Wraiths have many glorious names. And none of them are given at birth — only when a young Wraith reaches maturity, discovers the ability to feed on the human herd, and proves themselves.
Soldiers have no names; they are given only to Blades and Smart Ones. For their traits, for their distinguishing marks.
For several thousand years now, he had been called Demon. For the strength inaccessible to most Wraith Blades. For his sharp and cunning mind, surpassing the rest of his brethren. For his ruthlessness and sophistication in destroying enemies. It was thanks to him that many Hives were defeated, making his Queen one of the strongest in the galaxy.
It was no wonder the Scavenger turned to them... It was no wonder he struck at them.
A Commander named Demon. A Wraith, of course.
His Queen, who fell victim to treachery and betrayal, had given him that name. Nothing new among Wraiths, but such a thing had never been seen during the hibernation period before.
It was underhanded, but not ineffective.
Demon emerged from the Stargate surrounded by numerous soldiers and junior commanders.
"Is this the planet where we lost contact with all our squads?" the Hive Commander demanded an answer.
"Yes, Demon," his first assistant immediately reported. The last assistant he had left. "Two days after the first group disappeared, the relay on the orbit detected a working transmitter for tracking the Ancients. The second group couldn't join them immediately, but two days later they came here through the Gate anyway."
"And contact with them was lost?"
"Yes, Commander. And with every subsequent squad as well."
"And the Ancient beacon is still working?"
The first assistant looked at his wrist computer.
"Yes, Commander."
"Then we'll find it," Demon growled, surveying the sizeable clearing in front of the Gate. "And we better find the Ancients before the Hive Ship recovers from its damage. I don't want to fight when we've already lost several hundred of our fighters and don't even understand how!"
"Commander," one of the Smart Ones brought along for this raid approached him, having stepped away from the Dial-Home Device. "We have a problem."
"What kind this time?" Demon asked.
"The Dial-Home Device isn't working," the Smart One stunned him. "When the keys are pressed, the internal illumination doesn't activate, the symbols on the Gate don't light up. This device is broken."
"Then fix it!" Demon snarled. "A damaged and weakened Hive is behind us, which still needs another twenty-four hours in hibernation! We've lost almost all our soldiers and are stranded on this planet. Solve the problem, Smart One. Otherwise, you'll be the first to die from my hunger."
"I'm already working on it, Commander," the Smart One bowed his head submissively and headed towards the Dial-Home Device.
That's what he said when he assured Demon he would fix the damage on his starship.
Damage... They could have been destroyed when their Hive Ship and its cruisers were attacked by the Scavenger's Hive. Despite outnumbering them, the Hive in which Demon was now the leader could not instantly respond to the treacherous strike from orbit.
Waking all the Wraiths in the Hive required considerable time — at least half a day. So he made the only right decision to survive — a directive given to him by his dying Queen.
He threw all his cruisers, which could lift off from the planet much faster than the Hive Ship, to intercept the attacker. And thus bought himself time. Demon lost two cruisers destroyed. Another one surrendered to the victor's mercy.
If the coward commanding that last cruiser had remembered his duty to the Queen, Demon would have had enough time to get the Hive Ship out intact.
But that didn't happen.
And now he had to survive, holed up in such a remote region of the galactic fringe that no one would even think to look for his Hive Ship here. In this dead part of the galaxy, where Wraiths had long ago gathered the herd from all planets, or destroyed the population to eliminate resistance.
"Send out scouting parties," Demon ordered his assistant, listening to the ringing sound of the engines of ten "Strela" that circled overhead. "Establish contact with our previous squads. I want them here. Our forces must stick together."
"Of course, Commander."
He brought here all the Wraiths he had left besides the Smart Ones. All he could wake from hibernation without harming their lives. A significant number of Wraiths were still in the stasis pods, whose power supply could barely sustain the energy of the damaged starship.
Such was the usual and standard tactic of space combat — the enemy must be denied the ability to leave the battlefield. Hyperdrives, power sources, main engines — all of that must be destroyed or at least damaged.
Demon was a skilled pilot and a good commander. Knowing the standard tactics, he managed to save the hyperdrive from damage, but the main engines and the primary power source suffered.
As did the hull, the weapons, and many other things.
He had no more than five hundred Wraiths at his disposal — soldiers, Blades, and Smart Ones — whom he had awakened after the Queen's treacherous murder. All the rest were to remain in stasis. At least until he restored power on his ship and could awaken them.
Demon surveyed the horizons opening before him. Everything was as the pilots of the first "Strela" had reported.
A large clearing with ruins, the remains of a herd settlement. Tall hills a couple of kilometers from the Gate, a dense forest encircling the clearing.
