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Allies
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It had been a month since the Taranians were evacuated to Atlantis. Sheppard, Teyla and Ronon had gotten them settled on a new planet within the first week, but it hadn't been soon enough for John.

Norina, the beautiful Taranian scientist, had seemingly been trying to earn herself a place on Atlantis through a romantic entanglement with John. He had politely refused her offers of dinner and one on one tours, but she had been relentless in her pursuit. It pissed John off to no end that the woman couldn't take a hint. To make matters worse Rodney, who was actually interested in her, and Kai, who had kept her distance, were both mad at him over it. Once the Taranians were out of their hair however, everyone's attention was focused on the Hive ship that drew closer to Atlantis every day.

"Any more contacts?" Weir's voice came through the comm system of the Orion, the Aurora class warship they had negotiated from the Taranians.

Sheppard was sitting in the captain's chair in the middle of the room, it reminded him of Kirk's chair in the old Star Trek he watched growing up. Captaining the warship was cool, but he would always prefer the feel of a fighter. He looked around at the technicians and scientists moving around the bridge, they were still working on repairs even though today was the day. "Well we're out of sensor range and all that, but whether we are ready to fight is a whole 'nother story."

McKay looked up from his tablet with a scowl. "Getting this ship up and running in under a month was a miracle," he growled defensively.

"Do we start the beautification now or later?" Sheppard sniped back, although he was well aware of how much work it took. It just wasn't in him to take McKay's bad attitude sitting down.

McKay, Zelenka and Kai had been working around the clock on the ship since it arrived back on Atlantis. McKay and Kai had started sleeping on board rather than take the jumper back and forth every day. Which hadn't helped Sheppard with the Norina situation. Their tireless work had paid off as they watched and waited as the single Hive ship slowly bore down on them. Not all of the systems were back, but they had accomplished an impressive amount in just three weeks.

"Rodney," Elizabeth's voice came through the comm. "If the hive opens up on us I want Orion's drones."

John swung around to look at McKay. "Which means we're gonna need the hyper-drive to jump to position," he pointed out helpfully.

McKay shot him a withering glare. "Which means we'll need shields...which means you want everything!"

"I like everything," Sheppard responded glibly. "Can do we do it or not?" he asked, suddenly all business.

"Now don't get up," McKay complained as Sheppard swiveled his chair to follow his movement. "Shields," he called snapping his fingers at the scientist working on them. The man scurried over to him and held up the tablet fearfully.

John rolled his eyes at how McKay had everyone cowering in fear of him.

"Yes..." McKay responded. "Jump to position," he lifted his hand to snap his fingers but quickly remembered it had been Kai working on the hyperdrive. Kai turned to face him lifting her chin and raising an eyebrow as though she were daring him to snap at her. He blanched and walked over to her station respectfully. "Maybe," he hedged. Then he scurried to the next station. "Drones," the female scientist was waiting with the tablet. "Probably not."

"Well it's useless to jump into position if we can't fire," John responded.

McKay shot him a withering look. "You know, let's talk about it for a really long time. That will help for sure," McKay snapped sarcastically.

John cleared his throat and opened the channel back up to Elizabeth. "Rodney is doing everything that is humanly possible to be ready, he-"

"I have a contact," they all could hear Chuck call through the comms. There was a heavy click as they opened the channel between the Orion, Atlantis and The Daedalus who was also just out of sensor range.

There was a long pause.

"Atlantis report," Caldwell demanded, his tone sharp with impatience.

There was another long silence. The tension was heavy inside the Orion. John glanced around at the scientists around him. Only Kai and McKay seemed to stay focused on their work. He was painfully aware that he had precious few people with him who had seen actual combat. If shit hit the fan he might be in trouble if they panicked.

"You could be a little more chatty Elizabeth," John reprimanded gently.

"I'm sorry," she said quickly. "I'm just waiting for them to make their next move."

Another voice, this one a guttural growl came through the open comms. "We know you are there, we mean you no harm, please respond."

"John are you hearing this?" Elizabeth asked, her voice breathy with surprise.

The voice came again. "We mean you no harm...there is no point in hiding Doctor Weir. We mean you no harm, respond."

John blew out an angry sigh. "Is that who I think it is?" he growled.

"He's addressing me by name. I think we can safely assume it's Michael."

John's gaze went to Kai. She nodded once, confirming it was who they suspected. Of everyone on Atlantis she had spent the most time with him as he reverted to Wraith and was the most likely to recognize his voice. John held Kai's gaze. Her jaw was tight and the tension in her body made it clear how she felt about the Wraith who had kidnapped and attacked her.

