The ship was freezing cold, even in the environmental suit, Julia was chilly. She stepped out of the formation of people and turned on her light, looking around cautiously. She had felt the awful feeling of foreboding settle over her the second she saw the readings from the Klingon vessel. She felt the sense of familiarity over them. It had only taken a second to convert the pattern into code sequence, causing her suspicion to grow. It looked for all the world like wraith tech making those readings. How or why there would be wraith technology on a Klingon ship, Julia could only guess and she was sure it must be some mistake. It had to be. There are no Wraith in this universe! she had thought. All the same, she needed to see for herself, if for no other reason than to put her mind at ease. She was thankful that Kirk hadn't questioned her request to closely.

The thought of there possibly being wraith caused Julia to feel both hopeful, and filled with dread all at once. If there were, it meant they had to have gotten there somehow from the Pegasus Galaxy, therefore Julia would be one step closer to going home...on the other hand, she could also be eaten for lunch.

The team split into two groups and began to search the ship, deck by deck. Julia walked with Rogan and two other security boys. For the first while they found no one, but when they moved up a deck and opened the bulkhead, they saw bodies lining the corridor. The men quickly hurried forwards with caution and then one crouched to examine the first body. At the same time another crewman from the other team was giving Spock a report over the com. The sight they described and the one before Julia was all to familiar. Feeding mark on the chests, faces contorted in distress and only a husk of a body remaining. It was deeply troubling, not just because it was obvious to her what had done it, but that they were not human corpses...which meant that these wraith had discovered they could eat Klingon as well as human. I'm sure that would fascinate Doctor Beckett...since up until now the wraith have only snacked on humans...

Rogan must have felt her lung crushing emotion of alarm because he looked at her sharply and furrowed his brown in concern.

"Julia?"

"We need to get to Spock and the others. NOW." she said firmly, taking out her phaser. There was no telling how many wraith there might be on the ship. The only way she could be certain of keeping each of these unsuspecting people safe from the most likely hibernating wraith was to keep them together and stop them from tripping any sensors set up in advance by the designing creatures.

"Why?" asked Claude, one of the security red shirts, in an condescending tone. "Not afraid of a few dead bodies are you?"

"No you idiot. Because I know what did that to them, and unless you would like to end up just like these poor corpses, you better shut up and listen to me." snapped Julia with venom in her tone, causing the man to take a small step back and Rogan to look at her in utter shock. Sighing, she turned and motioned for them to join her, then activated her com.

"Mr. Spock. May I ask you to either retrace your steps and meet us back where we beamed in, or at very least stay were you are until we can get to you?"

"Ensign Miles. I fail to understand why this would be necessary. Please explain yourself."

Swearing under her breath, Julia looked into the tricorder to see where the other team us and then choose what looked like a short cut through the ship towards them.

"Because, sir, I know what killed these people and I think I best if I explain myself in person." opening the next bulkhead, Julia saw with dismay that there were wraithship tendrils lining the corridor. "And for heaven sake, make sure no one touches any of the weird organic stuff that is clearly not part of the Klingon ship!"

She raised her phaser and set it to kill. Glancing into the tricorder again she watched for any new life-signs that could appear at any moment if and when a Wraith came out of hibernation. She had no real evidence that there was a live Wraith on board, but instinct told her not to assume it was dead, or that it was gone. No, the Wraith were survivors. There would be at least one alive. Behind her Claude opened his mouth to speak again, but was silenced by a rather severe look from Rogan. He moved up beside her.

"Julia, what's going on?" he sounded calm, but she knew him well enough to hear the mild tension in his voice.

"It would seem I'm facing multiple nightmares today Rogan." she said tiredly. "Just doesn't seem fair does it."

"That didn't really answer my question..."

"I know."

