Growing Human

It was late, but time was relative on the ship, where there was no star to make a day or night, but Alara had been up for what would have been almost thirty cycles if they were on the planet that Alara had lived most of her 10 years on.  Alara wasn’t sure why she had been taken on the Hive ship to begin with, she was just a child.  Later she realized why she had to go.  Her anvar was the one of the few females on the hive ship who were trained to fight alongside of the male warriors.  Alara’s konar was one of the best warriors in the hive.  Alara had to go on the ship, much to the discontent of the Queen, because there was no one to watch her on the planet.  Alara was young by the terms of her people, who often lived for hundreds of thousands of years.  If Alara was to be compared to the humans her Hive would feed off of, she was comparable to a six year old.  Alara was a young child.  She didn’t know why the best warriors of the hive were being summoned, or why all her people were awakening at once suddenly.  What she did know was that they should not have woken up at once.  There was nowhere near enough food in the galaxy for all of them.  Slowly, Alara began to understand what was happening.  A group of humans from far, far away had killed a hive queen and the world they came from presented a new rich feeding ground, with billions of humans.  The thought of a place where her people would not ever have to go hungry again made it clear to Alara why all her people were awakening so suddenly.  She was the only one of her age to go out with the ships and the warriors.  All her peers were left on the planets that they had lived on since they were born.  Alara began to enjoy the hunt that her hive was on.  She knew there was only one way to have enough food to reach the new, rich feeding ground, and that was to collect as many humans as they could and preserve them.  Every so often, Alara’s anvar would take Alara down to the planet they were culling with her.  One of those cullings changed Alara’s life.  

Alara had been taken to the planet with her anvar to watch the culling.  Unfortunately, this was not a good planet to cull right then.  A group of humans, some of those who came from the new rich feeding ground, were on the planet that day.  These humans didn’t all run and hide from the wraith, but tried to kill those who took part in the cullings.  It was a small group of humans, but those humans still managed to kill many of Alara’s people.  There were four people in this group of humans, and the names of those four humans ran through the heads of all of Alara’s people.  Strange, alien nominations: John Sheppard, Rodney McKay, Teyla Emmagan, Ronan Dex.  These strange human afflicted nominations were in the minds of every member of every hive across the galaxy.  Alara and her anvar were unfortunate enough to meet one of these strange, seemingly fearless humans.  On the planet’s surface, both Alara and her anvar were standing out of the way of all the Darts that were collecting humans for the feeding of the hive when one of the strange humans approached them.  Alara’s anvar push Alara behind her to keep Alara safe and slowly she approached the human.  This human, dressed in a strange black outfit, was obviously either Rodney McKay or John Sheppard to Alara’s anvar, who soon decided that it must be Rodney McKay rather than John Sheppard.  Anvar tried to tell the human that she meant him no harm, holding her hands in the air to show him that she held no weapon and would not harm him, but the human lifted a small devise with both hands and something shot out of it with a crack like thunder.  Again and again the devise let out a projectile and a sound like thunder, continuing until Alara’s anvar fell to the ground, blood pouring out of holes in her chest.  Alara stood there in shock as she watched her Anvar fall slowly to the ground and tears filled her little eyes.  She looked up at the human, this alien human who shot her anvar down, who killed her anvar.  Alara ran to her anvar’s body, hoping that she might still live.  “Anvar!  Anvar!  Wake up, Anva!  Wake up!” she gasped between sobs, grabbing her anvar’s shoulder and shaking it, trying to wake her anvar from the sleep this human had forced on her.  The human stood there, the weapon in his hand trained on Alara, but his hands shook so that if he had let out the thunder once more it would not have struck Alara.  This human realized that Alara was a child and no matter what he thought of Alara’s people, he could not kill a child, not even if the child was not human like he was.  In fact this human knelt down beside Alara and whispered in a strange human voice to her.

“I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to kill her.  I’m sorry,” Alara said nothing, she couldn’t through her tears, but somehow she ended up hugging this human.  Eventually, the human left her their, beside her Anvar’s dead body to wait for her hive to come looking for them.  Alara sat there, hugging her little doll tight as she waited for her konar to come and hold her tight until everything was better.  And in the end, he did.  Alara clung to her konar the entire way back to the hive ship.  It was too late; it had been too late since her anvar fell.  The thunder stick the human had held had killed Alara’s anvar and there was nothing they could do about it.  Yet the memory of the human comforting her after he killed her anvar clung to her, she could not forget how the human seemed hurt by what he had done as much as she had been hurt by it.  Every night, every time Alara would sleep, she would dream of this caring human, this human who acted much the same as a member of her hive would have acted at Alara’s anvar’s death.  This was the first time Alara considered that humans might have intelligence; that humans weren’t as primitive as her people thought.  Alara was scared of what others would think of her new ideas, that humans might be equal to, or maybe even better than, her own people.