"You don't actually intend to respond?" Caldwell challenged.

"Why not?" Elizabeth asked.

"Where do you want me to start?" Caldwell asked incredulously.

"I think we can safely say our cover is blown," Elizabeth reasoned.

"I wouldn't jump to that conclusion," Caldwell argued.

"The message is from Michael, Colonel," Elizabeth said pointedly.

Caldwell did little to hide his frustration with the situation. "But they don't know exactly where-"

"Caldwell is right," John interjected, a little amazed he was agreeing with the other Colonel. "Answer them and we guarantee the first shot won't miss." This was where he and Elizabeth often struggled. She was so focused on the diplomat side of things, she hadn't stopped to consider the military.

McKay spoke up unprompted. "I recommend opening a secure channel to the hive via the Daedalus and the Orion. That way they won't be able to triangulate Atlantis's position."

"And we can always turn on the shield," Elizabeth added.

"I believe we have enough combined fire power to take out a single hive if we need to," John agreed, although his voice wasn't one hundred percent. There was always a risk, and he would prefer to not take that risk with everyone's lives for the sake of curiosity.

Elizabeth sighed. "Have you ever heard of a Wraith behaving this way?" Elizabeth asked across the open channel.

"No," Ronon's voice was a deep rumble from beside Elizabeth. It made John feel better to know his friend was with Elizabeth. Ronon didn't always follow the chain of command as well as he should, but because of that he wouldn't hesitate to speak up if he though she was doing something dangerous.

"Right," Elizabeth said, her voice eager. "Let's hear what they have to say."

It took a few minutes for Zelenka and Kai to set up the audio relay while McKay continued to work on getting the Orion's drones ready just in case.

Once it was set, Kai nodded grimly to John. "Okay, all ready here," he said.

Kai stepped up beside him and tapped a few keys on the arm of his chair, making the transmission pass through the open channel on the bridge so they could all hear it. Her hand brushed his arm and John looked up in surprise. It was the closest Kai had been to him in weeks. Her eyes however were glued to the Wraith ship on their view screen.

"Hello Michael," Elizabeth greeted formally.

"Why the long delay?" Michael demanded.

Elizabeth cleared her throat. "We needed to take a few precautions before contacting you. I'm sure you can understand why."

"I said we would not harm you," Michael intoned.

"Well excuse me for not taking you at your word," Elizabeth said, sounding a bit like John. "You wanted to talk, we're listening. Go ahead."

Michael cleared his throat and began what sounded like a well rehearsed speech. "Over two years ago every hive ship in this galaxy woke from hibernation prematurely. We thought a new, rich feeding ground had been discovered. Unfortunately locating your planet and uncovering an effective mean of transportation to get there has proven quite difficult-"

"Well I can't say I'm sad to hear that," Elizabeth interrupted, unable to help herself.

Michael made an inpatient sound in his throat, but continued. "For the first time since the dawn of our race there are too few of your kind to feed the waking Wraith. This has resulted in Civil War. Hives are forming alliances and the strong are attacking the weak."

They could practically hear Elizabeth's smile in her voice. "Which are you?" she challenged.

Michael ignored the question, which was an answer in itself. "Our goals are not dissimilar Doctor Weir."

"You would like to eliminate the Wraith as a threat? I find that hard to believe," Elizabeth responded wryly.

"We would like you to give us Doctor Beckett's retrovirus. If we were able to distribute it among the rival Wraith hives in sufficient quantity this would both render them helpless and provide us with an alternative food source."

A long moment passed as Elizabeth considered his words. "Those wraith would become humans."

"On the surface perhaps, but we both know what lies underneath," he let his ominous words hang in the air. "As a sigh of good faith I'm sending you our jamming codes. This program was established and distributed before the civil war broke out. So we assume all the Hives are still using it. By figuring out how to bypass or disabling this program you would be able to beam your nuclear weapons aboard our ships whenever you so please. We are willing to help you achieve this, if you help us."

"They are sending a data burst," Chuck's voice came over the open comm.

"Download it to a non-networked fire-walled computer," Elizabeth said quickly.

"I'm sure once you recall all the ships you have lying in wait for us you will want to discuss it with your people. We will await your reply...But, should you make an attempt to destroy us, we will alert every wraith in this galaxy that Atlantis is very much intact. I'm sure you wouldn't want that," he added smugly before disconnecting.

