where the blow would land. At the last moment Sheppard slid between the Wraith's legs, striking him hard below the knee then springing up behind him and thwacking him across the back. Todd stumbled forward then whirled around and caught John with his guard down. Once again he found himself flying through the air this time to slam against the wall.

The impact sent violent vibrations through the thin aluminum, filling the air with raucous thunder. John closed his eyes from the pain, and when he opened them again Todd was advancing on him. The sight of the charging Wraith delivered a jolt of adrenaline to his system and John got quickly back on his feet.

"Ok," he said. "I was gonna keep going easy on you, but now you've forced my hand."

Todd closed the distance between them and brought his fist down with enough force to crack concrete. Sheppard dodged left and struck at the same spot below the knee he had hit before. Todd howled and John thought he heard a bone break.

"Sorry," he said, "but I suppose that'll heal in no time right?"

Todd turned to him with murder in his eyes. Instinctively John swung again, but Todd caught the weapon mid-flight and twisted it out of his hand. It clattered to the floor and the Wraith shoved him back against the wall. Sheppard raised his other rod high and swung hard. Then he paused. With his right bantos rod hanging a few inches from Todd's temple, Sheppard looked down at his chest and saw that the Wraith had pinned him to the wall with his hand, his feeding hand. John knew that Carson's anti-Wraith serum had done away with Todd's need to feed, but that didn't make this situation any more desirable. He looked up to see fear and bewilderment in Todd's eyes and lowered his weapon. Then he gently but firmly pushed the Wraith away. When Todd saw what he was doing he seemed to come back to himself and stepped back quickly.

"You all right?" John asked.

"I'm afraid I lost myself in the heat of our engagement," said Todd, and he laughed nervously.

Sheppard returned the laugh just as nervously then nodded at Todd's hand.

"What'd you do to that thing anyway?" he asked, referring to the layers of poorly wrapped bandages Todd had evidently attempted to apply to his hand himself.

"An embarrassing incident involving a steak knife," said Todd. "I'd rather not go into it."

"The trick is to aim the pointy end at the steak," said Sheppard.

"I will remember that for next time John Sheppard," said Todd. "Now if you will excuse me there is a matter I must attend to."

"Sure," said John. "Sure."

When the Wraith had left John picked up his weapons and dropped them into his gym bag then he pulled out a towel and wiped the sweat off his face before starting to stretch. Had he turned around he would have seen that the dent Todd left behind in the wall was a perfect imprint of his hand. An inverse topographical map, and in the center of this map a little raised plateau looked for all the world like the inside of a mouth ringed with teeth.

~~00~~

Beneath the magnifying lens of his eyepiece the intricate designs etched into the surface of the communication stones appeared just as opaque and meaningless to Eli as they ever had. He set it back down on his workbench beside one of the Kinos he had rescued from the Destiny. A thought struck him and he pulled a roll of duct tape from a drawer. Then gripping the stone with a piece of cloth he held it to the Kino and secured it there with the tape.

"Ok," he said. "Here goes nothing."

He switched the Kino on and let it hover for a moment in front of his face. Then he held up a second communication stone in his bare hands and waited. Nothing happened. He tapped the Kino with his finger.

"Ginn," he whispered. "Are you in there?"

The Kino just hovered.

"No, of course not," he said dejectedly. "That would have been way too easy."

White light started to burn in the bottom right corner of his vision and he looked down to see words etching themselves into the table. Even if not for their strange hallucinatory quality Eli would have recognized the sarcasm as a message from Ginn.

"You think so, genius?" was all it said.

Eli sighed and leaned back in his chair. Obviously this was going to take a little bit more doing, but he knew he was on to something. A Kino wasn't exactly a substitute for a body, but it would certainly beat having to share one. If he could find a way to interface it with the communication stones Ginn could slip over whenever she wanted. From there she could go where she pleased and speak freely without having to use him or somebody else as a puppet. Perhaps most importantly she could help him work on finding a more permanent solution.

More letters were appearing now and Eli looked back down at the table to read the message.

"Ask the Wraith."

~~00~~

With his right hand cradling the Petri dish and his left clasped over his wrist to stop it from shaking Todd lifted the glass containing his precious bacterial cultures out from under his microscope and dropped it back into its incubation chamber. Four more days, he thought. Four more days and they would mature to the point where he could extract the necessary proteins. Four more days before the burning inside him could be quenched. Not long ago he had been sure he could complete his anti-Wraith serum before the crew became aware that he had reverted to his natural state, but the process was taking much longer than he had anticipated.

