CHAPTER 8 – TO BEGIN A LIFE?

John took the lead, flying his jumper under the cruiser and nosing it carefully into the dart bay, fully cloaked but mindful of the fact that darts could come in and out of here and would unfortunately, not pass through the cloaking device, but would effectively crash into the ship. The dart bay was large, and there were few darts inside and John was able to bring the jumper to a smooth landing near the rear of the bay, and radio Lorne to bring the rest of his team in... carefully.

They met at the rear doors, there was no wraith activity in the jumper bay and John assumed that the humans that had recently been culled from the planet were being readied for their incarceration into cocoons, and this was keeping the foot soldiers busy for now. This would, of course, make their job a little harder.. but hey, who said that easy was the best way to go? The thought sprung rather irreverently into John's head, and he almost laughed out loud, catching Ronon's eye and seeing the flicker of amusement that lingered there, just briefly. They were on the same page, that much was certain.

The cocoon area was near the centre of the ship, not far from the control room and they met six wraith soldiers during their journey through the organic hallways, and using weapons that were not set to stun, they managed to disable them on a more or less permanent basis – John was not completely sure just how dead these creatures actually stayed as their powers of regeneration were rather formidable. But for now... these ones, for all intents and purposes, appeared to show no discernable life signs and their bodies were dragged out of sight so that they could continue their progress to the cocoon area.

Four more soldiers later and they reached their goal. The cocoon area was long and seemed more than just a little eerie to John. He gave a shiver... it was disconcerting to say the least, looking at these faces, now covered in a fine layer of organic web material that kept them at the lowest ebb of their life force, ensuring their 'freshness' for later feeding. The eyes of the cocooned humans were open, but they were unable to speak, paralysed and held captive by the sticky threads.

"Jesus..." John muttered. "This is gonna take more than just a little bit of work... Plan A is definitely the way to go... no way are we gonna get these all out of here and back to the jumpers before we are discovered. Ok, so we know they're all here and more or less accounted for – let's take out the bridge and take this baby on a little test flight...hmmm?"

Lorne gave a small smile. "Always looking for a new ship to flight... Colonel?"

"Damn right Lorne. Move out people!"

They left the cocoon area and made their way deeper into the ship until they came to the room that housed the controls and bridge area. John knew that there would be at least four wraith in this part of the ship, and knew also, that surprise would be their only weapon for now.

He motioned for Lorne, Teyla and three of his marines to take one side of the door, while Ronon, himself and three more marines took their side and waiting just a moment to clear his head, he gave the hand signal that would send them all in, guns firing in unison.

His plan worked, mostly. They did take out the four wraith that were in the control area and John went immediately to the controls, running an eye over them.

"Hope you know what you're doing Sheppard? This is a bit bigger than a dart, we take this down the wrong way, it'll make a hell of a mess..."

"Just concentrate on taking out any wraith that decide to be a little more nosy than required, leave flying this lady to me.." John placed his hands on the control panel, and 'thought' about taking the ship out of orbit and down to the planet below. He felt the slight tug of the controls, as the ship attempted to respond, however while his synthetic wraith DNA may have been strong enough to pilot a dart, it did not appear to be strong enough to activate the controls on the cruiser.

"Colonel Sheppard. I believe you do not have a strong enough version of the DNA to fly this?" Teyla was casting worried glances at the door, where Ronon was waiting, weapon drawn.

"Lorne! I need you to drag one of those dead wraith over here... I'm gonna try something..."

"Plan B starting to look a little better now Sheppard?" Ronon kept his weapon trained on the doorway, waiting for the arrival of my wraith.

"Have some faith Ronon, I haven't found a ship yet that I can't fly. This one won't get the better of me... Lorne... get him over here, now!"

Lorne and one of the marines picked up one of the dead wraith under the arms and dragged him over to John.

"Ok, lift him up now, you'll need to keep him propped up for me. Damn it! Why can't they use seats in their control room, like any other normal ship... makes things just a little more difficult. Ok Lorne, that's it – I need his hand." John picked up the hand, unable to hide his grimace of disgust realising that it was the feeding hand he now held. "Now that is just.. wrong!" He placed the hand on the control panel, and felt the ship respond. "Better..."

Ronon called out urgently. "Incoming Sheppard!"

"Hold them off Ronon, you too Teyla. I need a little time, and sunshine here won't stand up on his own – I still need to keep his hand pushed down onto the control panel. You'll have to do this one yourselves boys and girls..."

The sound of energy weapon fire came from the hallway and John knew that through the wraith mindlink, they understood that their control room had been compromised and all available soldiers would be heading their way to thwart the attack. Time had suddenly run out.

"Damn it Sheppard, there's too many of them. I don't know how long we can hold them for."

"Lorne, can you radio Atlantis. Tell them what is happened, have them meet us on the planet surface with another team of fully armed marines. If we can't kill them all up here, we'll finish them off from the ground."

A round of energy fire made it's way into the control room and John saw two of the marines hit by the blast and fall.

"Damn it. You need to hold them off!"

"Trying Colonel, but they've got us outnumbered."

"Teyla, round up the weapons from the dead wraith. They'll be more effective."

