SGA-13 Hunt and Run (31 page)

 
— and Ronon shot her in the back. She crumpled without a sound
, and not for the first time Sheppard envied his friend’s unusual pistol. The P90s were lethal, but Ronon could set his weapon to stun or to kill. Sheppard could see the woman’s back moving slightly with each breath. The big Satedan had only stunned her.

“Good plan,” Sheppard commented as he and Teyla stepped out and hurried over to meet Ronon by the airlock. Rodney was already working his way down from his vantage point, and joined them a second later.

“Yeah, of course you liked it,” he complained, carefully not looking at the dead male V’rdai. “You weren’t the one playing bait!”

“I wouldn’t have been half as good at it as you were, Rodney,” Sheppard assured him, forcing himself to keep his tone light. That way he could avoid thinking about the man he’d just killed, at least for a little while. “You have that certain look of terror I don’t think I could ever match.”

“Ha ha,” the scientist snapped. “If you’ve had your amusement, do you mind if I get to work?”

“By all means.” Sheppard bent and grabbed the woman under the arms, then hauled her away from the airlock. Ronon was already moving the dead man off to the side, and Sheppard was glad he didn’t have to shoulder that task. “Go right ahead.”

“Thank you.” Rodney turned and raised his hand to the door panel, but Ronon called out and stopped him.

“They’ll have rigged it,” the Satedan warned.

“I guessed as much already,” Rodney snapped at him. “I have done this before, you know.” He opened the panel and checked the wiring. “Just as I thought — the exact same configuration as last time,” he said to himself. “Easy enough to disconnect.” He snipped a few wires, rerouted something else, then closed the panel again and activated the door release. Nothing blew up as it lowered, so Sheppard figured he must have gotten it right.

While Rodney disappeared inside to make sure the V’rdai hadn’t caused any additional damage or left any other presents, the rest of them turned to the two bodies. They stripped off the V’rdai’s camouflaged jumpsuits, facemasks, and goggles, and Sheppard and Teyla quickly donned them and took up the guards’ weapons while Ronon bound and gagged their captive and hauled her off behind some rocks where she wouldn’t be found right away. He was still carrying the man’s body away when Rodney reemerged.

“The interior’s as we left it,” he said. “They didn’t break anything, so it’s just the existing damage I’ve got to fix.” He had his tools with him, and set to work at once, wrestling a battered panel open and removing a mass of burnt-out wiring and circuitry. “Excellent.”

“Can you fix it or not?” Sheppard asked him. He had to raise his voice because the facemask muffled it. Plus the jumpsuit was armored in strategic locations, which made it stiff and heavy. How did the V’rdai stand it? At least Castor had been roughly his height, and these things were made to be a little loose, so it fit him well enough for appearance’s sake. They were also dark enough to hide bloodstains, Sheppard noticed, and deliberately pushed aside the reminder that he was wearing the clothing of a man he had just killed. Teyla had had a little more trouble with hers, since she was shorter than the dark-skinned woman, but hopefully no one would notice her rolled-up cuffs.

“Of course I can fix it!” Rodney snapped. “I just have to replace a few things and reroute some of the systems. It won’t be perfect, but it’ll get everything up and running again, and it’ll hold long enough to get us back home.” Sheppard believed him. Rodney did have a very high estimation of his own abilities, but in all honesty there was a very good reason for that. And he wouldn’t risk his own life on something he didn’t think was fully functional.

“How long?” was Sheppard’s next question.

“A few hours, at least,” Rodney answered. He didn’t bother to snap this time, because he was already focused on the task at hand. Which was fine. The sooner they could get out of here, the better. Sheppard hoped they might manage it before any more of the V’rdai came looking for them.

But he’d never been that lucky. .

*
 
*
 
*

“
Hey!”

Sheppard had been half-dozing where he stood, head bowed against the sun — it was close to noon, and the small orb was almost directly overhead, even its weak rays beating down on him like a sledgehammer. But the shout jerked him awake, and his hand reached instinctively for his P90 before he remembered that he was holding a pistol already and raised that instead.