He dropped the issue with slight irritation, only evident through his exasperated sigh. They reached Spock and the others not long after. They were gathered around a corner of the room, and Spock was talking to the Enterprise, saying something about needing a medical team upon arrival back to the ship. As the group parted, Julia saw with horror that they had been surrounding a half dead Wraith queen. She was mostly conscious, eyes gazing at everyone wearily...and Julia could also see the hunger there.

Two crewmen moved to lift the wraith to her feet. Sensing the danger they were in, Julia lunged, barreling into one of them and knocking him into the other man, then staggered back to trained her gun on the queen who hissed at her and closer her eyes almost pitifully groaning in pain.

In a second, Spock's fast reflexes and iron grip snatched her weapon away.

"Explain yourself Ensign." he said in an almost strict tone. "Why do you attack this creature that obviously needs help and does not threaten you?"

"You want to know what kill all those Klingons . Well ask her!" growled Julia, looking ready to seize another weapon and shot the queen.

"There was another creature with her whom she saved us from. It was the one who killed the crew. She does not wish to harm us. She only wants to go home." stated Spock calmly. "It is illogical for you to jump to such conclusions ensign."

"Oh it's plenty logical sir. I know what she's capable of, and I wouldn't trust a Wraith as far as I could throw one. It's a trick, if we take her on board the Enterprise, we will end up just like this crew. Trust me! We cannot take her with us without locking her up and sedating her." Julia said grimly.

"And what evidence do you have to support these claims?" asked the Vulcan. Julia opened her mouth and then closed it. She couldn't just say she knew because she encountered them in another universe. Struggling to find an reason, Julia watched as Spock nodded to the crewmen again to help the wraith up, saying, "If you do not have an reasonable explanation, then may I suggest that you cease this illogical and insubordinate behavior. This creature will be taken to the medical bay for Doctor McCoy to examine."

"No!" yelled Julia, moving forwards to try and stop them once more. At the same time, on Spock's orders, Rogan caught her tightly around the waist and swiftly immobilized her thrashing arms. "Let me go!" she cried angrily, "Mr. Spock you're making a huge mistake!" But the vulcan ignored her and along with everyone else. Julia saw the sly smile that crossed the wraith queens lips as she looked Julia in the eye when she was helped to her feet and transported off the dead Klingon vessel to a new feeding ground.

"Rogan, let go of me. Now." Julia struggled violently against her friend's iron grip on her arm, not for the last time as he escorted her down the corridor towards her quarters. She had been immediately put on report upon arrival back on the Enterprise and was to be confined to her quarters until Kirk could decide what to do with her and Doctor McCoy had a look at her.

Rogan had volunteered to take her there since she resisted the security detail rather effectively and very nearly escaped after Spock had left with the wraith queen. The Palonian was too quick for her though, and subdued her with very little effort, despite her valiant attempt to fight him. Julia wasn't really sure what she had planned to accomplish by escaping, but in her own defense, she was still overtired, and had just come face to face with a wraith queen that would undoubtedly start killing people soon, so she wasn't really thinking straight. All she knew was that everyone was in danger, and that the queen had something planned, therefore she couldn't afford to be locked up. She swore under her breath and then attempted a self defense maneuver Teyla had taught her in another effort of get away. It very nearly worked, but to her surprise, Rogan gracefully counter acted the action, neatly pinned her to the wall with his shear size and strength dwarfing her own.

"Look Julia, if you keep this up, I swear I'm going to knock you out! Would you just calm down already?!" he was angry now, not that she could blame him. She had after all dealt a fairly hard blow to his abdomen. They glared at each other.

"I would have thought that my friend would at very least take me seriously and believe what I said about the wraith!" Julia said through gritted teeth using the anger to cover up her stunned fear of Rogan's fast reflexes and anger.

"And I would have thought that my friend would have confided in me like a reasonable person before we even reached Spock, instead of keeping it to herself and then flying of the handle, leaving me with no choice but to follow orders and try to keep her out of further trouble!" he replied, jaw clenched, still glaring. Julia returned the stare stubbornly, but then found she couldn't keep it up since she knew he was probably right.

