He spoke of the accident and his arrogance, of his responsibility and the pariah’s mark placed upon him by his own kind, a sentence of exile that spanned generations by human reckoning. Teyla listened, unable to speak, struck silent by the enormity of it. Fenrir continued, and she sensed that for him, this was no longer an explanation. It had become a confession. In all the time he had been alone aboard this ship, crossing the void with nothing but crude reflections of himself for companionship, he had wanted nothing more than the chance for some kind of salvation. She felt a sorrow for Fenrir that matched her fear of his dark science.
“After a time, I came to understand my mistakes. The totality of it was made clear to me. And so I rejected my works as a weaponsmith and returned to the discipline that I had known first, known best. The science of life and biology.” The avatar glanced down at its photonic hands. “Our people, Teyla, we had traveled so far down the road of genetic alteration that we had transformed the very matter of ourselves beyond recognition. We could no longer reproduce, only duplicate, and even then with greater and greater errors of replication in each iteration.”
Teyla thought of the images she had seen cast from the Wraith data device. She found her voice again, in a whisper. “Your race was dying.”
He nodded once, a curt gesture of utter finality. “I made it my goal to search for a solution. And… I believe I came close to it.”
“How?”
“The Wraith.” Fenrir gestured toward the oval screen, where a visual of the Hive Ship drifting nearby was displayed. “They possess such unprecedented physical capabilities. Their capacity for cellular regeneration… It was only by chance I came here, by chance I captured them and dissected one of their kind… Or perhaps fate, if such a thing exists…” He paused, musing. “ I believe… I believed that their genetic structure might provide the missing piece of the puzzle. I wanted to draw from them, weave that potential into the Asgard DNA helix and give my race the chance to live again.”
Fenrir fell silent once again; he seemed to have the weight of the ages upon his thin, frail form. He was a digital ghost, the manifestation of a lost soul. Fenrir’s terrible solitude came from him in a mute wave, and Teyla’s breath caught in her throat in a moment of pure empathy.
“But now that data is worthless,” he said. “And my life has no meaning. All I have left is my sorrow… And my fury.”
“Why do you think we’re still alive?” said Rodney, picking at the scabby flesh of the cell walls and grimacing. “And please don’t say ‘lunch’.”
“This Queen doesn’t seem the type to waste an opportunity,” said Sam. “She said her clan was a small one. She’s probably looking at the bigger picture. She wants to know what we know.”
“Drain us of intel before she drains us of life,” noted Lorne. “Nice.”
Sheppard folded his arms. “We may have already given her way too much of that already.”
“I’m sorry!” snapped McKay, feeling heat rise in his cheeks. “How was I to know that data pad would be hijacked the moment we got here? Quadruple 128-bit encryption seemed like it would be good enough —”
“It’s not your fault,” Carter broke in. “We have to fix the problem, not the blame, Rodney. Don’t beat yourself up about it.”
Lorne nodded. “The Wraith will do that for you.”
Sheppard gave the major an acid glance. “The way I figure it, Queeny and her gang here didn’t come looking to pick a fight with Fenrir. You saw how she spoke to him. She knows they don’t have the grunt to beat the Aegis in a stand-up fight.”
“Lucky for Fenrir she didn’t know the combat systems were damaged,” Carter threw in.
“I think she wants that ship intact, or at least as in as few pieces as possible. I mean, think about it. Forget the collapsar bomb for a second, even without that an Asgard warship is some pretty heavy iron. Intergalactic hyperspace capability, transporters, advanced weapons and shields.”
Carter considered this. “Enough to tip the balance in a battle, that’s for certain.”
McKay saw where Sheppard’s train of thought was leading. “They take the Aegis and become Wraith Clan Number One…”
“Maybe even turn the tide of battle against the Asurans,” added Lorne. “But if the Queen knows about the bomb… She’s not going to let that slide. She’ll want that too, the whole nine yards.”
All of them were quiet for a while. McKay knew that Carter, Sheppard and Lorne were all thinking the same thing he was, imagining a war-torn Pegasus galaxy ripped open by collapsar weapons and pirated Asgard technology, set afire by the battles between the Wraith and the Replicators; and beyond that, the threat of the vampiric aliens venturing further, perhaps to the Milky Way galaxy as well.
“The Wraith cannot, under any circumstances, be allowed to possess that ‘isa’ device or the Aegis.” Sam’s voice was low and grim. “We have to do whatever it takes to deny it to them.”
Rodney wandered over to the cell entrance and glared at the web holding them inside it. “The only question is, how?”
“A communication,” said the Wraith scientist, pausing in his work. “From the Asgard.”
The Queen heard his words but did not acknowledge them. She lay back in repose upon the command throne at the centre of the Hive Ship’s control chamber, her subordinates working over the open incision in the flesh of her abdomen. The pain from the live cut was harsh and constant, but it focused her thoughts in a way that nothing else could. Because of the quickened nature of her species and the lightning speed with which Wraith could heal, it was necessary for one worker drone to constantly slice at the edges of the slit to stop the bleeding edges from knitting back together before the surgery could be completed. “Finish it,” she hissed, savoring the pain.
He bowed slightly. “Just so, mistress. It is almost done.”
She felt a slick, dense shape as it was slipped beneath the epidermis of her torso. In seconds, the matter of her flesh was meshing around it, making the implant part of her.
The scientist backed away and bowed again, oily lines of royal blood staining his fingers. “Complete,” he breathed. “You shame us all by your willingness to accept this burden, my Queen.”
She looked down and waved the other drones away, watching the wound pull itself tight and scab over, the flow of seeping blood slowing, stopping. “We are Wraith,” said the Queen. “And no matter what caste we are born into, we still serve the greater good of the clan at day’s end.” With difficulty she stood up, wincing at jagged darts of agony from her abdomen. “Ah. I will bear this duty proudly.”
The scientist brought his hands together. “My colleagues labor below in the egg orchard,” he noted, referring to the protected chamber in the heart of the Hive Ship where knots of genetic material that were Wraith yet to be born were formed. “The pheromones have been injected into a suitable zygote. Birthing of an alternate will commence when… When…” Suddenly the Wraith halted and gave a shuddering sigh, something akin to a human sob. “Why must you do this?” he demanded sorrowfully. “Why must it be you?”
The Queen reached out and cupped his chin in her hand. “Because only I can.” She bared her teeth at him. “Do not be afraid. I do this for you all, for the clan.” The female Wraith spread her hands to take in the whole of the chamber and all the drones and warriors working about her. “I do this because I love you all.”
She stepped down from the throne’s dais and stood in front of a flickering lens-screen. “Prepare the warriors and open a channel,” she ordered, buttoning her tunic closed. “I will speak with the Asgard now.”
“As you command.” The scientist touched a fleshy nerve-control and the screen resolved into an image of the dark-eyed alien.