Demon studied this patch of the planet for a while, feeling his skin prickle under the local star. It was midday and the temperature here was much higher, and the air drier than was comfortable for a Wraith.
On Hive Ships or Wraith bases, a slight coolness and high humidity were always maintained, which was good for their health. Here... Disgusting.
On the other hand, they could always set up a base on this forgotten and abandoned planet to start over if his plan failed. Provided the Smart One found a way to fix the Gate, of course.
"Commander," his assistant approached him. Though he looked calm, his thoughts seemed confused. "No traces of energy or intelligent life have been found within this valley. Only a beacon tuned to the Ancients in the ruins. The 'Strela' pilots also report that they've discovered crash sites of many 'Strela.' Mostly in the fields behind this forest."
"The ones we sent with the squads earlier?" Demon became alert.
"Most likely," the Smart One suggested. "Our forward squads spotted many Wraith remains. Mostly near the undergrowth; they aren't visible from here. Numerous small pits in the clearing, which I cannot explain. Some Wraiths were killed by firearms or kinetic penetrators; I suspect they were fragmentation bombs..."
"Human herd," Demon snarled.
."..but most of them were fed on," the Smart One finished.
Demon snarled, struck by a realization.
It seemed the beacon created to find the Ancients was a not-so-obvious trap.
At first, Demon thought that this signal, which they had barely caught by chance, was nothing more than blind luck. Finding Ancients, even just one, capturing them, and using them for bargaining seemed like an excellent idea.
The fact that the hunting squads sent to search had not made contact, he had until now attributed to some problems on the planet itself. And the non-working Dial-Home Device could have been that very problem.
But human firearms, traces of feeding on hundreds of his soldiers and Blades...
"This is an ambush!" Demon roared in fury with all the power of his lungs.
Several young Blades standing nearby flinched, seeing Demon, as tall and muscular as a Wraith soldier but as brave as a Blade should be, bellowing with all his might. He could kill any of them unarmed, in his beloved hand-to-hand combat.
But now... Now he wanted to kill those Wraiths who had lured him into an ambush. And he thought he knew who it was. The one who, not long ago, through his vile negotiators, had spoken of the return of the Ancients.
Lies, lies, lies! It was all nothing but deception, all the talks, all the agreements, even the signal!
"Recall the 'Strela,'" he ordered his first assistant. "Try to dial the address using the ships."
"It will be done, Commander," the assistant bowed, activating his transmitter. "Pilots, return to the Gate and dial the address..."
Strange that the Smart One hadn't thought of that before. Perhaps he was a traitor?
"Find those who killed our soldiers!" Demon commanded. "Bring their commander to me, and the rest..."
He fell silent when, before his eyes, smoke trails appeared from the forest and literally out of thin air. Primitive kinetic reactive projectiles, rockets.
But how was that even possible?
"We're under attack!" the alert sounded.
And the downed "Strela," falling onto the clearing, turning into huge pillars of fire, were only part of what was happening.
The forward groups sent to scout were suddenly attacked. Explosions sounded here and there, tearing chunks of soil and showering the soldiers and their commanders with streams of dirt and deadly streams of metal penetrators. Bombs and their fragments, as his subordinate had previously reported.
Demon and his Wraiths didn't stand still.
Multiple crimson energy bolts flew out from the undergrowth, striking his soldiers. Clearly, shooters were there. And this weapon, its sound, its power, Demon had seen before.
From one of his "Runners," whose planet he had destroyed as a security measure for his own Hive.
But here there were dozens, even hundreds of such energy hand cannons. Perhaps fewer, and the shooters were simply moving.
The "Strela" could have helped in detecting the enemy and striking them from the air. But all of them were destroyed by rockets, burning up on the planet's surface.
In some places, he also saw the energy flashes of Wraith weapons. Dozens of shooters held his fighters in a crossfire, pinning them against the ruins in the center of the clearing. Right now, that was the only safe place that could preserve the lives of his soldiers and their commanders.
And now he and his best soldiers were trying to react to what was happening, to attack the enemy from the flank, to break them, to overwhelm them, to force them onto the defensive...
And then came a sound he had never heard in person. But when the Queen was merciful, when she shared her mental strength with him, showing him what Wraiths had been like in the distant past, he had heard that sound.
And he well remembered what it heralded.
Demon stopped, turned towards the approaching melodious-humming sound, and saw with his own eyes a crimson Lantean ship appear from the air, dropping its camouflage. And saw several projectiles fly from its launchers.