"Ok, admittedly, I should have been handling this better...a lot better. But still, Spock is stupid for not listening to me! And everyone else is a bunch of morons too! Especially you." she mumbled as she dropped her gaze. Rogan sighed tiredly and let her away from the wall, taking her arm once more.

"I do believe you Julia, but I need more to go on if I'm going to-" he was cut off by an alarm sounding.

"That didn't take long." muttered Julia. "I'll bet that's a security team being sent to sick bay..."

Rogan was about to reply when he let go of her suddenly, grabbed his head and let out a pained gasp, eyes wide.

"What happened?" Julia asked, filled with concern, reaching out to grab on of his arms as he doubled over. "Rogan?"

"Can't you feel that?" he managed to say, breathing heavily.

"Feel what?"

"Strong, very strong telepathy field. Someone is trying to take control of my mind, and others... Curses! It's crushing, how can you not feel it?" he looked up at her through pain filled eyes. Julia felt helpless.

"I don't feel anything...it can't take you over can it?" she asked worriedly, "Rogan?"

"Not if I can help it." he groaned and then shut his eyes tightly. "It surprised me, came so quickly, but I should be able to resist it. We need to get to the captain."

Julia nodded and then helped Rogan toward the lift, letting his arm drape around her shoulders. As they headed up through the decks, Rogan seemed to improve quickly.

Reaching the bridge, they found Kirk firing out orders right left and centre. From what Julia could tell, the wraith had killed four people during its escape from sickbay. Two security personal, a nurse, and a yeoman. She had then turned on some kind of wraith device in one of the control rooms near engineering, attaching itself to the computer mainframe. The computers were quickly being taken over, codes re-written by wraith algorithms. It also seemed to be responsible for taking over the minds of every male within a two deck vicinity, bending them to her will. Julia could only guess that the device amplified her mental abilities and made other minds more vulnerable to her influence. Why it only controlled males, Julia had not idea.

Ship wide communications were down, there was chaos, crewman attacking each other, being captured and taken to holding cells near the queen. It appeared to Julia that the wraith was gathering a feast for herself and creating a new hive ship all at once.

Spock was no were to be found, McCoy appeared shortly after Julia and Rogan arrived on the bridge, growling and cursing loudly about 'bloody space vampires'. Of course Kirk was more than happy to listen to Julia now, much to her annoyance.

"Alright," she said as calmly as possible, "We don't have time for me to go over everything, so you need to just roll with it here, there isn't time otherwise. First thing we need to do is quarantine this area of the ship, cutting off the wraith computer virus that is very quickly making it's way here. As far as we know, the rest of the ship is being infected slowly. Lucky for us, I happen to have been in a similar situation and have a theory on how to get rid of this thing. We can be glad it's not as nasty a virus as the one that infected the ship I was on last year. This one should be stoppable at the source. But first, we need to lock it out of the decks not infected." she moved quickly to a consol and brought up the ship's schematics. "Here, and here. If we cut power to these areas, that should block it, for now. Then we need to get into that control room, take out the wraith and deactivate the device...in fact, I'm all for blowing it up!"

"Ve lost control of those areas nit long ago." said Chekhov.

"Yes, it will have to be done by hand. But it's too close to the device, one of the ladies will have to do it." stated Kirk with obvious reluctance over the idea of sending a woman alone. "And we have no way of getting to the control room save fighting our way in."

"Maybe. At any rate, this area here is far enough to the device that I feel confident I can cut the power without trouble. Then I can go with one of the ladies as close as possible to the other and keep them safe. My mental shields are the strongest here I think, and I believe I can resist effectively." said Rogan.

"Very well, in the mean time we should get those crewmembers we can find to a safe zone." agreed Kirk.

"I'll cut the power at the other location sir." said Julia, studying the sequence of code on her screen. "I might even be able to deliver a counter agent into the system to slow it down and confuse it if I'm quick."