Todd was not a weak Wraith. He had endured hunger far more severe than that which he faced now. In the dank darkness of a Genii prison cell he had gone many months between feedings. The Genii had stretched him to his limit, only allowing him to feed when they were sure he was close to death and then only on the irredeemably damaged or the terminally ill. These meals had been nothing but scraps and yet he had managed to stave off both starvation and insanity. Now however, there was the added strain of keeping his hunger secret all the while working and living alongside painfully edible humans. At least in his cell he had not been made to look at and make idle chit chat with an endless supply of food he was not permitted to eat.

His hand was still shaking. He looked down at the white bandages he had wrapped around it and saw the hole that his feeding pads had ripped in the fabric. His eyes went wide. He tore the rest of the material away and marveled at the newly reasserted organ, the engine of the most successful species ever to arise in the Pegasus galaxy. This had been the thing which powered his people's conquest over the Lanteans, over humanity for millennia. It was beautiful, a monument, and he was working so hard to cover it up.

"Why?" asked a voice, and Todd realized it was his own, but before he could reply there was a knock at his door.

After carefully replacing his bandages, Todd released the lock and Eli Wallace strolled through holding a metallic sphere duct taped to a communication stone. Interest piqued, the gnawing hunger that was his constant companion dimmed slightly. Without a word to Eli he took the hastily prepared amalgamation in his hands and held it up to the light.

It was a reconnaissance engine. He had watched other members of the crew use them to investigate gate-seeded worlds, but had yet to view one up close. It looked vaguely Lantean, but was different enough that Todd concluded it was at most the product of one of their distant cousins or ancestors. Looking closer he could see a multitude of sensors embedded just below its smooth removed the tape and set the communication stone aside revealing a thin seam which bisected the sphere around its equator. He dug his long fingernails into it and pulled until the device came apart in his hands. He looked down at the two halves and saw that Eli had been tinkering with its original design.

"I removed a few superfluous sensors," he said, "to make room for more memory."

"A great deal of memory," said Todd, "and from your crude attempt at interfacing it with the stone I conclude you are endeavoring to make this ball a hospitable environment for your consciousness."

Eli was impressed. That Todd had very nearly guessed his intentions with little more than a glance at his work was a testament to his perceptive genius.

"Sort of," said Eli, "although it won't be my consciousness using it."

~~00~~

Colonel Sheppard saluted as the holographic form of General Samantha Carter materialized before him. He was still in his wearing his sweat soaked sparring gear, but his communications officer had informed him that she wanted to speak with him immediately.

"General," he said, "to what do I owe the pleasure?"

"The Alliance," she said.

"Them again huh?"

"Yes. We think they've finished relocating the matter bridge generator, and they could be trying to dial the Elizabeth at any moment."

"We've taken precautions," said Sheppard. "The gate room is under guard and we've run a number of foothold drills. Is there any reason to believe the Alliance can bypass the gate shield?"

"No," said Carter, "but Area 51 is practically drowning in technology that could potentially do the job, and we still have no idea what all Orlando absconded with when he left. I've got technicians doing identity confirmation testing on all the artifacts I would have taken in his place, but so far the only thing unaccounted for is a single depleted personal shield emitter."

"It sounds like you're doing everything you can," said Sheppard.

"I never intended you to fight this battle," she said. "The Elizabeth's mission is one of exploration, and the Alliance is a side of humanity the rest of the universe doesn't need to see just yet. Even so…"

"We'll be ready," said Sheppard. "Thanks for the warning, general."

"Take care, colonel," said Carter.

She faded.

~~00~~

Todd squinted through Eli's magnifying eyepiece at the microscopic circuitry of the Kino. He was using a syringe to coat the silicon pathways with a thin stream of organic polymer. The work was delicate. The connections had to be robust enough to house a human consciousness yet delicate enough to allow that consciousness access to the Kino's original functions from the inside.

It was smart of Eli to come to him with this problem, he mused. Building the ansible device had prepared him well for the task. It and this Kino were both just intermediary vessels, just stupid machines that could be filled up and emptied of vast quantities of information. The Tau'ri were good at things like that. Todd observed that most of them carried around tools with vastly greater capacities for storing information than they really needed. So great was their available storage space that nearly all humans eventually began to collect data of seriously questionable value, usually photographs and videos of irritable felines. It was an impressive technological apex for the dominant species of life in two galaxies to have reached a point at which such frivolity did not immediately call down the wrath of natural selection. Then again if the information you wanted to store in those stupid machines was of some consequence, say, for example, an entire consciousness well… for that you would need Wraith technology. That at least gave him some comfort.