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Kai was surprised when she too was invited to the meeting to discuss the Wraith's offer. When the Daedalus beamed her, John and McKay back to Atlantis she had turned intending to return to the lab. But John had called her name and gestured for her to follow into the meeting room. There weren't enough chairs, so she chose to stand near the back of the room behind John's chair. She shifted uncomfortably. She was often called into meetings when she had something to do with what was happening, but this only included AR-1, the senior members of the expedition and Colonel Caldwell.

Caldwell lounged back in his chair. "I think it's safe to say that if they were going to attack us they would have done it already. They let us land without incident."

"You're sure they don't know about the Orion?" Elizabeth asked turning to Sheppard.

"I ordered Lorne to park her just outside of sensor range," John said.

"This, this is incredible," McKay said gleefully reading over the program the Wraith had sent on his laptop. "I can't believe they sent it over so freely. I mean if I can figure out how to break through this program- which is, well we know, pretty likely, we could nuke any hive ship we came across." He turned to Kai and snapped at her. "I need your translation program."

Kai nodded, choosing to ignore his rude behavior this time.

"Including Michael's?" Elizabeth asked hopefully.

McKay hedged "Might take a couple of tries the first time..."

"Long enough to tell the rest of the Wraith we're still around," John added.

"If they are really willing to let me run tests on their ship..." McKay dragged off as his fingers flew over his keyboard. "I mean this an amazing opportunity!"

"An amazing opportunity?" Elizabeth asked in disbelief. It wasn't often that McKay was so impressed.

"Well," John said leaning forward in his chair. "This is essentially our idea. We created the retrovirus wanting to do exactly what they are proposing. What's the downside? I mean other than the fact that we'd be working with the Wraith."

"Isn't that enough?" Caldwell challenged.

"It would mean at least something good came out of our experiment with Michael," Beckett chimed in, cutting his eyes to Elizabeth. The two of them seemed to harbor the most guilt over what had been done to Michael.

"I'm not sure we have a choice," Teyla said cautiously. "It appears they have kept our existence a secret, but if we do not help them..."

"There is that," Elizabeth agreed. "Carson I know you've been working on the weaponization of the retrovirus. How close are you?"

Kai frowned. She hadn't been aware of that. She hated the retrovirus with a passion and just wished it would go away. They had been playing with it for too long with no positive results. She glanced at John. She wondered if he realized his shoulders tensed every time it was mentioned. The retrovirus was just too unpredictable.

"We're close," Beckett agreed. "It still needs work, but we're close."

Elizabeth looked over at Sheppard but he seemed in total agreement.

Elizabeth's eyes landed on Kai. The Mortii was standing at attention in the back of the room. Her scarf was wrapped in a fashion she usually reserved for going out on missions or off planet. Elizabeth had always thought it looked more aggressive than the way she usually wore it, and with her arms crossed over her chest and in full gear Kai did look dangerous. Elizabeth hadn't thought to include her in the meeting, but she was glad The Colonel had. Kai usually had a unique perspective on these things.

"Kai," Elizabeth said, surprising everyone. "What do you think?"

Even Kai looked surprised. Caldwell's face flattened into an angry mask that John didn't miss. The other Colonel had never trusted Kai and he had never kept his dislike a secret. John was well aware there had been several former complaints about Kai's status here and he had never forgiven Caldwell for it.

Kai pushed off of the wall and stepped forward. "I think that if this is the full extent of their plan, it sounds acceptable," Kai agreed.

John frowned. "What do you mean?" He asked swiveling his chair to face her.

Kai met his gaze for a moment before turning to the others. "They are Wraith," Kai said simply with a shrug. "We would do well to remain vigilant."

Elizabeth nodded at Kai's steady advide. She turned to Ronon expectantly.

"What?" he asked when everyone was staring at him.

"What do you think?" Elizabeth asked.

"Let's do it," Ronon agreed.

"Really?" She asked in surprise.

"He said it himself, it's our idea," Ronon replied.

"I just thought you of all people..." She dragged off meaningfully.

"Hey if they want our help killing other Wraith that's the one kind of help I'm willing to provide," he said flashing an aggressive smile. He met Kai's gave and winked at her. She rolled her eyes at him, but couldn't honestly say she disagreed.

"Okay," Elizabeth said with a nod. "So, we're going to do this," she said looking over the room. When no one said anything she nodded. "I'll accept the offer and extend the invitation."

Everyone disbursed, there was a lot to do before the Wraith arrived. John trotted down the hallway after Kai. "Kai," he said her name barely above a whisper.

