Prologue

Author's note: Ember the Wraith. He is not too overdone as with Todd aka Guide.

Disclaimer: the Stargate franchise and aliens that they created are the property of MGM. This is just a fictional story made out of fun and has no profit or commercial value derived from it.

Ember slowly regained consciousness. Smoldering clouds of what used to be a cruiser now greeted him. Still burning wreckage scattered across the plains as far as his eyes could see. Acrid smoke dulled his smell. He felt a thick viscous fluid seeping slowly through his uniform, flowing downwards into a dark sticky pool on the cold dusty shell-like ground. He looked down only to be greeted by a sharp edge of something dark protruding out of his abdomen. The shock of it all had numbed him. His body too weak to regenerate from the fatal impalement. The grim shadow of dread weaved through his already frantic mind. He was melded, not by choice, to the ship in all the wrong ways possible. No presence, only hushed silence in a mind used to the telepathic drawl of his crew mates. Not one was alive. Not even the cocooned humans. Hunger was ever present to innundate his being, gnawing into his already fragile core.

The murkiness of death crept slowly as his faculties started failing him. He languished despairingly at the recall of what had happened. Their Hive once again were at odds with the others over the much prized culling grounds. No thanks to the power games Guide often played. It got them driven from their usual crowded region of a territory. Poaching in their desperate state did them no further favors.

Driven towards a region, unbeknowst to them, where they found more of their equally unsympathetic kine, zealously guarding their spoils. Safe passage was only given on the word that they left occupied territories. An old way, according to Guide, where words given must be never taken back. That was the bare minimum courtesy extended to them, strangers. A slight recognition that Wraiths needed to survive. Cold politeness at a kin. Nothing more. Nothing less. Any lower would put them on par with human worshippers.

Guide never knew beyond their wildest speculations that more Hive ships existed in this forsaken far flung regions of the galaxy. Preoccupation with Atlantis and Queen Death only made Guide more hesitant to explore away from their once flourishing system. Friend and foe statuses rotated freely with the human occupants of Atlantis. Ember thought fondly of Radek , a brother who allowed him to feed on in his time of need, and Teyla, a Wraith Queen who never was. Alas, no Radek now.

There were fables but they never explored or reached out to their fellow long lost Wraiths. Antiquated as their kine ships' looked, their kine's fleet could overwhelm theirs easily. Had Queen Death tried these older Wraith factions, their problems would have not started. Her mere existence would have been quickly extinguished even before her prime.

Old world faction by faction, the Wraith Commanders promptly directed them on intercept to an established corridor of passage, a highway across systems of the old world. The passage was littered with graveyards of remnants fought in a war long before his time. A subtle warning to them. These old world Wraiths did not care to know if Atlantis still existed or about news of the others. The first Lanteans, as far as they were concerned, were exiled. Most witnessed the exile of the First. Nor did they consider alliances with ones they consider strangers. A trust rating issue. Better the Wraiths they knew than ones they did not. They were contented with their old world neighbours, a bond long forged through a past longstanding unity. Communication with their neighbours were done through an outmoded network which was as aged as their ancient Hive ships. It was little wonder on why they were never heard of again on the more updated regions of contemporary Wraith space.

Guide, in their former crowded region, had the advantageous experience of an elder. Guide could be no more than mere young wraithling in the first Lantean-Wraith war. If Guide was an elder, these Wraiths were primogens in their own right. More cunning and more dangerous. Their sharp counters to Guide's offer were far more witty and sinister on reconsideration. His proposals were swatted off with utmost freezing diplomacy. These old Wraiths were probably a generation or two younger than the Old One, Ashes. The potent powers of the old Queens ruling these wily old Wraiths could have made the now dead and gone Queen Death look like a mere Wraithling child. Perhaps it was fortunate for Atlantis that no Queen of the old world factions had no desire or a taste for reliving their past glories.

Guide had, woefully, discounted the warnings of the less than friendly Wraith faction nearby the area while fervently skirting the borders of the given coordinates of neutral ground. He wanted to test the boundaries of the old world like an impudent teenager. Bonewhite only hissed dismissively with disdain at the absurdity of the well placed warnings. Ridiculous. Nonsensical superstition. Of firm belief that their kine was trying to keep them off a good feeding ground. Ember choked on a mild laugh as the side of his mouth felt the familiar congealing metallic dampness of his life blood. For once, the absurdity did not exist in his reality now. To his detriment, the joke was on him. At least, for once, Guide and Bonewhite did agree immediately and too enthusiastically on a bad idea. A group of them, including Ember, was despatched to explore the system in a cruiser. With utmost dire consequences.

The immolation of the hunger fiercely torched his torso mercilessly. Instant combustion may be an act of compassion now. The twilight of nothingness was now enveloping his brittle consciousness. A body struggling to survive instinctually. A violent cough was enough to spew more liquid contents from his mouth. More blood. And the blackness of oblivion consumed a now faltering psyche as a question beckoned his final lucid moment. A last lingering gaze at the placid twinkling stars as his eyelids gave way in weariness. Time was no longer a concern. Mortality at hand. Help would not reach him this time. In infinite wisdom, he had sent a subspace signal. A desperate warning to the Hive to stay away from this accursed planet. A sacrificial thought was not for nought. Hopefully. Better the Hive survive to find another feeding ground than this cursed world.

His accidental trap of a perforation showed him no mercy where strength had waned as his blood flowed freely like rain from the skies. Inevitable doom awaited him. Such was the cycle of life. An intricately interwoven gamble where one must dance with the balance of the universe. All living things must eat...and all living things must die. The empty void took over his last whisper of a thought. Is this my end?