Eli watched over his shoulder as Todd finished coating the last of the circuits.

"So that's what Wraith technology is made of," he said.

Todd said nothing but motioned for Eli to hand him the communication stone. He did so and Todd placed it gently into a cavity he had created in the center of the Kino. Then he brought the two halves together and the organic polymer bound them tightly. He set it down. Task completed. The burning hunger leapt quickly back to the front of his mind. He tried to banish it again as he reached for a second communication stone. As he touched it the hunger suddenly vanished and he felt the clear-headed calm that normally came over him after injecting himself with a dose of his anti-Wraith serum. Then it was replaced by utter confusion.

The room had reoriented itself around him. Eli was now facing him rather than peering over his shoulder and looked much taller than he could remember. Then he saw that another Wraith had miraculously appeared by the boy's side. It was tall with the long white hair of a male, and a star shaped tattoo around his left eye that was eerily familiar. It was him. Todd was seeing himself from the outside. Something had gone horribly wrong.

~~00~~

Much like a human brain, the Wraith brain was built on top of what served as the thinking organ of the many more primitive life forms that came before it on the evolutionary ladder. For a human what would be left were you to strip away the critical conscientious superego would be very much like a lizard. For a Wraith it would be an iratus bug. An iratus bug in possession of a larger, swifter, and in Todd's case, hungrier body.

This was what had transpired when Todd, while dreaming of some relief from his hunger, had touched the communication stone. Unaware, Eli just waited for Todd to hand him the communication stone. Then when the Wraith made no move to give it to him he reached for it. Alerted by the movement, the tiny predatory remnant still inhabiting Todd's body snatched Eli's wrist and used it to throw him across the room.

"Hey what's the big idea?" Eli demanded after bouncing off a bookshelf.

The Wraith hissed by way of reply and ripped the shroud from his feeding hand. Eli had never seen what Todd's feeding pads had been before the anti-Wraith serum smoothed them, but the protruding teeth and tendrils were everything he had seen in his nightmares and more. He half stood leaning on the bookshelf for support, but found himself unable to flee. He could only watch as the starving Wraith reached out its hand to drain him of life. That was until a Kino smacked him across the face and started shouting at him in what sounded like Todd's voice filtered through a megaphone.

"Run you fool!" it yelled, and Eli obeyed.

Together they fled the room and took off down the hallway.

Eli switched on his radio.

"Colonel Sheppard," he said. "We've got a problem."

~~00~~

On the bridge Colonel Sheppard was having trouble maintaining control over his greener officers. Now was not the time for his ship to descend into madness, but Eli's panted message that he and Todd were being chased by some rabid Wraith had hit the panic button. His linguist Dr. Evans had been set to squeaking and was fretting over whether Eli had meant Wraith in the singular or plural. Meanwhile Major Burnette had assumed an Alliance plot and was acting without orders to quarantine the area of the ship Eli's message had come from with the emergency hatches.

"Knock that off major," said Sheppard. "If there really is a mad Wraith on this ship you'll box Todd and Eli in with it, and get that squeaking under control would you doc?"

"Meep!" said Dr. Evans.

"Lieutenant Jacoby, I need to see what we're up against here."

"I'm on it, sir," said Jacoby.

The stars on the view screen were replaced by footage of Eli running at a dead sprint down corridor three with Todd close behind him.

"Colonel!" yelled Eli over the radio. "He's gaining on us!"

"The Wraith lieutenant," said Sheppard. "Show me the Wraith."

"I… I can't find it," said Jacoby, switching rapidly to other cameras along their route. "There's just those two and… and what looks like a Kino."

Lieutenant Jacoby stopped flipping channels and instead parsed the screen into meter wide sections each displaying what a different camera was seeing. Still there was no sign of any Wraith other than Todd. Sheppard groaned in disgust.

"Dr. Evans," he said. "Deactivate his com please, and the next time you see that idiot tell him not to do any more filming for his pretend captain's log without my permission."

"Yes, sir," said Evans.

The on screen surveillance footage winked off as Sheppard collapsed into his seat and put his head in his hands. He had an Alliance plot to foil and two of his crew members were goofing around like they were on the set of Red Dwarf. He supposed he ought to have expected that kind of behavior from Eli, but how Todd had been convinced to participate was beyond him.

