James Swallow - Nightfall

To her surprise, the Queen gave a slight nod. “The human is almost correct. Yes, we do seek superiority, but only against our enemies. We wish to end our war with the Asurans, the Replicators. You could help us do that. With this ship.” She licked her lips. “With the isa device.”

“ How do you know of that? ” Fenrir demanded. The Risar mumbled the same words beneath their breath, coming forward in a threatening manner.

“Does it matter? The humans were careless. I know that you have the power to blind suns. If you granted that to my clan, we would be able to wipe out the Asurans in weeks.” She inclined her head. “Think of it, Fenrir. The Replicators, the scourge of galaxies, finally wiped out forever! Is that not fitting?” The Queen came closer, her voice thickening with venom. “After all that they took from you, after all the destruction they wrought across the worlds of your kind, is it not right that a child of Asgard extinguishes their blighted kind from the universe?”

Fenrir’s image trembled. “ I… Am the last… ”

“You cannot give them the collapsar!” cried Teyla. “Once they have destroyed the Asurans, what then? Will the Wraith stand down, or will they use your technology to plunder? The hunt… The cull is all they know!” She moved toward the avatar. “Pegasus will burn in their wake, and no life will be safe from them. They will claw across the void and pillage every world they find.”

“We have no interest in empires!” snarled the Queen. “Only justice for our dead and an end to the Replicator menace!”

“She lies!”

“And she is afraid!”

“ You will both be silent, ” growled Fenrir. “ I… Have made my choice. ” He wandered to the oval screen, where a vast intergalactic map was displayed, a red line showing the course the Aegis had taken on its penal cruise, from the Othala star cluster, through the Kalium and Andromeda galaxies to distant Pegasus. The Asgard seemed lost in the image. “ My world is dead. My people gone. There is nothing here for me now. ”

With those words, Teyla sensed some terrible fraction of the distance in Fenrir’s heart, and it robbed her of her breath.

On the screen, the red line extended, moving up and away into the starless void between galaxies, projecting a course into an infinite dark. “ You will both be put off my vessel. I will leave this quadrant of space and never return. ” He paused. “ I want nothing more to do with war. Perhaps I will find solace in other places… Other universes… ”

“A pity,” said the Wraith, glancing at the Athosian. “That was not the answer I had hoped for. But in truth, I suspected the human cattle might have swayed you.”

“Fenrir’s choice was his own!” Teyla retorted.

“ Do not attempt to employ force against me, ” warned Fenrir. “ My Risar have completed repairs on the weapons systems of the Aegis. I can disable your Hive Ship with a single command. ”

The Queen gave a long, staged sigh. “Yes, I noted the damage to your vessel… I wonder what systems still do not function? Matter transporters? Force shields?” She grinned. “Internal sensors?”

“What do you mean?” Teyla whirled as the oval screen morphed into a display of the ship’s interior; as before, may parts were still blacked out.

“I took advantage of your weakness, Asgard,” she purred. “While we have spoken, my clan has inserted clusters of warriors aboard this ship.”

“ I have detected nothing. This is a bluff. ”

The Queen wandered toward the centre of the room, the Risar moving to encircle her. “Believe that if you wish. But the reality is, my clan will not let this ship or its bounty slip from our grasp. We are going to take the Aegis , with or without you.” She reached down and undid her tunic as she spoke, pressing at a bulge in her stomach. “This prize will ensure our mastery of all Wraith…”

In the depths of Teyla’s mind there was a sudden jolt of pure, black emotion, resonating out from the thoughts of the Queen. “No —”

“That victory,” said the alien, “is worth any sacrifice.” With a strangled yell, she twisted the knot of flesh in her gut and leapt toward the cryogenic capsule.

Even before she was aware of doing it, Teyla flung herself in the other direction, diving for the cover of a control console.

In the churning core of the organic implant inside the Queen’s abdomen, bio-chemicals mingled with Wraith blood and triggered a catastrophic release of burning energy.

In less than a heartbeat, the alien evaporated, becoming the core of an exothermal detonation that ripped apart Fenrir’s Risar and tore into the Asgard’s vital life-support frame.

The wooden door rolled back on its stays with a groan and Ronon heard a ripple of fear sweep down the length of the enclosures. Takkol and the other elders retreated like startled animals, pushing themselves as far as they could into the shadowed corners of the cages.

The troop of Wraith marched up the central corridor with the one bearing the commander’s sigils at their lead. He wore a fanged smile that was hideous to behold.

Ronon knew what would happen next. He took Keller’s hand and pulled her away from the wooden bars. “Get behind me,” he grated.

She could read his intentions in his expression. “You’re in no condition to fight,” she whispered urgently. “Don’t do anything crazy!”

“Too late to play it safe now,” Ronon stifled a cough and nodded to Lieutenant Allen, ignoring the stab of pain from the muscles in his neck.

The officer returned the nod; she would follow his lead.

The Wraith commander drew level with their cage. “It has been decided that your value to our clan is negligible.”

“Y-you’re going to let us g-go?” stammered one of Takkol’s adjutants, desperation raw and pitiful on his face.

“In a way,” replied the commander. “Open the pens,” he ordered, and a pair of warriors moved forward to unlock the heavy iron chains holding shut the cages.

“Stay back, you fool!” cried Takkol, but it was too late for the other man. He took two steps toward the opening doorway and another of the Wraith surged at him. A thin scream echoed as the warrior ripped into his chest and fed upon him.

Cries of alarm joined the scream; if Ronon had harbored even the slightest doubt that the Wraith had come to execute them all, it vanished now.

In the first seconds, the Satedan had the advantage; there was only one way into the enclosure where they stood, and that meant the Wraith had to come in single-file. The first into the cage approached him, claws raised. The dart-daggers concealed in Ronon’s palms had grown warm and sweat-slick as he had waited for the inevitable attack, and now he threw them, left and then right. He cursed as the first one went wide, his sickness-blurred vision making him miss; he was dimly aware of the small blade bouncing off the alien’s chest amour and clattering to the floor

The second dagger found purchase in the hollow of the alien’s throat and it wailed, clutching at its neck. Ronon went in and followed up the attack with a punch that drove the dagger still deeper; the memory-metal of the blade was designed to expand on contact with organic matter, growing to twice its width in a matter of moments. The Wraith fell to its knees, vomiting black fluid.

Chaos was all around him as the Wraith began their cull of the prisoners. There were screams and yelling, the ozone stink of a stunner discharge. He glimpsed Keller swinging a heavy clay bowl into the face of the Wraith commander, knocking him off balance.