The exclamation had come from a tall man gliding down from between the nearby boulders, and as Sheppard took in the other man’s mottled gray coverall and headgear he snapped fully awake again. Right, the V’rdai. Apparently the second team had found them.

“What?” he called back, trying to make his voice sound like what little he’d heard from the man he was impersonating. Fortunately the facemask muffled him already, so that would help. He saw the short, broad-shouldered V’rdai right behind the tall one, glancing around as they approached. Teyla was still next to him, Sheppard realized, and Rodney was somewhere, hopefully out of sight — he couldn’t risk checking. But where was Ronon?

“What do you mean, what?” the tall V’rdai — Adarr — replied. He sounded downright pissed. “You were half-asleep!” He was less than forty feet away now.

“So what if I was?” Sheppard said. “This is ridiculous! They’re not stupid enough to come back here!”

“They’ll be here,” Adarr assured him. Twenty feet. His partner was just a little behind him, and Sheppard hoped Teyla had a clear shot at the shorter man. He was planning to drop Adarr any second now, but he didn’t want to get shot while doing it.

As it turned out, he didn’t have to worry about that. Just as the two V’rdai reached him, Sheppard heard a faint noise from up among the rocks and a little to the left. It sounded like someone brushing against a boulder, someone who didn’t know how to keep completely quiet — or someone who did and was pretending he didn’t.

Ronon.

The two V’rdai heard it as well, and both whirled around, guns raised. Adarr was barely five feet away, but even so Sheppard wasn’t taking any chances. A quick step and his pistol pressed against the back of the tall man’s head, right above his jumpsuit collar. He had just enough time to stiffen in surprise before Sheppard pulled the trigger. Teyla had stayed against the Jumper’s hull but she’d taken careful aim, and she dropped the shorter V’rdai an instant later.

Ronon had obviously been watching the whole time, because as soon as both V’rdai were down he appeared from among the rocks and quickly picked his way back down to them. Sheppard helped him bind and gag the unconscious men, and then Ronon took them one at a time to wherever he was stashing the others.

“How’re the repairs going?” Ronon asked after he returned.

“They’re going fine,” Rodney replied — fortunately he’d been inside the Jumper, recalibrating the controls to compensate for the engine modifications. “But they’re not even close to done yet. I need at least another hour, maybe two.”

“Two?” Sheppard shook his head. “I thought you said you were good at this, Rodney?”

“You think you can do it any faster?” the scientist told him sharply. “Be my guest.” He had a diagnostic tool in his hand, and offered it to Sheppard. “No? Fine. Then trust me when I say I am doing this as fast as humanly possible — maybe faster — but if you actually want us to be able to make it all the way to the Stargate I need another hour at the absolute minimum!”

“Okay, keep your shirt on, Rodney,” Sheppard said, raising his hands in surrender. “I give up.”

“We all know you are working as quickly as possible,” Teyla assured him. “We are simply anxious about the remaining V’rdai, that is all.”

“There’s only two left,” Ronon pointed out. He pulled out the tracking monitor and held it where they could all study the tiny screen. Two dots showed, close together and a short distance from here.

“You think they heard what happened to their friends?” Sheppard wondered aloud. Most guns made a lot of noise when fired, and the V’rdai’s pistols were no exception. The sound of each shot had reverberated across the tiny valley, and probably up into the hills beyond as well.

“I know they did,” Ronon replied. He pointed at the monitor again, and Sheppard saw that the dots had now separated. One was stationary, but the other was moving farther from them. “That’s Nekai,” the big Satedan said, indicating the dot on the move.

“How do you know?” Teyla asked.

“I know how he thinks,” Ronon answered. “They know we took down at least two of the others, and possibly all four. So he’s worried. He wants to give us time to panic, to make mistakes. So he’s giving us some space. He doesn’t want to risk going after us unprepared.”

“And the other one?” Teyla pointed at the first dot, which still hadn’t moved. “That is the other woman, is it not?”

“Lanara,” Ronon agreed. He half-sneered as he said her name, just as he had back in the cave. “She’s too angry and too bitter to be cautious. She won’t back down, no matter what.”

