SGA-13 Hunt and Run (22 page)

For there was no question as to whether she’d survive. Not anymore. Ronon dropped to his knees beside her, trying not to notice the way her limbs were bent in every direction, or where bone poked through flesh. He ignored the blood seeping into the ground all around him, soaking his pants where his knees touched, and reached for her head. She was still alive, her eyes still blinking, though they were already glazing over and blood was trickling from her nose and mouth and ears.

“Always . . . knew . . . fruit would be . . . the death . . . of me,” she whispered thickly, and Ronon tried to smile. Behind him the remaining Wraith stirred — Setien’s impact had stunned him — then cried out and thrashed and stilled as five V’rdai shot him at once. But Ronon ignored them all.

“You can’t die,” he told Setien. “Who’s going to whip my ass in the ring?”

She managed a weak smile, though one side of her face didn’t respond. “Next . . . time,” she managed. Then her whole body convulsed and went slack, and the light faded from her eyes. She was gone.

Ronon didn’t know how long he sat like that, her head cradled in his hands, before he felt a hand on his shoulder. “We have to go,” Banje told him, his voice even softer than usual.

“I know.” Ronon laid her on the ground as gently as he could and allowed the other man to help him to his feet. He also knew they couldn’t bring Setien back with them. Not with the tracking device still imbedded in her back. She’d lead the Wraith right to their base the first time the rest of the team went out on a mission. And she wouldn’t have wanted that.

Turen stepped up beside Ronon and handed him something without a word. It was a pear, one of the ones from the trap, slightly bruised now but still fresh. Ronon nodded his thanks and placed it in Setien’s shattered hands, then clasped them around the fruit. If there was an afterlife, she wouldn’t arrive empty-handed.

Then he turned and let the others lead him back toward the ancestral ring. None of them spoke, not even Adarr. Ronon knew there had been other V’rdai before him, but not many of them, and not for a long time. Setien had been part of the unit for years. Things would never be the same without her.

They had a second nasty surprise when they got within sight of the ring. There were Wraith troops stationed around it, and several Darts whizzing overhead. Obviously the Wraith were finally taking them seriously, but now was exactly the wrong time for them to have to fight their way home.

Fortunately, someone must have discovered the three dead commanders soon after they left the scene. Within minutes of reaching the ring Ronon and the others saw the Darts take off, heading in the direction of the trap. Half of the troops followed. Only a handful remained to defend the ring, and they seemed to think they were safe from attack in the middle of a clearing. The V’rdai cut them down quickly, then sprinted to the ring as Nekai worked the controls, dialing open a portal and setting it to scramble the signal once they’d passed through.

A minute later, the gate closed behind them. They took two more jumps before returning to the shuttle, just to make sure no one had followed them.

Ronon barely remembered any of it.

“Nekai’s back!”

Adarr’s shout startled the rest into motion, Ronon included. It had been almost two months since Setien’s death, and over three weeks since their leader had taken a shuttle and disappeared. Ronon had thought at first that it was simply a reaction to Setien’s death, but the others had told him that Nekai had done this a few times before — and the last two times it had been to recruit first Adarr and then Ronon himself. So none of them were too surprised a few minutes later when they saw four people step in through the dome’s airlock: Frayne and Banje, who had gone to escort the new arrivals in once their systems had detected the approaching shuttle, Nekai, and one other.

Female, Ronon determined as he and Adarr and Turen joined the others. Average height, narrow build, the same loping gait he and Nekai and Banje possessed. Turen had an even more fluid walk, graceful and quick and quiet despite her shorter legs, and neither Frayne nor Adarr had ever fully mastered the hunter’s stride. But this woman clearly had.

“You’re back!’ As when he’d first arrived, Ronon noticed that Turen approached Nekai rapidly, fast enough and with enough enthusiasm that he thought the little Hiñati woman would throw herself on the stocky Retemite, but at the last minute she slowed down and gave him a quick, awkward embrace instead. Frayne caught Ronon’s gaze and rolled his eyes. As bunkmates, the two of them had plenty of time to sit and talk at night, and more than once the conversation had turned to Turen’s obvious obsession with Nekai. Ronon had judged it equal parts hero worship, physical desire, and genuine affection. Frayne, being less kind, had ignored the third possibility and insisted it was entirely because Nekai had saved her and so was now this magnificent but untouchable figure in her eyes. Certainly the “untouchable” part seemed true — the rest of them all knew about her interest but if Nekai ever noticed he never acknowledged it, and Turen had never once acted on it.

This time was proving to be no exception.

Except that the newcomer’s reaction was interesting. She’d stepped closer to Nekai when Turen had approached, almost but not quite putting herself in the shorter woman’s way. And the minute Turen disengaged and stepped back the new woman slid even closer, her arm brushing against Nekai’s side. Possessive, Ronon recognized. The woman was staking her claim. And Nekai didn’t react one way or another — he didn’t reciprocate but he didn’t move away either.

Judging by Turen’s scowl, she had seen it as well.

“Welcome back,” Ronon told Nekai, edging past Turen to offer Nekai his hand once the Retemite had pulled off his helmet. “Glad you’re okay.”

“I’m fine,” Nekai assured him and all of them, exchanging greetings with the others as well. “Everything here okay?”

“Fine,” Banje answered, having already shucked his suit as well, but the one-word answer was even more flat than usual for the terse Desedan. Of course none of them were fine. There was still a large, Setien-shaped hole in their midst. It was impossible not to notice it — when they were eating, when they were parceling out chores, when they were training, when they were sparring. Especially when they were sparring. Banje and Turen had taken to double-teaming Ronon, and the pair worked together extremely well, his skill and experience coupled with her speed and agility, but it wasn’t the same. So yes, they were fine: they were healthy, they’d kept up their practice and training, they were eating and exercising and even sleeping.

But they weren’t well. Not by a long shot.

The newcomer had removed her helmet now, revealing a narrow face with sharp, angular features, dark brown hair pulled back in a severe bun, and black eyes that flickered constantly across them all. “Everyone, meet Lanara,” Nekai introduced her, and Ronon saw Turen bristle at the obvious pride in his voice. “The newest member of the V’rdai.”

“I’m Adarr.” Of course the tall Fenabian was the first to welcome her. He offered a hand but pulled it back after she didn’t clasp it, accepting her curt nod instead.

“Ronon.” He got a similar nod. So she wasn’t a touchy-feely type. She was still standing awfully close to Nekai, though. Ronon had seen enough body language back in the Satedan military to be fairly sure the two had slept together, and more than once. That was going to make matters . . . complicated.

Frayne and Banje introduced themselves as well, and finally Turen gave the new woman a grudging nod. “Turen,” she muttered, shooting daggers at Nekai and barely sparing Lanara a glance. Oh yes, definitely complicated.

“Lanara is Kadrean,” Nekai told them. “Her people are some of the finest hunters in the galaxy, and Lanara is one of the best they’ve ever produced. That’s why I was able to return so quickly — she’s already a better hunter than I’ll ever be. We just needed to adapt her skills to hunting Wraith.”

“They’re a lot slower than alca-beasts,” Lanara announced, her thin lips pulling back in a vicious smile. “And less dangerous close up.” Her voice matched the rest of her, clear and sharp. Ronon wondered if she’d always been like this, or if becoming a Runner had stripped away any calmer emotions she might have possessed. He’d probably been just as brusque when he’d first arrived, but he’d still had some sense of humor buried deep inside. Of course, for him it had been three months since his capture. For her, assuming Nekai had found her as quickly, it had been only a few weeks. He couldn’t fault her for still being raw. He just wondered if that would ease with time.

“Have you been out since I left?” Nekai was asking Banje, and frowned when the Desedan shook his head. “Well, we need to fix that. I know we’re all still upset about Setien’s death, but sitting here doesn’t do her memory any honor. We need to remember her the way she’d want most, by laughing in the face of danger and killing as many Wraith as possible.”

“And eating fresh fruit whenever we find it,” Frayne muttered, which brought a smile to everyone’s faces. Everyone except Lanara and Turen, who were
 
now busy glaring at each other.