Her shoulders tensed, which meant she had heard him. She slowed and turned to face him. Her face was an expressionless mask as she waited for him.

He scowled. "Are you still mad at me?" he asked exasperatedly.

"No," she replied. "I was never mad at you."

John narrowed his eyes, not really believing her. "Because it seemed like you were avoiding me." He hated that he sounded whiny but he had seen the wink Ronon shot at Kai and his gut was a churning knot of ugly jealousy. He knew they were friends, but things between Kai and himself weren't settled. It seemed like every time they moved forward romantically they took two steps back.

"I wasn't avoiding you, I was working," Kai assured him tightly. She had told John already that she wasn't mad, but that wasn't necessarily true. Norina had been a wake up call. John was used to beautiful women throwing themselves at him. It was a common occurrence and she wasn't willing to be one of the many.

"Conveniently when the Taranians were here," John pointed out crossing his arms over his chest.

"Well that is when we got the ship," Kai growled, her temper fraying. "And I didn't want to get in Norina's way," Kai couldn't help herself. As soon as she said the words she regretted them.

"Ha see!" John said stabbing a finger in her face. "I knew you were pissed."

"I-" kai started to say but footsteps from behind them halted her.

"Is there a problem Colonel?" Colonel Caldwell asked. He was walking down the hall when he came upon Sheppard and Zian and it was obvious there was some kind of disagreement going onto .

"Not at all," John responded. "Just discussing the best use of resources."

"McKay has already requested Kai's help aboard the Daedalus to word on the Wraith jamming codes."

Kai nodded once briskly. "Okay," she agreed and she turned to slip away.

"Just a minute Zian," Caldwell called and he took a few steps forward so he was closer to the Mortii. "While you are on the Daedalus you will follow my orders. I know things can be a bit casual around here but I run a tight ship."

Kai could feel the tension rolling off of John. She was fairly certain it would be in all of their best interest for John to not say whatever he was thinking. She met Caldwell's gaze levely. "Understood," she agreed and she turned to return to her lab to get her supplies.

"One more thing," Caldwell called after her.

Kai stopped and turned back around to face him. It took more effort than it should to keep her expression shuddered. Caldwell reminded her far too much of the men on the Mortii tribunal she had been forced to answer too.

"I don't allow non-military personnel to be armed. That includes your little knives," he said gesturing at the Blades strapped to her low back.

"Now wait a minute-" John started to say.

"With all do respect Colonel," Caldwell said turning to Sheppard. "What you allow on Atlantis is your business. The Daedalus is mine."

"Of course," Kai responded tightly and walked away before she said anything she would regret.

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Arrangements were made for the Queen of the Hive to come to Atlantis. Elizabeth wanted a show of strength waiting for her when she landed. John has done everything in his power to convince Elizabeth to leave Kai out of the welcoming committee and have her in the control room out of sight. In the end John and Teyla flanked Elizabeth. Behind them were Caldwell, Ronon and dressed in her full Mortii glory was Kai.

John was tense and he hated feeling distracted but Elizabeth wanted a show of their own power and Kai was part of that. He knew he couldn't hide her away forever but when Michael stepped into the control room along with the chief science officer and the Queen he found himself focusing more on keeping Kai behind him than what was happening in front of him. Michael's gaze flitted over Kai and landed on Teyla.

They approached the group and Elizabeth greeted the Queen. "I'm Doctor Elizabeth Weir, welcome to Atlantis," Elizabeth said. Elizabeth introduced their group and the Queen's eyes landed on Kai for a few seconds longer than John would have liked.

The queen sniffed delicately and a smile stretched her face. "A Mortii away from her people, how interesting," the Queen commented casually.

Elizabeth shifted her weight uncomfortably, unsure how to respond. Colonel Sheppard had been adamant that Kai would be a distraction. Elizabeth had disagreed, believing having a powerful Mortii would make them look strong. Now she wasn't so sure.

"Right this way," Elizabeth said holding her hand out and gesturing for the Queen to lead the way into her office. The negotiations would be between her, Sheppard and the Queen. The other two wraith were left on the gate room with an entire squad of marines and Ronon, Kai and Teyla.

The negotiations went quickly. The Queen was willing to agree to any conditions to make the trade happen. She was determined to get the retrovirus. Once they agreed the scientist would work with Beckett and McKay could take tome to figure out their jamming codes aboard the Daedalus the Queen left. Elizabeth watched through her window as John escorted the wraith back to their ship. She only hoped she wasn't making a mistake.

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