Yellow lights, carrying a powerful force, sped towards his close associates. Demon warned them with a loud cry. Some even managed to fire a couple of shots at the Ancient ship before two homing projectiles struck the center of their group, turning dozens of Wraiths into incinerated piles of ash. The rest, including Demon himself, were thrown aside by the shockwave, which he could not resist.
He was broken, struck, tossed, struck again — and so several times — by an irresistible force, like a young child not yet mature and feeding on fruit.
However, this was enough to knock the awe-inspiring Commander Demon unconscious. Sinking into the depths of his mind's halls, in darkness and solitude, he heard explosions, screams, and exhausted snarls, the mental malice and confusion of his Wraiths.
He had been tricked.
Again.
* * *
The awakening was painful.
Which was strange in itself, as the body should have been regenerating.
"I don't like this guy," he heard a male voice. "I doubly don't like that it was him who ended up here."
Opening his eyes, Demon tensed his body to lunge at the source of the voice. And he even managed to do it.
But instead of his signature strike with his mighty right hand to the enemy's chest, he jabbed with the bleeding stump of what had once been his feeding hand. And he jabbed at a human, a young dark-haired man who didn't even flinch. Even though Demon also struck him with his left hand, which was intact.
A green wave of energy ran across the human; upon contact, it felt like Demon was shocked by electricity at the moment of the blow.
And the next moment, he felt a powerful strike knock him onto the grass, soaked with his own black blood. Having fallen, he got up almost immediately, quickly looking around...
This was not the battlefield.
This was a place where dozens of Wraiths — his Wraiths — lay on the grass, deprived of their right hands. He noticed two groups of people, including both men and women. Some were dressed in dark brown uniforms of rather mediocre quality. Others in dark gray, with protective pads on elbows and knees, with protective vests. Two factions?
Maybe so. But what they were doing was going around each of his Wraiths.
And cutting off either their feeding hands.
Those who, like him, awakened amidst this dishonorable violence, they knocked out, either with Wraith Stunners or with weapons firing crimson energy beams. Familiar images stirred in the corners of his memory.
He had met people in brown clothes with weapons like this before! Nomads! Scavengers living in space on old ships! One of the dangers to Wraiths, who had gone into hiding many years ago, almost completely wiped out during a major battle with a Wraith coalition. And his Queen, as well as her Hive, had actively participated in their extermination.
Had they not all been destroyed? Had they found strength to resist? Or were these not just Nomads? After all, someone was piloting the Ancient ship, someone had activated the beacon?
A chill ran down the vertebrae protruding from Demon's spine, and a flame ignited inside his body.
Was the Scavenger right, and the Ancients had returned? Or had the scavenging Nomads managed to start something from the remaining Lantean technology? In any case, this filth must be destroyed!
And they will be destroyed!
Even if he died, these creatures would clearly not live as long as they would like! The Scavenger would take care of them.
Humiliating as it was, they would die for what they were now doing to his Hive!
They... They were crippling the remnants of his Hive! Demon knew a Wraith could regenerate a lot, but a feeding hand... That would require a lot of life energy. And his Wraiths hadn't eaten for some time and certainly weren't capable of that.
This confusion, caused by the humiliation and insult he witnessed, was enough for him to react to another blow from that man. His counter-strike was supposed to break the man's arm in half, but instead, something in Demon's own limb crunched.
"Strong bastard," the man kicked him in the chest, sending Demon flying back and slamming his body into the stone ruins. "Teyla, are you sure you can get into his head?"
A short female with dark skin appeared next to the man. Demon, snarling a warning, stared at them intently.
Dressed in the same standard uniform, with the same weapons, their gear and equipment differed only slightly. There were several dozen of them, maybe fifty. A similar number of Nomads were also there.
Considering the Ancient technology, bombs, the ambush... The two hundred Wraiths he had brought here simply had no chance.
A too-well-planned trap! Someone knew Wraith tactics too well! Knew how Demon himself would act!
Still snarling at the humans, Demon suddenly felt a touch on his mind.
Weak, like that of a Wraith who had barely learned its power. It was definitely none of his soldiers or Blades. They were all mature and experienced males. And the touch itself was... queenly.
There was a young Queen here!
"I..." the human female grimaced. "I can feel his anger, his rage... He despises us and wishes us dead."
Demon realized he had stopped snarling.
He looked at the human female with surprise and disgust.
"Abomination!" he bellowed. "How dare you touch my mind? Animals can't do that!"
The next moment, the bones of his skull crunched as the man, protected by an Ancient personal shield, punched him in the face. Crouching beside the Demon, the dark-haired man almost gently adjusted his clothing, then looked him straight in the eyes.
