James Swallow - Halcyon

Rodney took that nugget of information in, his fingers fluttering at the air. "I return to my original point, then. What are you doing here, you moron?"

Kelfer's face hardened at the insult, but he answered nonetheless. "We are learning the secrets of the Wraith," he bit out, "decoding their language, turning their technology to our own ends, examining their physiology to find new ways to condition them and kill them." He puffed out his chest. "It is the single most important undertaking of our race."

But McKay wasn't listening to him preen. The Atlantean scientist's analytical mind was racing ten steps ahead of what Kelfer was telling him, putting together everything he had seen and heard, and following it toward the inevitable conclusion. "Wait. Wait wait. Linnian told Teyla that Daus's rule of Halcyon was unchallenged."

"Lord Daus!" snapped Kelfer.

McKay's thoughts spilled out, raw and unfiltered. "His rule was unchallenged because he had the biggest army of tame Wraith in his doghouse, and no one would ever dare to go up against someone who could send in so many Hounds, right? And I couldn't help wondering where he got his fresh recruits from, and now you show me this-" Rodney's brain finally caught up with his mouth and stumbled over the words. "Oh no. No, no, no-no." He took a warning step toward Keifer, indignation and anger building as he realized the depths of trouble they were in. "Please tell me that you were not so completely, so unreservedly, entirely downright mind-bogglingly dim-witted, that you have actually been waking up those Wraith on purpose?"

The control room fell silent as McKay's tirade rose in volume. The Halcyon chief scientist just blinked.

"That's how the Fourth Dynast have kept themselves in power for so long, isn't it? Not by hunting Wraith on other planets and bringing them back like the other clans do, but by decanting them from this Hive Ship, like it's some kind of private wine cellar!" The arrogance of such a thing drained the ire from him in a second. "Do you realize that your ham-fisted efforts tinkering around in here may very well have doomed your entire planet to being the main course at a Wraith barbecue?"

Kelfer composed himself and straightened his tunic with a self-conscious cough. "Dr. McKay, you have been brought here on the direct instruction of His Highness the Lord Magnate to assist me in my work on the Hive Ship's mechanisms. By your own admission, you have stated that you possess some knowledge of these craft and their technologies."

"It's a lot more than just some, okay?" Although he probably should have kept quiet about it, Rodney couldn't resist the chance to get in another dig at the pompous man. "The biggest expert on the Wraith this side of an Ascended Being," he pointed at his chest with both hands, "right here!"

"Indeed," continued Kelfer, and it was clear that for the scientist, admitting McKay's superiority in any matter was like chewing on broken glass. "And with that in mind, you will immediately address yourself to the functioning of the Wraith hibernation chambers aboard this vessel."

"Why?" McKay knew the moment the question left his lips that the answer would not be a good one.

Kelfer's lips thinned. "In centuries past, the Fourth Dynast's scientists were able to remove docile Wraith from their capsules and put them to the collar with only minimal incident. However, in recent cycles, more and more of the sleeping Wraith have been emerging on their own, despite our best efforts to contain them. Every attempt to stem this chain of events has failed. We cannot stop them awakening. We do not know why this is."

Rodney knew, but he wasn't about to tell Kelfer. He wasn't willing to admit that it had been Colonel Sheppard's ill-fated venture into the heart of a Wraith Hive Ship just like this one that started a ripple effect, waking up the dormant aliens all across the Pegasus Galaxy. "And you want me to do something about it, is that it? Clean up your, uh, mess for you?"

The scientist sighed. "You will find a way to put the Wraith back to sleep, McKay. If you do not, then your associates will suffer."

"Suffer?" Rodney blinked. "What do you mean by that, exactly?"

"I mean die, exactly. At the hands of my Lord's Hounds."

"I don't see anything," said Ronon, peering through the binoculars, "not that I've got a wide field of view out the canopy."

"Uh-huh," Sheppard replied, his attention on the screen in front of him. "Damn."

"You have something?"

The colonel shook his head. "For a second, I thought I did. I tried using the Jumper's sensors to track that Ancient hand-held doohickey I gave to Teyla, but I'm getting nada. There was the ghost of return for a moment, but then it faded."

Ronon leaned closer. "Where?"

Sheppard grabbed the paper map of the hunt enclosure and tapped it. "Here, I think. Sensors didn't get enough time to lock down an exact location."

"That's a start. At least we have somewhere to look for them."

"Yeah." John touched controls on the ship's console. "Activating cloak. I'm going to take us up to tree-top level and start running a search pattern."

Dex nodded and attended to his weapons. "Daus didn't give us the whole story about the Wraith here," he noted.

"I think we're way past expecting the truth from that guy, don't you? `A planet full of liars', right?"

"I don't think he sent us here for Scar. He sent us here to get killed. You saw how those Wraiths were moving. They were feral, but they weren't stupid."

Sheppard turned the yoke as the Puddle Jumper rose above the forest canopy. "The Wraith are a lot of things, but dumb has never been one of them."

"You don't follow me," said Ronon. "They were working in a coordinated pattern. Attack, retreat, feint, attack. That's not how a mind-blanked animal would do it." He pointed into the trees. "They went for our team and Teyla's at the same time. They had a plan. A leader."

"Scar."

"No doubt."

"Well, that's great. So he's not only a super-tough Wraith, he's super-smart as well, out here in the trees with his private militia like some kinda alien Marlon Brando. And I get to be Martin Sheen." He glanced at Dex. "You could be Dennis Hopper, if you like."

The other man made a face. "That psychic jamming device in the dolmen is supposed to fog their brains, but I don't think it's as powerful as the Halcyons think it is. Maybe the ZPM powering it has run down, and those Wraith are just playing along. Waiting for the right moment to strike."

The possibility that Dex could be right about that sent an icy shiver down the colonel's spine. Sheppard shot him a hard look. "One problem at a time, Ronon. One damn problem at a time."

The gyro-flyer rocked as the aircraft caught a sharp updraft, and Lady Erony put out a hand to steady herself. She craned her neck to peer out of the window-slit by her chair and saw the smokestacks and tenement towers of the lower city flash by.

Linnian's fingers knotted and unknotted as he hovered beside her. At length, he gave a theatrical sigh. "Highness, would not it have been simpler to dispatch a messenger to carry your news to Dr. Beckett? Such a method would have much greater alacrity." He forced a smile. "See here, if we return to the High Palace, a courier could reach him in only a few minutes from your word of dispatch-"

"Must you continue to chatter on the same issue over and over again?" she snapped, silencing the adjutant. "I do not wish it! "

Linnian took a breath. "But, My Lady, your father has made it quite clear to me on many occasions that he does not look with favor on any ventures into the common quarters."

Erony made a show of looking around. "Is my dear father here on this vessel?"

"Ah, well, no, Highness."

"And is his adjutant Baron Vekken here, carrying his word and authority in the Magnate's stead?"