HALF-BREED: CH. 1 - "MOTHER (LORELEI)"

Summary: A telepathic human female's village is culled and she is held prisoner on a hive ship where she meets a starry-eyed Wraith who impregnates her.

Lorelei was a beautiful woman with thick, glossy ebony hair so long that it stopped short of her tailbone. She lived on a planet somewhere in the Pegasus Galaxy populated by the Ancients thousands of years ago. Mostly an agrarian society, there were lots of farms and a beautiful landscape with lush green vegetation, tall trees and a few lakes and ponds.

Although there was no real “hierarchy,” Lorelei and her husband, Jonah, were considered the village leaders because they both had the gift of clairvoyance and telepathy. Lorelei also served as the village “medicine woman” having been taught herbal medicine and holistic health from her mother.

Lorelei and Jonah had three children –a daughter named Ivy and two sons – Caleb and Ira. Like her own mother before her, Lorelei passed her gifts onto her daughter and taught her the healing arts. Jonah taught his sons archery, masonry, carpentry and also how to hunt. Life was quiet but productive.

Then the terror from the sky came. 


During the few weeks that led up to the assault, Lorelei couldn't shake the feeling that something very very bad was going to happen. And when it happened, it wasn't just very very bad - it was apocalyptic. A dozen or so flying machines swooped down from out of nowhere. It happened so fast, there was no time to do anything about it. Deadly firepower rained down, alighting everything in its path while bright beams of light caused many people to disappear into thin air. As Lorelei ran toward her house, it burst into flames, killing her husband and children who had been waiting for her to come home from gathering herbs in the meadow behind the house. As she was running, a beam of light surrounded her and then she too, vanished into thin air.

She thought she must be dead or dreaming when she opened her eyes and found herself cocooned in a webbed pod, unable to move. For days she remained trapped there. Once in a while a tall green creature with long golden hair dressed in a full-length, black leather trench-coat would pass her by, and every day there were screams. It seemed like the screaming never stopped. Hunger gnawed at her so she tried to block it out of her mind but there it remained. How many days had she been here? Or maybe it was weeks? Months? It felt like time was just standing still.

To take her mind off her hunger, she focused her mind on trying to read the thoughts of the strange creatures. Culling. Feeding ground. Stargates. WRAITH. What the hell did it all mean? She was about to find out.

From what she could tell by reading the thoughts of these beings who called themselves “Wraith,” there were thousands more like her in other parts of the ship. They were food for the Wraith. One in particular had walked past her many times but didn't seem to notice her. And why would he? There were plenty of others just like her. And just like he'd done before so many times, he was walking past her one day when he suddenly stopped and turned to look at her.

“What did you say, Human?” He got right in her face. This was the first time she'd seen one close-up. He looked a bit older than the others and had some kind of star-shaped tattoo around his right eye. It felt like his yellowy eyes, full of contempt and malice, were burning a hole right into her soul. She shook her had as if to say “Nothing.” He stood there, staring at her, like he was trying to figure out what to do with her, then just growled and moved on. He seemed to be in a hurry.

Indeed, the “Star” Wraith was on his way to meet with the hive leader. There was going to be another big culling later and they were meeting to discuss which DART pilots to send out. The next day, as he passed in front of Lorelei, he thought he heard her speaking again.

“Human! What mockery is this?” Again, she shook her head, tears falling down her pale white cheeks. Again he stood there staring but this time, he figured out what she'd been doing: she could read his mind! “How is this possible? You are human but you can see inside my mind.” This intrigued him so he released her from the bindings and took her to his personal quarters. Time for interrogation.

The first thing he did was give her some food. “Some of the others of your kind were carrying this when they were culled,” he explained, as he gestured towards a large bowl filled with different types of fruit: apples, bananas, oranges, pears, strawberries and the like. She was ravenous and practically inhaled half of it. He found it amusing. This one was different from the others, so he decided to keep her as his personal worshiper and satisfied his need for sexual pleasure by forcing himself on her despite her protests. After he fulfilled his carnal needs, he would take some of her life force, then give it back. The feeling she got when he returned her life back to her was a pleasure unlike anything she'd ever experienced..and it was addictive.

So she soon grew to enjoy “feeding time” as he called it, and started to give herself over to him willingly. It wasn't long before her mind followed suit and she began to have feelings for him, despite the fact that his kind had wiped out her entire family in a nanosecond. She eventually grew to accept the fact that this was her life now – the life of a “Wraith worshiper.” Though some of the other Wraith viewed these kind of dalliances with disdain, none dared challenged her Wraith because he was a high-ranking officer on the hive ship.

Their aversion to Wraith-Human contact was only amplified when it was announced that Lorelei was pregnant with the commanding officer's child. Worshiping was one thing but actually mating with humans was atypical for the Wraith, and a practice that was frowned upon. The Hive Queen, however, was intrigued, and said she would allow the worshiper to have the baby but it would belong to the Hive. The birth of this child would be a great opportunity to study these “hybrids” as they were called. The Commanding Officer could keep his worshiper but not her baby.

But he was not crazy about the idea of a child of his, no matter hybrid or 100% Wraith, being used as a guinea pig. This was not going to happen if HE had anything to say about it. So Mr. Star Wraith covertly arranged for one of his best pilots to take the human with her unborn child to a planet in a galaxy as far away from his hive as possible. He didn't want to know which one because he feared the Queen would probe his mind and discover the location.

So the pilot brought Lorelei to a planet in the Milky Way galaxy, designated as P3X-774, home to an advanced race of pacifist, nature-loving forest dwellers called the The Nox. They lived in small family groups in the forests, subsiding on fruits, nuts and plants they found and harvested there. Some also lived in a giant city that hovered above the planet which could be cloaked for safety in times of enemy attack. It was there that Lorelei gave birth to a blue-eyed, raven-haired baby she named Autumn – Autumn Noxx – after the race of peaceful people who'd welcomed her into their world and gave her a place to call home. And there Lorelei and Autumn lived in peace for 23 years until that peace was shattered by another random Wraith attack. This time, Lorelei saw it coming. She remembered the last time this same feeling was eating away at her and how her instincts preceded the attack. And this time she was going to be prepared. On the day they began their assault, she was in the forest with Autumn picking fruit and there was no time to get up to the city. So she ran with Autumn to the giant ring on the outskirts of the village, near the cloaked city. She dialed up a random gate address and just as they were about to jump in, a culling beam appeared. It happened so fast that Lorelei had no time to react. She made it through the gate but Autumn was caught in the beam and taken away.

Disclaimer:  The Wraith & Stargate Atlantis are owned by MGM.  Autumn Noxx and Lorelei are original characters.