The Demon had never seen such coldness and resolve in an animal before.
Not a single note of panic, despair, doubt, or fear. Nothing of what an animal in this galaxy was supposed to feel. The Wraiths had ingrained fear in them over hundreds of harvests!
"Go on, Teyla," the man ordered his female. "We'll have a chat with Taras in the meantime. You are Taras, aren't you? I wonder if you have sons — Ostap and Andriy? Silent. No sons, I guess. Too bad, the joke about the Poles won't be complete without sons, will it, Taras?"
And this human was like... Like he didn't know he was supposed to fear a Wraith. As if he didn't see before him the one who had been exterminating his kind for generations.
"Say it again," the man asked politely.
"You are animals, created for... Agh!" The Demon suppressed the minor pain that flared up the moment the human male broke his jaw.
Oh, that felt good.
"You'll regret what you've done, human," the Demon said confidently, feeling his organism begin to repair the damage. "My Hive will come for me. And you'll all drown in blood..."
"Quiet, Taras," the man asked. "You see, the thing is... You're not the first Wraith we've taken prisoner. And you're not the first one my friend trains her mental tricks on." The Wraith suddenly realized he could feel a Queen's presence in his mind. Focusing, he tried to push her out.
The human female groaned and clutched her head.
The Wraith bared his teeth, felt her suffering... And at that very moment received a disorienting blow to the jaw. Bones and teeth shattered completely. Distracted by that, the Demon tried to mentally attack the man who had insulted him with his action.
The man winced as the Demon invaded his mind.
Acting confidently, brazenly, and with practiced ease, the Hive Ship commander breached the man's mind.
And within a minute, during which the human male barely showed how much pain he was in, the Demon pulled out of his mind.
"Impossible!" he snarled. "How... Who are you? What are you?"
"A terror soaring on the wings of night," the man said, wincing slightly. "Yeah... You pack a punch in the head, not unlike Athosian thermonuclear wine. Well, how was it? Did you like it?"
"When the Hives learn about the other galaxy where the Ancients fled, about the rich Feeding Grounds that await us there, your pathetic city will be captured," the Demon promised. "And we'll reach Earth and have a feast!"
"Yeah, I've heard that one somewhere before," the man chuckled. The Demon already knew everything he needed about him. And that knowledge just could not fit inside his head... And he had also seen the reason why the man had reacted to him the way he did. "How is what I saw even possible? Someone else's life on a computer screen!?"
"Did you see how yours ended?" Mikhail asked. The Wraith snarled. "Good boy. You know, I'm starting to suspect the Ascended are playing along with us. We were looking for Ronon Dex, couldn't find him anywhere... And then a Scavenger attacks the Hive that attacked Sateda about seven years ago, almost completely wiped it out, made Ronon 'the Runner'... Coincidence? I don't think so."
"Styx attacked them because they have one of the strongest Hives," the human female's voice came. The Demon glared at her threateningly. "His Queen thought that if she convinced them to join, she could make the rest follow."
The Demon snarled with rage.
"You touched my mind, human!" he snapped, turning his gaze to Mikhail. "You distracted me with your mind!"
"And you're an idiot who follows standard procedure," Mikhail replied calmly, getting to his feet.
"When the others find out that Atlantis is weak..." the Demon began. And didn't finish.
A Lantean energy pistol appeared in Mikhail's hands. And a blue-glowing crystal stared the Demon right in the face.
"They won't," the Lantean leader said simply.
And fired.
* * *
"We need more Lantean weapons," said Kirik, approaching Mikhail and Teyla. Looking at the melted chunks of stone where the upper half of the Hive Ship commander had been a second ago, he nodded approvingly.
Powerful weapon.
If all soldiers in Atlantis's service had one...
"We need more of everything," Mikhail said, looking at Teyla. "Are you alright?"
The girl looked pale, exhausted, but she smiled. The former 'Runner' knew she was doing it through force of will.
"This commander is stronger than the others," she admitted. "His mind... is more extensive. I didn't have time to see everything, but what you asked for..."
Suddenly her legs buckled. Mikhail and Kirik were right there, catching her by the arms.
"I'm fine," Teyla said in a weak voice, as both men gently pulled her aside and sat her down on the grass. Away from the remains of the Wraith commander. "Just... Exhausted."
"I shouldn't have asked you to dig into the commander's brain," Mikhail grimaced. "You're not ready yet. We thought we'd start with humans..."
"I can't," Emmagan said quietly. "The Wraith mind... I can connect with them; the meditations and mind exercises Chaya showed me help. But humans... I can't penetrate a human mind, no matter how hard I try."