John had the cruiser heading down to the planet surface, using a combination of wraith DNA and his own DNA as the ship still needed a mind interface to respond to, and a dead wraith was beyond giving out commands of any sort.

Now firing two handed, using both wraith energy weapons and their own P90's, they started doing some damage, and were able to move beyond the control room, into the hallway, slowly pushing the wraith back, away from the control room. John continued to concentrate on landing the cruiser, which was proving far more difficult than he originally thought. The ship was sluggish and his mind interface not sufficiently clear to land the ship cleanly, and it came in too fast, bouncing once off the ground, hard. There was a break from the weapons fire and John assumed that the jarring of the ship had caused both the attacked and the attackers to concentrate on stabilising themselves.

As soon as the ship was down, John dropped the hand of the wraith that he had been holding secure on the control panel, with disgust and in a somewhat childish gesture, wiped his hands on the legs of his pants. Picking up his own weapon, plus the weapon of the wraith who had just slid down to the ground, he left the control room, to join in the fun.

Lorne had two wraith cornered just beyond the control room, and John, running around the corner came face to face with a drawn energy weapon, narrowly missing it's blast and bringing up his own P90, laying down a stuttering line of bullets, that cut through both wraith, leaving Lorne to finish them off with the energy weapon.

"Nice save Colonel... good of you to drop in and assist!"

"Hey! Someone had to put the ship down in one piece..."

"One piece – is that what you call it? Damn near landed on my head when you touched down... ever flown a shuttle mission sir? Light on the controls... just saying!"

"Funny Lorne... I didn't see anyone else stepping up to put their hands on that equipment, so enough with the wise cracks. Where's Ronon?"

Lorne pointed his weapon down a hallway to the right. "In pursuit of three wraith, and they were running pretty fast."

"Ok, let's round up what's left and get these people out of the cocoons, before they become permanently fused to that … stuff... that's holding them in there."

It was another half hour before the remaining wraith had been neutralised and a weary team with the backup marines, pushed out of the doorway to stand on the ground of the planet. Other marines stood weapons ready and John motioned with his hand.

"Stand down boys... we're good here. We need to get those people out though... " He took a moment to take a deep breath of the fresh air, the dank and stale tasting air of the wraith cruiser a dirty taste in his mouth.

It was clean up time, as John put it not so succintly. They mostly left the marines to getting out the culled villagers, and John, Ronon and Teyla went into the village to find Arlia's father. They did not have to go far to fnd him. He stood in the centre of the village square, a broken man, having heard the sound of the cruiser coming down, and assumed that the wraith had come back to finish the job they had started. He started, when he saw it was them, and allowed himself a brief moment of hope.

"Arlia? My daughter?"

"You daughter... sir!... is safe and well in Atlantis, and that is where she will stay for now. If and when, she is ready to see you again, you will know, but for now, you do not deserve to call her that. Your reasons were wrong and you jeopardised your entire population over a wrong decision. You will need to live with that, and some would say that it is punishment enough... but you will not govern this village any longer. You will be held accountable for your actions." John did not pull any punches, knowing what this man had done, to his people, to his daughter and knew that if the words were not said, Ronon would have gone in with his fists... and this was one of those times, when words were the stronger of the two options.

Ronon let John have his say, before facing the man who had almost sent his daughter... his woman!... to her death.

"Your daughter is with me now. I will give her the life that should have been given to her here. If she chooses to come back to see you, consider yourself a very lucky man, for you surely do not deserve another chance at her love."

Ronon looked at the man hard, seeing only the broken shell and knew that punishment came in many forms, and turning, walked away.

It was a long time later that he stepped out of the jumper into the jumper bay in Atlantis, it seemed a lifetime ago that he had arrived on Arlon and laid eyes on the young girl in the jail cell whom he had been charged to find and protect. He would continue to honour that pledge, if she let him and he tightened in anticipation, as she entered the jumper bay, having been alerted by Elizabeth to their arrival.

"Ronon! You're back, safely..." and she was in his arms, body to body and he felt the tingle of anticipation for what they would soon share... very soon... as he looked down at the promise and blatant need in her eyes, a look that he knew was more than showing in his own.

She did not ask immediately about her father, and he did not volunteer the information. Taking her hand, he led her through the hallways, stopping just the once to enter the transporter. As soon as that door had closed, her had her pushed up against the wall, bending his head to take her mouth in a hungry kiss, while his body pushed urgently against hers, leaving her in no doubt as to the need that was building up in him.

"I want you Arlia.. now!" His hands pushed under the shirt that she wore, needing to feel the silk of her skin and he heard her sigh, which quickly became soft moans and he fought to control himself as the transporter came to a stop and the door slid open. He leaned his forehead against hers, feeling the calming breaths she sought to take, and placed a hand over her breast, feeling the fast beating of her heart.

"I don't think I can wait, Arlia... I need to have you... I promised myself I would wait, until we could talk and make plans... I need you too much."

She did not reply, just looked up at him with those beautiful eyes and her hand reached down to touch him.. there... and he was lost. He picked her up, dropping his head only to trail another scorching kiss along her neck and strode through the hallway to his private quarter's, her soft giggle echoing down the hallway as the door slid closed. Then there was only the rustle of clothes, soft sighs and the sounds of love. She became his woman that night and she put her own brand on him. Anything else was just a formality.