WRAITH-SLAYER

By Enola Jones



I was on my way to my quarters to work on my reports when I was arrested by a familiar sound --- that I had never expected to hear in Atlantis.

It was Sergeant Collins --- singing a capella. But I had never expected to hear the song outside of my cabin or John's.

"Open your eyes, get up off your chair,
There's so much to do in the sunlight.
Give up your secrets, let down your hair,
And sit with me here by the firelight...."

I keyed his door, and heard, "Come in!"

I walked into his quarters and tucked my thumbs into my pants pockets. "My dad says that's a hard song to sing."

His eyes widened and he stood from his desk. "Your....dad?"

"Lead singer on that song." I enjoyed watching his jaw head south. "Were you there?"

A nod. "From 98 till 04."

I grinned. "From 87 till 97."

"Ahh," he laughed. "We passed in the night, then."

"Join my team," I told him. "It'll be nice to have a little bit of home there."

"You need to know something, first." And then Collins' news proceeded to blow my mind. His head tilted. "Still want me on your team?"

I felt myself grin. "More than ever."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Our first few missions were milk runs --- the four of us getting to know each other. All three of us military grew exasperated with Parrish, and tried to reign in his enthusiasm.

A major case of "Pegasus poison ivy" took care of that. He was much better at following orders after that.

On our tenth mission, we emerged from the gate into the tail end of a culling. The Wraith had just released Gate control when we arrived.

I looked at the pair of darts just taking off. "Can you---"

Collins raised his hands. His wrists pulsed with energy.

Both darts suddenly veered, black smoke belching from them. With mechanical screams, they fell to the ground.

Collins, Cadman and I raced to engage the survivors. We were delighted to find Collins' concussive blasts worked equally as well on living Wraith!

Within moments, it was over. Collins and Parrish were combing over one of the downed darts.

Suddenly, there was a whine and twenty-five people materialised in a beam of light. They moved to the second one, and thirty-two others appeared.

The screams startled us, but then Cadman smiled. "It's joy, sir," she explained. We watched families celebrating and figured this was not the time to work on trade negotiations.

We slipped away and returned home, where I got Collins the Wraith-Slayer the biggest drink I could find.

THE END




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