~~00~~

In the guise of a Kino, Todd hovered near Eli's ear as he ran.

"Head for the armory," it said. "If we can stun my body and get it to release its hold on the communication stone I might be able to return."

"But I don't know the access code," said Eli. "The colonel only gave it to Major Burnette."

"I know it," said Todd.

"What? Why!" asked Eli.

"Never mind that now," said Todd. "You've got to move faster."

As if to emphasize his point a hand came down and snatched at the air between them. Todd swung his new spherical body around and clocked himself in the forehead between the eyes. His old body was dazed and slowed long enough to give Eli the lead he would need to open the armory door. As Todd caught back up to him he reflected that he would probably be feeling the fracture he had given himself shortly.

"The code is Alpha, seven, nine, three, foxtrot, bravo, Weir," he said as Eli punched the alpha numeric code into the keypad. The door slid open with a hiss of equalizing pressure and Eli grabbed the first weapon he saw. It was a Wraith stunner rifle, and having never seen one before it was fortunate that he managed to shoulder it in the right direction.

A moment later Todd's body was looming over him after swatting the inedible Kino away. Eli kept his eyes open as he pulled the trigger.

~~00~~

In the gate room chevrons were beginning to lock themselves into place. John counted them and reflected on how odd it was that as advanced a race as the Ancients had used what was essentially a rotary dialing system. One. His marines were all in place, heavily armed, and ready for anything that might attempt to make it through. Two. With any luck the gate shield would hold and the Alliance's mission would fail before it had even begun. Three. Even Todd had shown up to defend his adopted home. Four. Sheppard had welcomed his presence and decided not to reprimand him for the stunt he and Eli had pulled a few hours earlier. Five. Sheppard thought about SG-1 and how their plan to stop the Alliance from dialing in must have failed. Six. It didn't matter. Seven. His crew might have been new to intergalactic space travel, but many of them were seasoned veterans when it came to combat. Eight. No one was going to take the Elizabeth his Elizabeth from him. Nine.

The vortex swirled and the event horizon settled into place. Sheppard gave the order and the shield went up. Within a few seconds figures could be seen slamming into it from the other side.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

No one made it through.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

This was strange. He had hoped that the shield would hold, but he hadn't actually expected the Alliance to make the attempt without knowing for sure that they could get through.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The marines were looking at each other. They had all expected something more than this, but after a few more thumps it seemed that no one was going to come through, and then someone did.

A single man strolled calmly into the gate room wearing a manic grin, a trench coat, and carrying a backpack. Sheppard recognized him from a briefing with General Carter as Orlando Reynolds, the Area 51 scientist who had defected to the Alliance and taken the plans to the matter-bridge generator with him. Behind him another two bodies hit the shield in quick succession Thump, thump. Orlando looked startled.

"Hmm…" he said. "That device I constructed to bypass your shield must not have worked."

"Ehem," Sheppard cleared his throat. Orlando looked around.

"Ah hello Colonel," he said. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Wish I could say the same," said Sheppard. "How'd you get through the shield?"

"Oh," said Orlando, and he opened one side of his coat to reveal a Lantean personal shield emitter attached to his chest. It was glowing.

"You know I've been working on a theory that the Ancients used these the same way we would use an IDC," he said. "You see the only people who could use them would have been those with the ATA gene, and if everyone had one the people on the other side of a wormhole wouldn't even need to bother dropping their iris because these little guys can pass right through them. Mind you, I wouldn't try it on the titanium one in Stargate Command."

Thump. Thump. Thump. Orlando shook his head sadly at the sound of more men colliding with the gate shield.

"Ok," said Sheppard. "Well it looks like you're the only one of the Alliance's invasion force to make it through, so how about you make it easy on yourself and surrender."

"Invasion force?" asked Orlando, clearly perplexed. "Oh you mean them? It wasn't my idea to bring them. Anyway I didn't come here to take the Elizabeth from you. For one thing I haven't the first idea how to fly it."

"Then what do you want?" asked Sheppard.

"To come along for the ride, of course! To learn the secrets of the Genesis Address, and to use them to benefit the Alliance and all mankind," he said, "that and a pastrami sandwich. Nothing like billion mile jaunt to work up an appetite eh?"

"You have no idea," said Todd under his breath.

Written by Andrew Marron

Story by Caleb Palmquist and Andrew Marron