Fic:
Title:
Author:ellisedesade
Characters:  Kavanaugh,
Relationships:
Rating: Adult in some places due to language and violence
Warnings: Angst
Spoilers:None
Summary:
Betaed by victoriaely
Disclaimer: The characters, the setting, etc. are NOT mine, even if I wish they
were.

The battle was not going as well as he had hoped, Kolya thought, the enemy was putting up a well organized and strong defense. He was going to lose a lot of his men if the Hoffans didn't deliver that gas in time. He should have insisted that it was used on this world first, but tactically, it had made sense to wipe out the native population first, and the Hoffans would be getting a share of any technology discovered. When this would be over and he would be victorious, there wouldn't be a single Emarca left alive in the galaxy.
 Ideally they should have been wiped out generations ago, but they had proved useful in distracting the wraith. Now that the Genii had a weapon which could take out a hive ship, they didn't need the Emarca anymore. There would be no more defectors converting, no more polluted blood seeping into the Genii's. Those things were an abomination, something that should have never been allowed to live and breed in the first place.
 While some worlds might hold the Ancients in high regard, the Genii did not. They had been fools not to have wiped out the wraith before they had had a chance to become a threat. You never allowed that to happen. In order to have a strong empire you had to do unpleasant things, to your people. The days when the Genii people hid in the dark were over, now they were rebuilding their empire world by world. All opposition would be crushed. It was not going to be an easy process, sacrifices were going to have to be made and that was something that his people knew only too well.

 Like all the others of her kind, she had spent some time both teaching and caring for children, but they had not been so difficult to deal with. This man deserved a good smack around the head in the hope that it would teach him some manners, but she could not do that. The other one was nicer, he reminded her of her first tutor, the man who had given her a passion for learning.
 "That is enough," she said, "these books are not for repairing things, they are for reading and enjoying."
 "Then perhaps you could explain why they are in different languages," Rodney said.
 "Because they are from different worlds," Izzy replied.
 "Yes, Well..." Rodney began.
 "I have many such books," she said, "all books for repairing are held in the Parkia Choi."
 "The what?" Rodney asked.
 "It is a big building with Mashar standing in front of it," Izzy explained, "but it is forbidden to go inside without a Soastra escorting you."
 "Of course it is," Rodney snarked.
 "Mashar guards the knowledge that she has given us zealously," she said, "if you cannot find a Soastra then the knowledge will be lost." She knew that there was one here, but she could not tell them that. "Terrible things have happened to those who tried to enter the building alone. Lights have come out of Mashar and struck the person down," she added.
 "I'm sure that they have, but it is just a form of technology, which happens to be my field of expertise," Rodney said, "religion has no place in science, but you obviously don't understand that."
 "I understand that you are going to get yourself killed," Izzy said, "and that is sad, because I am certain that Mashar has a purpose in mind for you." Not that it was her place to question such things, Mashar would do what she wished.

 "He was shot," Carson said, "presumably so that he couldn't raise the alarm." He knew that he should be telling Elizabeth this first, but Kavanagh was a Soastra and he needed to know what was going on.
 "Hunter?" Calvin asked.
 "Genii," he replied, "that would probably explain the lass's comments about slavers."
 "It's not the first time that someone's tried to attack us all at once," Calvin reminded him.
 "The gas was probably created by the Hoffans," Carson said. He could be partially blamed for that, losing half their population must have had a devastating effect on them. It was possible that the survivors has wanted to blame someone for what had happened and the lass's people had fitted the bill nicely.
 "What happened there wasn't your fault," Calvin assured him, "how many of our kind do you think that they killed so that they could start trying to make that vaccine?"
 "I wouldn't want to think," he replied, "if they have more gas, then that other world is in danger, and we could be as well." The Genii would like nothing more than to get their hands on Atlantis, and they would do anything in order to get it.
 "We need to have a plan in case they decide to come here next," Calvin said.
 "And what if the Major finds out what we are?" he asked.
 "You should be safe," Calvin replied, "as for me... Well, Weir would really like a reason to get rid of me once and for all."
 "I dinnea think that Elizabeth would-" he began.
 "Carson, she was going to let Dex torture me without any proof that I'd done anything wrong," Calvin reminded him, "it's just a short step from torture to murder and I'm sure that the Major could make a very convincing case for it. Even Mckay."
 "Rodney was the voice of dissent," Carson said, "and people aren't going to react too kindly when they find out that they've been treated by a … I won't be safe either."

 He watched in horror as yet another of his men disappeared in a bright light as they tried to get into the building in front of him. It should have been a simple matter of walking inside, but there was some sort of weapon protecting it and they hadn't found a way to disarm it yet. The sooner that his Genii allies started sending through prisoners, the better. No doubt they could find out through torture the information as to how to disarm the weapon out of them and be able to save more Hoffan lives from being lost.
 Besides, he was under no illusions as to what would happen if he failed to keep his side of the bargain. In times of emergency you had to make hard choices and he was used to making them. The few of his people who had refused to be vaccinated had been amongst the first to be dealt with. If they were ever going to be able to defeat the wraith then they needed a united front. His own mother had been one of those who had voted no, and as much as he had loved her there could be no room for dissension. She had been the first he had had killed.
 "Get me something that will blow those doors off," he ordered. He didn't want to damage the building, but he had to get inside. Kolya was expecting results and he had to produce them.
 His people were relying on him to give them an advantage when the Wraith came back. Besides, he had doctors waiting for access to Emarca medical technology so that they could refine the vaccine further and make more gas with which to deal with other worlds who wouldn't bow down and accept the superior might of the Hoffan-Genii alliance. They'd already spread word of the vaccine to several other worlds while omitting the fact that it killed some of  the people who took it. There were plenty of people who were desperate enough to pay any price that was asked in order to save themselves from the Wraith.