It's a good thing I was so bored those day's in the infirmary when I was sick and memorized this little trick of Rodney's...otherwise it would take hours to figure out. Even better that this seems to be an old wraith attack sequence...I wonder how long this queen's been out here?

Receiving the OK from Captain Kirk, the pair took off once more, listening to McCoy complain about the lunacy of everything as the doors of the lift closed.

They did the furthest power cut first, running into minimal interference. Julia was glad to have Rogan close by to quickly take out anyone under the control of the queen. The second section was much more nerve-racking. Rogan stood as near as he could to her position without feeling the effects of the device to terribly. Even then, he was the length of the hall away from her.

She worked quickly, and was just finishing uploading the counter agent when she heard Rogan yell out a warning to her. She turned only just in time to see a very large young man with a blank expression grab her violently and throw her effortlessly against the opposite wall.

Julia had the wind knocked out of her instantly as she hit the wall, smacking her head on the floor when she landed. She tasted blood in her mouth and realized she had bit her lip open. Struggling to her feet, still gasping for air, the girl called to mind everything Ronon and Teyla had ever taught her about hand to hand combat. In seconds she was spinning, ducking and weaving in a rapid dance of punches, kicks and blocking.

She had never been too good at combat, but she knew enough to get by on a good day. Today was not a good day however. A duck executed to late earned her a heavy blow to the face, splitting her lip entirely and dazing her. Just as the crewman was about to seize hold of her, Rogan appeared behind him and swiftly incapacitated the poor fellow with deadly precision worthy of Teyla. Unfortunately, the relief of seeing Rogan was short lived, because no sooner had he taken out the crewman, did he drop to his knees in agony as the wraith device began to take over his mind.

"Rogan!" Julia said, weakly moving towards him on her knees. He was fighting the mental control, face contorted.

"Julia, I..." he gasped, "I need you to tru..." Then he trailed off, relaxing suddenly and taking a deep breath. Julia watched in horror as he rose easily to he feet and then turned his blank gaze towards her. He was lost, taken by the queen. He reached for her suddenly, causing Julia to pull back, kicking out, rolling up onto her feet and trying to run.

Earlier experiences of the day told her it was hopeless to escape him. She was captured within seconds and to her dismay, she felt him grip her shoulder in a similar fashion to a vulcan, immobilizing her. Julia let out a panicked yelp which was cut off as she felt something prick her side sharply. She felt numbness spread swiftly, paralyzing her body. Her legs collapsed beneath her.

"No. Nononono! Rogan please. Fight her!" cried Julia desperately, "Don't do this to me again. Come on, you've already scared the crap out of me once this week!"

He didn't answer, but lifted her up easily and began to walk in a trance to the heart of the queen's area of control. Terror overflowed with each step. Julia was limp now, but only from the waist down and was able to move her head and arms. She knew what awaited her, better than anyone else did. And she also knew the wraith queen wasn't an idiot. She would have noticed that Julia knew what she was when no one else had. The queen would want a 'conversation' with her. That thought alone made Julia want to vomit.

"Rogan please, I can't do this. You have no idea what she's going to do to me, what its like having one of them inside my head." she moaned wrapping her free arm around the shoulder and neck of her zombified friend while burying her face in his chest, willing him to return to her. She felt his step hesitate ever so faintly then sensed him lean down so his head was closer to her. Tempted to look at him, but unwilling to see that dead look in his eyes again, Julia waited without loosing her hold on him.

Then she heard it. So faintly she thought she might have imagined it. The soft sound of him hushing her comfortingly, followed by a subtle tightening of the arms holding her. Her eyes snapped open and she turned her head to look at him, but he had already lifted his head and was staring forwards as they walked through the last door into the presence of the wraith queen.

Rogan set her almost ungently on the ground before stepping back near the wall and staring into nothingness and the queen circled him, taking in his form. She leered at him with satisfaction, then turned her attention to Julia.

"So, human who knows so much more than she lets on. The time comes for me to taste of your defiance."

