Chapter 54 - Brick Wall
"Congratulations." Eventus told Larrin as he entered the code to lower the force field on her cell. "You made it to Lantea without disappointing me further."
Not that that was a particularly hard task given it just meant she hadn't tried to do something stupid like pretend to be sick or try to kill herself.
"You really never stop do you?" Larrin groused as he opened the cell door.
"Hold out your arms." Eventus ordered, jangling the safety restraints in hand so she would know what was coming.
"And yes." He continued as he moved forward to secure her. "But I haven't had a vacation since the siege of Atlantis began and–
The hum and brief greenish light of his personal shield activating interrupted before he could finish.
"Ah!" Larrin screamed, collapsing to her knees and clutching the hand she'd just tried to punch him with in pain as Eventus let out an annoyed sigh.
He had known it was likely she'd try something, and providing the opportunity was a big part of why he'd told the guard he would bring Larrin down to Atlantis on his own. After all, better she try whatever it was on him instead of someone she might actually hurt. But he'd honestly thought she would be a bit smarter about it instead of trying to knock him out the first chance she got.
"The stupidity tax for that is that I'm not going to heal your very likely broken hand."
"I had to try." Larrin muttered in pain as he bent down and secured the magnetic restraint cuffs to her wrists.
"You really didn't." Eventus said as he pulled her back up to her feet. "Believe it or not, everything I'm doing is for your people's own good."
"Keep telling yourself that." Larrin growled, very clearly not buying the reality he was trying to convince her of. "In the end though you're just a petty little man who gets off on lording his power over others.
His patience snapped, and it was only through sheer force of will that he didn't backhand Larrin across the cell.
"You know." Eventus began, cowing any chance of interruption with a glare that would likely do Moras proud. "I was going to be nice about this. Lead you to the slow realization that what your people needed to survive wasn't a ship, but trustworthy allies."
Leaning over, he locked eyes with the shorter woman. "But I don't have the patience to deal with your bullshit, so I'm just going to explain reality to you."
And it was a very unfortunate reality at that.
"Your people are doomed. Even with an Explorer class vessel, which I will note has capabilities you likely never even dreamed of, your people are doomed. And do you know how I know this?"
She didn't respond, which was good because it had in fact been a rhetorical question.
"I know this because my people built pretty much every civilization in this galaxy, and we reached the point where we can identify a doomed one pretty much on sight."
That wasn't a lie either, there were several very obvious indicators, and from everything he'd learned from tapping into their ship's database, the Travelers hit pretty much every one of them.
"You use the Wraith as an excuse for why you can never settle down and rebuild, but they never chase you."
Which had been extraordinarily confusing until he'd compared the Travelers movements to data from various still active planetary monitoring satellites scattered across the galaxy.
"And they never chase you, because you serve an extraordinarily useful purpose for them. You see, you're basically carrion eaters, you follow behind the Wraith, and then after they cull a world and leave, you move in and strip the world of various supplies and technology to keep your fleet going."
The Wraith probably loved it, after all, it had to save them so much time not having to stick around and clean up so the survivors couldn't just jumpstart themselves back to the general level of technology they had possessed before the culling.
What was worse, their genomes told the story of a group that had strict rules against rescuing survivors. Something he was only really giving them a pass on because it was clearly understandable as likely being one of the main reasons the Wraith hadn't actually hunted them down.
"But of course, you're running into the problem that it's not sustainable. The Wraith are slowly reaching a preindustrial equilibrium point with the civilizations they harvest, as the ones that have the drive to reach beyond that in the time between cullings, attempt various desperate plans to stop the cullings and end up being wiped out completely."
Larrin was looking anywhere but at him now, a sure enough sign of shame to confirm both that he'd put the puzzle pieces together correctly, and that she at least wasn't a sociopath.
"But that's not why you're doomed." Eventus went on, his tone as judgemental as he could make it. "You're doomed because you gave up trying to be better or find another way and just accepted the pattern."
"Now get moving." He ordered, pointing out the door. "So I can dump you on the one group in this galaxy who are experienced in breaking others out of patterns they've been stuck in for thousands of years."
Thankfully Larrin began walking without any further protest, and they nearly made it to the ring room before she spoke up again. "We did try you know. Hollowed out asteroids, hidden away space stations, radiation blasted worlds near the galactic core. But every time a culling came around the Wraith would find us."
That was mildly interesting to hear, and suggested the Wraith had developed some new way to track humans across long distances in the past ten thousand years since they hadn't possessed that sort of capability when his own people had fought them.
"I'm only judging a little." Eventus said, motioning for her to stand in the clearly outlined ring circle. "And no, I'm not going to tell the others what your people do."
Mainly because there would be a very real risk they'd be branded as Wraith worshipers by various denizens of the Pegasus galaxy, and those sorts of witch hunts never ended well for anyone involved.
"Keep your limbs inside the indicated area if you don't want to lose them." Eventus warned as he joined Larrin in the circle and triggered his remote to activate the rings.
The sheer speed of the rings rising up seemed to startle the woman slightly, but she thankfully heeded his warning as they disappeared with a flash to reappear inside one of Atlantis's orbital transport rooms where members of the Atlantis expedition were already standing to meet them.
"Welcome to Atlantis." Eventus announced with a grin as the rings fell back into the floor. "You'll have to forgive the mess, it's been ten thousand years since we cleaned and our current staff is a bit overwhelmed just keeping the lights on."
"Funny." Sheppard drolled, glancing over to Doctor Weir, who seemed to be focusing on Larrin with a somewhat unhappy look on her face.
"Eventus." Weir began as she took a cautious step forward. "It's good to see you back. But what's this about Space Pirates?"
"We caught them in the middle of trying to steal the Navis." Eventus offered with a jerk of his head over to Larrin. "This is Larrin, the captain of the ship that was making the attempt."
"It was our ship." Larrin said, turning an annoyed glare to him. "We found it first, and were in the middle of reactivating it when you showed up trying to claim ownership."
"She doesn't actually believe I'm a Lantean." Eventus offered with an apologetic shrug, shoving the cuffed woman towards Sheppard a little harder than was probably warranted. "But anti-piracy duties fall under the military's purview, so congratulations Sheppard, she's your problem now."
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Author's Notes: More of the Travelers backstory comes out because of some quality sleuthing by our resident Ancient, and Sheppard gets left holding the bag.
