Hunt and run

Chapter Twenty

“Shhh! I hear something!”

Banje’s whispered comment froze the rest of them. They were crouched down, waiting behind rocks — for once they’d wound up on a world of sand and stone rather than trees and dirt, and they were all feeling the lack of shade even as they appreciated the increased security of stone cover over wood and bark. Turen at least had been smart enough to position herself so the shadow from one of the surrounding boulders fell across her — if she was going to have to play bait the least she could do was wait in the shade.

Now her head came up, green eyes narrowed in concentration, head tilting slightly. She had apparently heard Banje, or had picked up on a noise herself. Either way, she was ready. And so were the rest of them, Ronon thought, tensing.

It had been two months since Lanara had joined them. She was now fully a member of the V’rdai, at least when they were on missions. Back at the dome was another story. She still didn’t mesh well with the others. But they could all live with that. It had been a miracle the original group had gotten along so well, and you didn’t expect miracles to repeat themselves.

Ronon brought his attention back to the matter at hand, sliding his pistol from its holster and readying it. He had a few new weapons, flash grenades Banje and Adarr had managed to cobble together from some supplies they’d located after the last salvage run, but he only had two of those and didn’t want to waste them. His pistol would probably be enough, and if not his sword was ready across his back as well. He’d caught sounds now as well: a skitter of loose rocks, what might have been a footfall, something else clanking or jingling. It didn’t quite sound like Wraith — they were usually quieter than that — but they could be wearing new armor or carrying different weapons. It could also be people from one of the villages they’d spotted in the valleys below, though, so Ronon watched and listened for more details.

After a minute the sounds grew clearer. Definitely footsteps, a bunch of them, and metal against metal or leather or wood or even flesh, and something else as well. Something he wasn’t used to. Voices. Whoever was approaching was talking, and there were definitely several of them.

He relaxed slightly, and noticed Turen doing the same, though she stayed in her huddle. It could be a Wraith trick, but so far at least that hadn’t been their style. They were all about intimidation and stealth (when hunting), not deception. More likely these were people from some of those villages. Which meant they were simply a distraction.

If whoever it was stumbled upon them, however, it could ruin the hunt. They’d have to get rid of the strangers before the Wraith arrived.

Ronon started to stand, reholstering his pistol, but Nekai gave him a curt gesture to return to his cover. “Why?” Ronon whispered across to the Retemite. “They’re not Wraith — they’re natives.”

“We don’t know that,” Nekai replied sharply. “And even if they are, they could still be working with the Wraith. Don’t let your guard down!”

Ronon shrugged and ducked back down behind his rock, but he didn’t draw his pistol. There was no point. He understood why Nekai was being cautious, and appreciated that, but whoever was approaching was making no effort to hide their location. They weren’t a threat. Ronon was sure of it.

Sure enough, the voices and footsteps and jangling increased in volume, and then a group of people came into view. They stopped when they saw Turen, then rushed toward her.

“Ancestors!” one of them swore, his hand going to a waterskin at his side. “Are you all right?”

“Did you fall?” Another asked, also moving closer. “Are you hurt?”

There were five of them in all, Ronon saw. They wore loose shirts and thin baggy pants and sturdy studded sandals that laced up their legs, with cloths over their heads and necks and faces to protect them from the sun. The jangling had come from the packs they wore, from which hung a variety of small metal and wood and what looked like bone items. Ronon spotted cups, bowls, serving spoons, small lanterns, and other household items. These men were merchants, or peddlers. He guessed they moved from village to village, selling or trading items they’d made and repairing others.

Each of them had a sword, long and thin and curved, stuck through the sash they wore for belts, plus a long knife and a pistol. But none of them were reaching for those, or even turning to check the area for possible dangers. They were clearly not trained for combat, and not expecting any trouble. They saw in Turen only a woman in trouble, and their first impulse was to help.

Ronon started to rise again, knowing he was right and determined to move these men along before the Wraith spotted them and saw through the planned ambush.

He was halfway out from behind his boulder when a pistol shot sizzled through the air. It took the first peddler through the throat. He crumpled, surprise registering just before his face went slack. The waterskin fell to the ground with a dull clatter, water spilling out across the rock.