Nekai had smiled along with the rest of them, but now that glimpse of humor vanished. “It’s time we got serious,” he informed them gravely. “We’ve been taking the fight to the Wraith when we can, yes — and sometimes even when we probably shouldn’t.” That last had been accompanied by a quick glance at Ronon, but he only grinned in reply. “But now we have to do more. We need to manufacture situations to draw them in, set bigger traps, lure more Wraith to their death. Ronon’s scheme with the dead shuttle worked beautifully, and took out an entire cruiser! We have to set more snares like that. Maybe even find a way to trap the ancestral rings themselves, so we can take out a Dart as it passes through.”

He was pacing now, and the others watched him intently, knowing there was more their leader wished to say. Lanara had been forced to back away to give him room as he moved, and Ronon didn’t miss the victorious smirk Turen sent her way. If Nekai thought the two women were going to bunk together, someone would have to disabuse him of that notion, and quickly. Otherwise Lanara wouldn’t last a week — she might be an excellent hunter, but up close no one could match Turen with a blade.

But Nekai was speaking again. “We also need to accept the fact that sometimes, the Wraith may not be our only targets.” That pronouncement met with stunned silence, and he stopped moving and looked at each of them in turn before nodding. “Yes, you heard me right. There are people out there, despicable people, who not only do not stand against the Wraith but who actively help them.”

Beside him, Lanara’s face twisted into an ugly scowl of pure hate. “My people fell,” she declared, “because one of our elders struck a deal with the Wraith. She gave up our patrol patterns and shut down our security grid in exchange for a guarantee of personal safety.” Her words emerged like blows, each one expelled by bitterness. “My whole world gone, just so she could save her own skin.”

Nekai nodded. “It’s people like that we may run up against from time to time,” he warned. “Especially since we’ve been making a mark on the Wraith. There’s a reason they changed their hunting patterns, and that’s because they’re scared. Of us.” He gave them a few seconds to appreciate that fact. “But that means they’ve put the word out as well. They don’t know much about us, since we don’t leave any of them alive to talk, but they must know by now that we’re a band of Runners and that we’re hunting them in turn. They’ll have warned every planet under their control, and there will be standing orders to bring us in if we’re found.” He frowned. “Some people would do so only to protect their own people, and I can’t entirely fault them for that. But others would turn us in to save themselves alone, or to curry favor with the Wraith.” He scowled. “And those people are no better than the Wraith themselves. Which means we must treat them the same way.”

“You want us to hunt them?” Adarr asked. “How?”

“No, not hunt them,” Nekai corrected. “We’re still hunting Wraith and Wraith alone. But if we run across those who willingly help the Wraith, we must treat them as enemies. And deal with them accordingly.”

Ronon nodded. This was war, after all. Anyone who chose to side with the enemy became the enemy. He knew that, and knew he’d have no problem pulling the trigger on such a person. Neither would Banje or, judging from her expression, Lanara. He wasn’t sure how Frayne or Adarr or Turen would handle such a situation.

With any luck, they wouldn’t ever have to find out. .

*
 
*
 
*

They spent the next two weeks together in the dome, the V’rdai now back up to seven. Ostensibly they were waiting for Nekai to regain his bearings and work out a new plan of attack against the more alert and organized Wraith hunting parties, but everyone knew the truth — they were taking the time to get used to their newest member.

And Lanara definitely took some getting used to.

She was fine at sparring, fast and wiry with sharp reflexes and excellent balance. Her melee skills were solid, though Turen delighted in trouncing her new rival several times in a row, until Lanara acknowledged that she’d never be as good with blades. What she lacked in close-in fighting, however, she made up for at distance. It turned out that Lanara was phenomenal at ranged combat — she had the best aim Ronon had ever seen, and could place bullet, arrow, or knife perfectly on target time after time from a hundred paces, whether standing, running, or dodging and rolling. After watching her shoot and throw and after sparring with her several times in the ring, Ronon knew he wouldn’t have to worry about whether she could handle herself on a hunt.