Julia couldn't help but roll her eyes and look anywhere in the room but the queen. She noticed Spock near a console in the corner of the room with the same vacant expression that Rogan had. Other than that, there were no others. Cool, so all I need to do is find the device, evade the wraith, Spock and possibly Rogan? I could totally have imagined that thing back there...on yea, and do all this while not using my legs...and don't get eaten...great!

"How do you know of my race!" demanded the queen. Julia immediately felt the wave of cold alien presence at the queen began her interrogation. The memories flowed forth involuntarily. She cursed that she was so tired. It made it so much easier for the queen to get in. She knew it would only get worse, and wished she could pass out rather than face this. There was no John, Ronon, Teyla or even Rodney to swoop in and save her now.

"Oh, but you are most valuable to me...I know what you seekkkk" she sneered, Julia felt a icy pressure in her head building. "You do not belong here either, child of ancient blood! I see the cursed city in your mind...you want to go home...such a clever, defiant mind...I look forward to making use of it. You will bend to my will! I shall suck the life from you again and again until you are begging for mercy...or I could have this one do to you what you fear most..." she ended with a sickening grin of pointed teeth as she indicated Rogan. He walked forwards until he was standing just behind Julia causing the girl to pale and tense up.

"Get OUT of my head." growled Julia through gritted teeth as she struggled against the mental attack from the queen and swallowed the growing fear insider her. She was trapped by the cold grip of the queen, sending stars dancing before her eyes when her mind feebly fought back. She cried out in pain.

Rogan reached out his hand suddenly and gently griped the back of her neck. Julia felt the pain and struggle fade as his powerful mind wrapped warmly around her own. She could have cried with joy. The queen jerked her gaze from Julia and hissed at Rogan. He smiled humorlessly at her and then showed her the wraith device that he had somehow deactivated and now held in his other hand.

She screeched horribly when she realized that he had never been under her control to begin with and had somehow tricked her. He let out an almost catlike snarl and Julia felt a crushing ferocity growing in amidst the soothing gentleness of Rogan's mind. It grew more intense as the wraith queen moved to attack them, and Julia realized that he was becoming more catlike by the second, both in his mind and body. The more wild his mind became, the more clearly she could sense his animalistic desire to tear the queen limb from limb. It both frightened and thrilled her. There was a dangerous and untamed fury that grew with each second as the change became more imminent. However, despite her dislike for the wraith, Julia truly had no desire to watch her friend become savage and she weakly tried to reach out to him through the sea of fury to bring him back to her.

Just then, before the pair had the change to go at each other, there was the pulse of a weapon from behind, bringing the wraith queen around with a shriek. Spock fired again, and again, then when he had no other choice, he switched the weapon setting to kill and finished off the wraith. The body crumpled to the ground with a thud and there was a long silence.

The mental wall of rage dissipated swiftly. Feeling Rogan relax both in body and mind, Julia also let the tension she felt in her shoulders release with a shaky breath of relief.

"Good work lieutenant, ensign." said Spock as he moved warily over to the body on the floor. A moment later, Kirk and a group of security personal burst into the room, evidently in response to the device being deactivated. Orders were given rapidly and McCoy appeared beside Julia in no time, scanning her over and gruffly asking how she felt before demanding to know what Rogan had done to her.

"I'm fine Doctor McCoy, really. It was just a paralytic, I can already begin to feel my toes again. May I just go back to my cabin please?" asked Julia wearily, know already that there was little hope of that happening.

"Are you out of your mind ensign?! You've got two cracked ribs, a mild concussion and spider venom in your blood, not to mention you're vitals are all out of wack! If you think I'm letting you go, you can forget it!" snapped McCoy, blue eyes flashing dangerously. Julia sighed. "Lieutenant if you would be so kind as to carry her to sick bay and make sure she stays there. Don't let her out of your sight! She has an annoying habit of scampering off before I can get to her!"

Rogan nodded knowingly and then lifted her wordlessly once more, taking her away.