Nightfall

Chapter Two

Sheppard’s team knew the drill; this wasn’t their first rodeo, after all, and together the Atlanteans had encountered their fair share of places that seemed nice enough on the outside but nasty underneath. Isolated communities, strange goings-on, unexplained disappearances — it was all another day at the office for them. Leaving Laaro and Jaaya to put a weary Errian to bed, they elected to do a little bit of informal recon around the perimeter of the village.

The team split into two groups, McKay going with Ronon and Teyla joining Sheppard; only Keller was new to this. