Dgre wrote:
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MyKai came awake abruptly, as was his way. He blinked at the bright lights in the infirmary, and the focused on the face above him … his queen. Relief flooded him, that she had not been harmed while he was incapacitated.Dgre closed her eyes also in relief, even though she knew he would revive with her infusion of protoblood. She wasn’t sure she had had enough. Even though she had the formula for more, that took time, and only if Atlantis could supply all the right ingredients.
“ What happened?” He asked, concerned because he almost never had moments of confusion.
“My heart, apparently you had an encounter with a Wraith,” she said. “ I don’t know exactly what they are, but the people here tell me they are a species who must live off the life force of the living. He tried to take that from you, but … well … you know.”
“Yes.” He sat up. “Are you all right? Should we leave this place and go back to ComicCon?”
Dgre shook her head. “Yes, we should leave. But not back to ComicCon. People need to be warned of the danger, but we can’t do it here.”
She took a deep breath. “We’re going home.”
***
The Wraith spit up sea water and took in the salty air. His chest burned, whether from the unknown substance he had taken in when he tried to kill that strange being with all the hair, or the foul-smelling atmosphere of wherever he was, but he felt hope as he contemplated the vast array of city lights on the shore. Yes, a city, and best of all, full of his preferred prey. He began to swim toward it, certain he would regain his strength once he had ingested his fill of human life.
Eventually, he reached a sandy stretch beneath a structure with many pilings and struts that reached out into the bay. He could hear above him the sounds of humans laughing and speaking their execrable gutter language. There were probably too many for him to take on at once, and he didn’t know what kind of weapons they might have, so he would have to proceed carefully and in stealth. But he was hungry after his long sleep on Atlantis, and still sick from the after effects of the strange poison from the lifeless creature he had encountered. If only he could feed, he felt sure he would recover.
***
“Our sensors haven’t been able to locate the Wraith,” Ronin told Shepard and Teyla. “ I think he got through the gate, somehow.”
“Which means he’s on Earth,” said Rodney. “And if he’s there, he’s going to be able to tell the others how to get there.”
Everyone in the room froze. Jennifer squeaked, “But he can’t communicate with them unless …”
“Unless we open the gate,” finished a grim John Shepard.
They all stared at each other, aghast. Dgre and MyKai glanced at each other.
“We have to get home,” Dgre said. “We have to warn them. Just that one creature alone could possibly kill hundreds of thousands before he’s done, and if he gets control of the gate from the other side, Earth is finished.”
For a long moment, no one spoke. Then Ronin stirred, his expression murderous.
“So we take a risk and open the gate once, to send a team over,” he said.
***
The Wraith roamed the city, being careful to keep to the unlighted areas. If anyone saw him, they shrugged at the sight of just another San Francisco weirdo and went about their business. There appeared to be a lot of people about, and the Wraith concluded that night made no difference to the availability of prey. In fact, he observed that many of these night roamers preferred the unlit areas themselves, which made his hunt even easier.
He made his first kill in a dark alley, a lone human who was apparently looking for a place to sleep. It took almost no effort at all to latch on and begin sucking the life — and yes, this one at least was alive — out of him, and not full of that …
He faltered. Yes, life flowed into him, and there was no trace of the yellow poison. But there was something else … another substance, something he’d never encountered before. This substance didn’t make him sick. Instead, it made him feel like he was floating, and that the whole world was floating around him given his nature, he couldn’t decide if this was necessarily a good thing. What kind of humans were these? They either poisoned you, or they made you feel impossibly good, something he was completely unfamiliar with.
He didn’t even sense when the Stargate whooshed open for a moment, and then closed again.