 He should have known that Mckay would just push her to one side when he realized that she didn't know anything about the technology her people had, Calvin thought, entering the lab and seeing Izzy knelt in a corner, her head bowed in prayer. It was a struggle not to join her, as a Soastra he was supposed to reach out to those of his kind who were in need of help and guidance. His mother had said those exact same words after his father had been murdered. They were a prayer for Mashar to bring death to your enemies.
 Totally ignoring Mckay and Zelenka who were having another of their pointless arguments, he walked over to where Izzy was.
 "I have news about those who have attacked your people," he said. She had a right to know what was going on even though some people would prefer her to be kept in the dark for reasons of security.
 "Who ?" Izzy asked, looking up at him.
 "Two races, the Genii and the Hoffans," he replied, "have you heard of them?"
 "Slavers and plague bringers," she said, "older lesser enemies. Mashar will have her revenge on them."
 "How??" Calvin asked.
 "When the last of her children are gone she will unleash her destruction," Izzy replied, "my father believed that it was some sort of weapon, that she would never allow her knowledge to fall into enemy hands."
 "Of course she wouldn't," he agreed. It would have to be a pretty big weapon to destroy an entire planet.
 "What will happen to me now?" she asked, "I have nowhere to go."
 "You will stay here," he replied, "and you will survive. Mashar would want you to." He knew that she had to be thinking that it would be easier to give up. "We were made to fight and that is what you will do. You will have your revenge on them, you just have to be patient."
 "I can be that," Izzy replied, "I keep hearing them and..."
 "I will help you," he said placing a hand on one of her shoulders. It wasn't going to be easy, but he would do his best and Carson would help him.

 Rodney had been right and Kavanagh was acting strangely, Radek decided, but then if he had seen a building full of dead children he would have been acting strangely as well. No matter what Rodney had said about Kavanagh, he had always believed that there was some redeemable part of Kavanagh, it was just that no one on Atlantis had ever found it. However, their guest seemed to have found that part of Kavanagh which had feelings.
 He had to admit that he had doubts about Rodney's claims that even if there was a lab it wouldn't be of any use to them. He couldn't help but think about the stories his grandmother had told him when he'd been a child. There had been something living in the forest close to the village where she had been born, something that had protected the villagers from anyone who tried to harm them in any way. What his grandmother did not know, just that many bad people had been lured into the forest and had never been seen alive again. Their torn apart bodies were found at the edge of the forest days later. His father had joked that it had either been wolves or that they had killed each other, at which point his grandmother had always said the same word, Emarca. It was not a Czech word and he had always assumed that she had made it up instead of swearing in front of him.
 "The lab..." he began.
 "There is no lab," Rodney replied, "the database was wrong. If there was a lab then I would have found it."
 "She said one of the buildings was protected, it is possible that the lab was similarly protected. The Ancients would not have wanted the Wraith to find anything they left behind."
 "You, Its..." Rodney began turning towards the girl.
 "Izzy," she said correcting him.
 "The place you were spying on us from, what was it?" Rodney asked.
 "You mean the birthplace," Izzy said, "it was where Mashar created her children."
 "How?" Rodney asked.
 "I do not understand," she replied.
 "Mashar created you, yes," Radek said, "Rodney wishes to know how."
 "She took the blocks and rearranged them so that we could fight and never be fed on," Izzy replied, "Do you not have stories of Mashar on your world?"
 "No," Radek replied.
 "These blocks," Rodney said impatiently, "what were they made of?"
 "DNA," Radek smiled, "the building blocks of life. Mashar was an ancient geneticist." He would never hear the last of it from Rodney if he was right.
 "She was our mother," Izzy said.
 "You're the weapon!" Rodney exclaimed in disbelief, "You can't be, it's supposed to be big not..."
 "Nowhere in database does it say lab was for making machines," Radek reminded him, "obviously it was a long term project."
 "If you're such an impressive weapon, why haven't you wiped the Wraith out?" Rodney asked.
 "McKay, even you should know that it takes time to build an army," Calvin said.
 "Ten thousand years should have been more than long enough," Rodney said.
 "Not when you are hunted and turned into slaves it is not," Izzy replied, "now there is only me and I do not know how to fight the enemy and win. He keeps telling me that I have to, but I don't know how to."
 "Who keeps telling you?" Radek asked.
 "My father," she replied, "please make him stop," tears beginning to well up in the corners of her eyes.
 "Just a few more questions," Rodney said.
 "She's not in any state to answer questions," Calvin growled, "so leave her alone."
 "He is right," Radek said.
 "I'm taking her back to the infirmary," Calvin said.
 "Elizabeth needs to know about this," Rodney frowned, "we've found the weapon that the ancients were building..."
 "She's a person, not a weapon," Calvin snapped, "and you can tell who the hell you want, but they're going to have to go through me if they want to talk to her." He then picked Izzy up and carried her out of the lab.
 "He can't talk to me like that," Rodney frowned.
 "Rodney, do not make things worse," Radek warned him, "go tell Dr.Weir and let her sort it out."