Stunned, Ronon turned and glanced behind him. Nekai’s pistol was still extended, and he was switching his focus to one of the other men, who were now starting to cry out as they realized their friend was dead.

“Take them down!” Nekai shouted. Turen rose from her stooped position, knives flashing out and forward and across, and the second man dropped with a gurgling shriek, thin cloth and flesh alike sliced clean through. His blood mingled with the water as his body joined the first on the ground.

Then the other V’rdai were shooting as well. The three remaining peddlers never had a chance. One of them had shown enough presence of mind to drop down, but Nekai had chosen this ambush site well and Lanara caught the man through the throat, his ducking motion becoming a stumble and then a facedown splat upon the rough terrain. The other two had simply frozen at the sudden violence, and were picked off just as easily.

Within seconds the only people standing were Turen and Ronon. She was wiping her blades clean and returning them to their sheaths. Ronon thought he saw her hands shake slightly, but wasn’t sure. He was too busy turning to glare at Nekai, who was finally rising and stepping toward the carnage as well.

“Let’s get out of here,” Nekai said, finally lowering his own pistol. “This hunt’s ruined.”

“Ruined?” Ronon stared at him. “The hunt? What about them?” He gestured at the bodies.

“What about them?” Nekai squinted up at the sun. “Scavengers will find them soon enough. The sun will finish whatever they don’t. But no way the Wraith won’t notice the stench, or the blood. We’ll have to retreat, try again another time.”

“Never mind the hunt,” Ronon shouted, stepping closer to the other man. “You just murdered five people!”

Nekai met his glare, the Retemite’s scowl showing he was starting to grow angry as well. “‘You’?” he repeated softly. “We’re a team, Ronon. A unit. You’re one of us. Don’t go thinking you’re not.”

Ronon brushed the distinction aside. “Fine — we just murdered five people!”

“We did what we had to do,” Nekai answered. “That’s all. Now let’s go.”

He turned away, but Ronon wasn’t finished. “We didn’t have to do this!” he insisted. “They weren’t a threat to us!”

“Of course they were,” Nekai replied. “They interrupted our hunt. They could have attacked Turen.” The look of gratitude and hero worship she shot him almost turned Ronon’s stomach, especially after the violence he’d just witnessed. War was one thing, but slaughter was another. And this hadn’t been war.

“They didn’t draw a single weapon,” he pointed out. “They were offering her water! They were asking if she was hurt!”

“You’re going soft,” Lanara sneered, stepping close to Nekai. Turen’s happiness vanished instantly, replaced by the scowl she often wore these days. “They’re sympathizers. Sympathizers deserve to die.”

“Sympathizers?” Ronon glanced around at the others. Frayne and Adarr wouldn’t meet his eyes. Banje did, but his expression was unreadable. Turen was still scowling, as were Lanara and Nekai — he thought Turen was more annoyed at Lanara than at him but it was hard to tell. “What did you see that could possibly suggest they were sympathizers? They didn’t mention the Wraith, they aren’t carrying Wraith weapons, and they didn’t look like they were trying to hurt or capture Turen. They were going to help her! How does that make them sympathizers?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Nekai answered brusquely. “They weren’t part of this unit. That makes them the enemy.”

Ronon couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “What?”

“Look,” his mentor said, stepping a little closer to him. “You know the Wraith as well as I do. You know what they can do. They can get to anyone. They could turn them, or torture them, or simply bribe them. The point is, if we’d let them live, the Wraith could have used them to get information about us — and that would put all of us at risk. It would put our mission at risk.” He laid a hand on Ronon’s shoulder. “We couldn’t trust them not to turn on us, or to be turned against us. We can’t trust anyone except ourselves. It’s us against the Wraith, and with their influence that means we have to treat it as us against the rest of the galaxy. Everyone else has to be considered hostile. It’s the only way we can survive. The only way we can continue our hunt.”

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. Would kill any of us. Killing is all you have left. He admired Nekai, and respected him. But now he saw that the years of hunting, and of watching others die, had eaten away at the Vadai 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 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 Vadai, 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.