"It's okay," Mikhail said. But a flicker of disappointment crossed his face for a moment. "The main priority right now is the Wraith. I promise, as soon as we're done with this Hive, you'll get a long break from this kind of thing."
"I'm fine," Teyla smiled weakly. "Just... A little tired. It's all good. It gets easier each time. I learned a lot from this commander and the others, his subordinates that the other teams brought in. A lot of things are becoming clear now. I can see the whole picture."
"What exactly?" Kirik asked with interest.
"The Scavenger came to them because they're strong," Teyla repeated. "But that's exactly why this Hive's Queen refused the alliance. She and her Wraiths didn't believe the Ancients had returned and thought the Scavenger was trying to deceive them. She was killed so the Hive would swear allegiance to the Scavenger, but the Demon," she looked at the Wraith's remains and shuddered. Her gaze returned to Mikhail. "He refused."
"Demon?" Mikhail repeated, looking at the remains. "I swear by salt pork, he should have been named Taras. Shaved head, tattoo with phallic symbols, a tuft of hair on the crown, fashionable rags in the best traditions of brave former serf soldiery... A spitting image of Taras!"
"No, his name was Demon," Teyla insisted. "Because he was fierce and merciless."
"Well, to hell with this Taras-Demon," Mikhail waved his hand. "What about the attack on them?"
"When they refused to join, they were attacked by a Hive that previously belonged to a Queen named Cunning Blade."
"Is that the Hive that attacked us near the Aurora?"
"Yes," Teyla confirmed. "But now it serves the Scavenger."
"Cunning Blade serves him?"
"No," Teyla shook her head. "No one has heard from her anymore. It's assumed the Scavenger killed her. And that enraged the Queen of this Hive. But something else is important. He didn't come here for no reason."
"We know, they were hunting the Ancients," Mikhail said.
"Not to kill them," Teyla said.
Kirik was distracted by the sound of the Stargate activating. It seemed Ihaar had fixed the device they had disabled from dialing in from this side. The gate worked for receiving, but not for sending. The Ancients had worked on the device to block transmission while they interrogated and disarmed captured Wraiths, and also while they "disposed" of them.
A whirlpool erupted from the device and immediately sucked back in. The event horizon, like a circle of standing water, stabilized, and a moment later another Puddle Jumper flew out of it. It soared into the air, moving away from the arrival zone, then others began to fly out.
One by one, they landed behind the gate, where six other Jumpers were already lined up in a row. They had been involved in the prolonged operation to capture Wraiths on that very planet where it had all first happened.
Since the EMS generator had failed and building a new one would take considerable time, the plan for capturing Wraiths had changed. The bait remained the same — the medallion-transmitter. But now, instead of the EMS field, the Lanteans, the Nomads, the Athosian soldiers — everyone who could hold a weapon and fight Wraith squads — were hidden by the Jumpers. Some of them hovered in the air with supplies of Ermen anti-air missiles, whose stock was dwindling rapidly. Others patrolled above the forest. Full of soldiers, they only engaged when the Wraiths threatened to scatter across the valley and the surrounding forest.
"He knew nothing about Atlantis before he met us," Kirik returned his attention to his friends. "And the Scavenger didn't send him after us. He fled, decided to lie low and recover his strength, intending to join another Hive later. But it turns out the Hive allied with them was completely destroyed by the Scavenger's faction. Entirely. A second allied Hive also didn't make contact. And that only happens when a Hive is completely destroyed."
"Hmm..." Mikhail pondered. "I'm starting to like this Scavenger. He's doing our work for us. Maybe we should just move to another planet and let him do his thing? The more guys like him, the fewer guys like him."
"I'm for that," Kirik said. "Let them kill each other off as much as possible."
"You don't understand," Chaya shook her head. "In the Demon's mind, I caught a glimmer of gloating. He knows that sooner or later, the Scavenger's tactics will fail. Right now, his emissaries are pretending to be Cunning Blade's emissaries, and he himself is acting among her allies. But sooner or later, the Keepers of other Hives will suspect something is wrong and raise the alarm, instead of letting negotiators on board. And then all the Wraiths in the galaxy will wake up..."
"And if among all those, there are some who believe him about our return, we'll face a full-scale blockade," Mikhail sighed. "Nothing we hadn't anticipated. You suffered for nothing, Teyla..."
"No," the Athosian woman objected hotly. "I haven't told you everything yet. In the Demon's mind, I saw a lot related to his Hive... And his plan regarding the Scavenger. The Demon knew where the Superhive was, or where it would be in the near future."
Mikhail's eyes lit up.
"Now get into the details from that point."