SGA-13 Hunt and Run (24 page)

Ronon shrugged free of Nekai’s grip. “I don’t believe that,” he responded. “Treat anyone we don’t know as a potential threat, yes, but actively hostile? What, do you just want us to kill anyone who crosses our path, no matter what?” He glared at their leader, but the glare turned to a stare of disbelief when the Retemite didn’t even try to deny the accusation. “You would!” Ronon said softly, the words hissing between clenched teeth. “You want us to wage war on the entire galaxy, and everyone in it.”

“We’re already at war,” Nekai shot back. “I want us to win.”

“We’re at war with the Wraith,” Ronon corrected. “Not everyone else. They’re not involved. They’re not soldiers. If we start killing them, we’re just murderers, not warriors. And that makes us no better than the Wraith!”

Lanara’s gasp warned him just in time as she lunged for him, a knife already in her hand. “How dare you?” she cried, slashing at his throat. He blocked the thrust and trapped her arm to keep her from trying again, but the look she gave him was almost sharp enough to kill all on its own. “How dare you compare us to them? They’re monsters!”

“So are we,” Ronon told her, taking the knife away and then pushing her back, not hard but forcefully enough that she couldn’t prevent it. “If we start killing innocents, we’re just as bad as they are.” He shook his head. “Worse. The Wraith kill to survive. You want us to kill just because it’s less complicated — killing everyone takes less effort than figuring out who we can trust.”

He turned and looked at the others. His teammates. His friends. “Are you all okay with this?” he demanded of them. “Are you fine with being told to murder people who’ve never done anything to you? Really?”

Turen was the first to reply. “If Nekai says we have to,” she asserted, raising her chin defiantly, “then that’s what we’ll do.” The approving nod Nekai gave her would have set her tail to wagging if she’d been a dog.

“I don’t have anything against those poor fellows,” Frayne admitted, gesturing toward the dead peddlers. “But if it’s them or us, I’m gonna go with us every time. What’s wrong with that?”

“It’s not my place to figure out who we do or don’t fight,” Adarr said. “I just do what I’m told.”

That left Banje. “Come on,” Ronon urged him. “You must see this is wrong. You commanded a unit, just like I did. You know what it means to give orders, and to have to live up to that responsibility. Some orders are just wrong. We’re not murderers. We’re soldiers — but that means only fighting other soldiers, not helpless civilians.”

Banje didn’t answer for a moment. When he did, however, he shook his head. “I don’t know,” he admitted so quietly Ronon had to strain to hear him. “Maybe we shouldn’t have killed them. But what’s done is done. And Nekai is right — everyone is a potential threat. We have to treat everyone outside our unit as a possible hostile, at least at first. It may be the only way for us to stay alive.”

“If you shoot to kill at first sight, there won’t be anything beyond ‘at first,’” Ronon replied bitterly. His shock at Nekai’s actions had faded, to be replaced by disappointment at the way his friends had simply accepted their leader’s skewed perspective as their own. He wished Setien was here, then realized that perhaps he didn’t. She wouldn’t have approved of killing bystanders, but she also would have thrown the decision back in Nekai’s face — she’d never known how to back down, and it might have led to violence among the V’rdai itself. Besides, she’d believed in their mission just as much as he had. Seeing it tarnished and twisted like this might have destroyed her.

Nekai was speaking again, and Ronon realized he’d tuned the other man out at first. “ — changing,” he was saying, “and we have to adapt if we’re going to survive. They’ve expanded their activities, increased their hunts, enlisted allies and scouts and spies. We have to be even more vigilant and even more careful as a result. We can’t risk waiting to see if someone is a friend or a foe — by the time we ask them and get a clear answer it could be too late. We’ll have to assume everyone is an enemy unless we already know otherwise.” The other V’rdai were nodding, though only Lanara showed any enthusiasm. The others were just accepting Nekai’s lead as usual.

“We aren’t looking for trouble, or for other people,” Nekai added, focusing his attention on Ronon. “But if we run across them, we can’t leave them behind to possibly go to the Wraith. We’ll have to take them out first.” His eyes bored into Ronon. “I need to know I can count on each and every one of you to do what’s necessary without a moment’s hesitation.”