“But they’re making themselves vulnerable,” Sheppard pointed out. “They’re visible to the Wraith again because they split up.”

“They must be more worried about us than about the Wraith,” Teyla remarked. “We are the more immediate threat, after all.”

“Lanara must be really worried if she disobeyed Nekai,” Ronon agreed. “She’s never gone against him before.” He frowned and tapped the tracking monitor with one finger, lost in thought. Then a slow, nasty smile spread across his face.

“Of course, I don’t blame her for being worried,” he said, not bothering to be quiet about it. If anything, he raised his voice slightly, and it echoed faintly off the rocks all around. “She’s got nothing without Nekai, and he’s got nothing without the V’rdai. So if we kill all the others, that leaves him weak and her even weaker.”

Sheppard saw what his friend was doing. “She didn’t seem weak to me,” he commented loudly. “Just angry.”

“That’s how she covers it up,” Ronon explained. “She’s always angry. It’s just a cover, though. Inside, she’s just scared. Scared of everything — and everyone. Scared to move, scared to fight, scared to run. That’s why she clings to Nekai so tight. She’s too scared to stand up on her own.”

There was a scritching noise from somewhere off to one side, and Sheppard saw a flicker of light speeding toward them. He dove to one side, but it hadn’t been aimed at him, and Ronon had been expecting it. The big Satedan spun to the side, and the throwing knife sailed past him, just missing his shoulder. If he hadn’t moved, it would have imbedded itself in his throat.

“You missed, Lanara,” Ronon called out. “You’re getting sloppy. Is that why Nekai left you? Because you’re losing your edge?”

Sheppard heard what sounded like a low growl from the direction the knife had appeared, and he turned, training his gun that way. But he didn’t see anything except rocks and more rocks.

“You used to be a good shot,” Ronon was saying. “Of course, that was years ago.” He faced the same direction and spread his arms. “Want to try again?”

A second glitter, and another blade sped toward Ronon’s throat. This one was easier to spot, however — perhaps because they knew where to look and what to watch for — and the Satedan actually caught it, grabbing the knife by the handle. The blade’s tip was less than an inch from his throat.

“Definitely losing your touch,” Ronon remarked, holding the dagger up and examining it. “I hope you have a lot more knives. We both know you’re not going to face me directly — that wouldn’t even be a contest.”

Apparently that last dig was the final straw. Sheppard heard someone roar, definitely a person but someone driven to the limits, pushed so far she reverted to baser instincts and actions. Then there was a scrape and a clatter as Lanara burst from the rocks and charged them. She had a pistol in one hand and a third throwing knife in the other. And she was screaming as she ran, no words but just a long endless exclamation.

Ronon waited until she was ten feet away, then shot her in the throat. The impact actually brought her charge up short and knocked her off her feet. She groaned once, shuddered slightly, and then stopped moving altogether.

“Did you kill her?” Teyla asked, looking down at the woman but not making any move toward her.

“No,” Ronon answered. He holstered his pistol and crouched down beside Lanara, removing her weapons before binding and gagging her. “She’s just stunned.” Without another word he hoisted her onto one shoulder and stood, carrying her off into the rocks and the shadows.

“I need to go after Nekai,” Ronon announced when he returned. “Alone.”

“Alone? Don’t be ridiculous,” Sheppard told him. “One of us” — he indicated Teyla and himself — “can come with you. The other can stay here and guard Rodney and the ship.”

“I’m starting to enjoy this whole “Rodney is too important to risk’ attitude,” Rodney commented from under the Jumper’s right wing. “You should definitely handle situations this way from now on.”

“Shut up, Rodney,” Sheppard said without turning around. “I’m serious, Ronon. You can’t go after him alone.”

“I don’t have a choice,” Ronon replied. “Rodney needs to fix the Jumper so we can leave. You need to make sure he’s safe enough to do that. The V’rdai we captured could get loose. There could be other dangers here. And now the Wraith are on the way. You both need to stay here and protect Rodney. But someone has to go after Nekai. We can’t leave him at our backs — we’d never wake up.”