Free STARGATE ATLANTIS: The Furies (Book 4 in the Legacy series) by Jo Graham Page B

failed.”
    “Not now that you have now branded yourself enemy to Queen Death!” Guide snapped, not disguising the fear in his mind, not from her. “And myself as well! Do you not see that this is the cruiser Eternal, and now Thorn knows so as well, he and all his crew? This is one of Death’s ships.”
    “Not any longer,” Teyla said, her chin rising proudly. “It met with an accident.”
    “And I shall have to explain to Queen Death why my queen is raiding her scoutships!” Guide exploded. “She will hear of it, and then she will want your head!”
    “She can come and get it,” Teyla said.
    “And she will not have to look far for mine, or that of my men!” Guide snapped. “But that is nothing to you. We are Wraith. If you were Steelflower, you would have a care for the men of your own that you thus condemn to death.” He stalked away, finding some respite in motion that took him away from her. “You will disappear again, and I shall dwell with your folly. I gave you all you needed to do this cleanly, as I did with McKay!”
    “You didn’t tell us McKay was Wraith,” Sheppard said.
    “I did not know that,” Guide snapped. “Do you think that I am Death’s Consort, to be privy to all her secrets? I have gone too far as it is.”
    “And not far enough,” Teyla said, taking a step after him, her hand rising as though she meant to take his wrist. She glanced back at Sheppard, her golden eyes inscrutable. “We cannot be half allies, Guide, as we have tried to be.”
    He swung around wondering what madness she and Sheppard had concocted between them, but Sheppard looked as baffled as he.
    Her hand closed on his wrist, her mind touch firm and strong as a queen’s, intimate as a lover’s, not compelling but simply persuading him of her honesty. “We must be allies or enemies, Guide.” Her eyes held his. “Queen Death will destroy us all if we do not stand together against her.”
    “Allies?”
    “All of our counters unmasked on the board,” she said.
    He looked at Sheppard behind her. “And you think I will believe that you will put all your counters on the board?”
    “As much as you will,” Sheppard said.
    “John,” she snapped, though she did not look around. “Can you not see that we cannot do this without him?”
    “Get McKay back or defeat Queen Death?” he said.
    “Both.” Teyla spared him a glance over her shoulder, her hand still on Guide’s wrist. “She will crush us both if we do not act together, and then she will destroy all civilizations in this galaxy that have any technology.”
    “She would take us back to the days after the First Armada,” Guide said, and the taste of the words was bitter in his mouth. “What lovely promises we had in those days! Once the Ancients were defeated, we should have plenty. Once cities lay in rubble, we should feast. But you know what came, John Sheppard. When the predators outnumber the prey, they turn upon one another. When the prey are hunted to extinction, what then shall we feed upon? You did not believe me before when I spoke of husbandry, but this one did. Teyla Emmagan has lived as a predator in the woods and fields, and she knows.”
    She nodded. “We do not overhunt, because if we do in time to come we will starve.”
    “Queen Death overhunts, and in destroying she will render us starving in no short time unless we find your Earth. But it will not be easy pickings if we find it, and if we do not, then we will starve.” He gave Sheppard a mirthless smile. “I believe it is intended to be motivational.”
    “Burning your ships on the beach so you can’t retreat,” Sheppard said. “Nice.”
    “In the years after the war your numbers dropped until you were almost extinct,” he said. “Groups of wanderers making brief shelters in broken buildings, in caves, flirting with genetic viability. And we starved too, knowing that if we took too many we might eat today, but there would be none tomorrow. And how should there be? Your