The others all nodded and agreed, though some a little more quickly than others. But Ronon shook his head.

“I’ll do what’s necessary, yes,” he answered. “But this wasn’t. And I won’t kill innocent people just because you think the Wraith could draw information out of them.”

“That’s not good enough,” Nekai told him bluntly. “If you go around second-guessing me on a mission, it could get all of us killed. You’ve got to be with us completely.”

“I won’t follow blindly,” Ronon insisted. “I’m not a drone. None of us are.”

“No, we’re a team,” Nekai replied. “We’re the V’rdai. And you’re either one of us — or you’re not.”

Ronon didn’t like where this was heading. He glanced around quickly, noticing that the others had formed a loose circle around him, and took a step back from Nekai, half-raising his hands in front of him. “I am V’rdai,” he insisted. “But that doesn’t mean I’ll agree to mindless slaughter.”

“If you won’t follow orders, you’re not one of us,” Nekai said coldly. “And if you’re not one of us” — suddenly his pistol was up, and pointing straight at Ronon’s chest —
 
“you’re one of them. You’re a threat to our existence.”

“Hold on!” Adarr exclaimed, reaching out and trying to push Nekai’s arm back down. Nekai shoved him away, never taking his eyes off Ronon. “This is crazy! He is one of us! You know that. Ancestors, you trained him! This is getting out of hand.”

“We can’t trust him,” Lanara snapped, her words almost a snarl. “He would have saved those men if he could have. Next time he might side with them over us — or with the Wraith instead!”

“You’re insane,” Turen told her, hatred making each word razor-sharp. “I trust Ronon with my life — and I trust him a lot more than I trust you.”

“Let’s all just calm down,” Frayne suggested, holding both hands out to show he at least wasn’t reaching for a gun. “Let’s talk about this. It’s just a misunderstanding.”

“It isn’t,” Ronon told his bunkmate sadly, though he was still watching Nekai and that pistol. “Things have changed. Nekai has changed. And he wants us to change with him. But I can’t do that. I can’t be a cold-blooded killer. Of Wraith, yes — I’ll happily kill every last one of them. But not of people who never did anything to us. That’s just not right. It’s not who we are. And it’s not who we want to become.”

“There must be some middle ground,” Adarr insisted, trying to put himself between Nekai and Ronon. “We all still want the same thing.”

“Maybe,” Ronon agreed. “But not the same way.” He watched for the opening he knew was coming, and when Nekai’s attention wandered just long enough for him to sidestep Adarr, Ronon was ready. His hand reached to his belt and pulled free one of the two rough metal cylinders hanging there. By the time Nekai had a clear line of fire again, Ronon had the object in his hand, which was down at his side and slightly in back, just out of Nekai’s view.

“I don’t want to shoot you,” Nekai told him. “But I will if it’s the only way.”

“The only way to what?” Ronon demanded. “To get blind obedience? To turn our war on the Wraith into a war against every living creature in the galaxy? If that’s what you want, then yes, it is the only way.” He stalked forward, looming over Nekai. “Go ahead. Shoot me. Because I won’t become some mindless killer for you.”

“Back off,” Nekai warned, but Ronon ignored him and took another step. The gun was almost against his chest now. “I will kill you, Ronon.”

“I know you will,” Ronon admitted. And it was true — he could see it in his mentor’s eyes. “You’d kill any of us. Killing is all you have left.” He’d admired Nekai, and respected him. But now he saw that the years of hunting, and of watching others die, had eaten away at the V’rdai leader. Losing Setien had probably been the last straw.

“Maybe so,” Nekai agreed softly. “But at least it’s something.”

Ronon edged forward a little bit more, closing the last of the distance, and felt the pistol barrel poking into him. “Do it, then,” he urged. “Kill me. Kill me!”

His sudden aggression unnerved Nekai, who reflexively took a step back, trying to free his pistol again. And that was the second opening Ronon needed.

His free hand lashed out, catching Nekai’s wrist and shoving it hard to the side so Nekai’s shot went wide. At the same time, he hurled the cylinder behind the other man, then spun on one foot, maintaining his grip so Nekai pivoted with him.

The flash grenade detonated with a sharp hiss and a quick bang, and a brilliant burst of light lit the small clearing. Ronon had turned his head away and squeezed his eyes shut tight, but none of the others had been that lucky. They all stood clutching at their eyes, blinded and half-dazed.

Nekai had been facing the grenade when it went off, his eyes still wide from the shock of Ronon’s sudden move, and his body went rigid from shock. Ronon released the other man’s wrist and let him crumple to the ground, then leaped over and past him, through the gap that had created. In two quick bounds he was back past the rock he had recently used for shelter, and then he was running for his life. It wouldn’t take the others long to recover, and once they did he knew they’d pursue him. His only hope was to make it to the ancestral ring before they caught up with him, and hope he could figure out how to open a portal and run somewhere they couldn’t find him.

Of course, the minute he passed out of range from the other V’rdai, his tracking device would become visible to the Wraith again. Which meant he was about to have two groups hunting him instead of just one.

Well, thought Ronon as he ran along a narrow ledge and leaped over a small ravine, I never did like things to be too easy.

He just hoped this wasn’t more than he could handle.

Rodney stared at the pale blob, all he could make out of his companion in the trickle of light filtering into their cramped hiding place. “How — how did you escape?” he asked finally, his voice hoarse from disuse. He had sat, spellbound and silent, through the last portion of the Satedan’s story. “You get the Stargate to open?”

He felt more than saw Ronon’s nod. “Through sheer luck,” the big Satedan admitted. “Nekai worked out a way to lock down a gate, but it wasn’t completely reliable yet and so he didn’t always use it. That time, he hadn’t, which was good — if he had, I’d have been sunk. Instead I banged on the console a bunch, and somehow I activated it. I was sure the other V’rdai were right behind me by then, so I dove through. Then I just ran as fast as I could. I knew the gate would close almost immediately, so if they weren’t right behind me they’d have to reopen it — Nekai had said he could recall the last location dialed but by that point I wasn’t sure I believed him. Either way, the more distance I could put between them and me, the better.”

“And they didn’t come after you?”

He thought Ronon shrugged. “I have no idea,” was the answer. “The world I found had a few villages, one decent-sized city — and a tiny spaceport. I stole a ship and took off. Ditched it on the next inhabitable planet I could find, located a Stargate, and managed to activate it. After that I just kept moving.”

“So you never saw them again?” Rodney asked.

“Never.”

“And you’re sure this is them now?”

Again he felt the air shift as his companion nodded. “Positive.”

“Because of the shuttle?” The fact that Ronon had come up with that idea didn’t surprise him — the Satedan had proven over their time together that he was very good at thinking on his feet, at adapting materials, and at causing mayhem. The shuttle setup was a perfect combination of those three traits. Though clearly these V’rdai had refined the technique over the years. There hadn’t been a second ship lurking nearby, and the shuttle had clearly been rigged to explode when activated or when it registered a certain amount of energy nearby. Like from their Jumper powering up to leave.

“The shuttle,” Ronon agreed, “and the way they went after Sheppard and Teyla. They knew if they only wounded whatever ship approached the shuttle, it would have to set down here. That’s why they were waiting here. They’ve probably got traps set up all around the area. Sheppard and Teyla must have tripped one of them.”

“But you’re sure they’re still alive?” Rodney pressed.

“Pretty sure,” was the less-than-inspiring reply. “They know there’re more than two of us. They’ll be cautious, careful, prepared for the worst — and that means assuming whoever’s left is dangerous. Killing them means two fewer enemies to worry about, but it also means they don’t have any leverage, or any lures. Keeping them captive is a better bet. That way they can draw us in and kill all of us together.”

“Great. That’s something to look forward to,” Rodney muttered. He was still thinking about Ronon’s story. “So you were with them for almost two years?”

“That’s right.” Beside him Ronon shifted, probably trying to make himself a little more comfortable in their rocky prison.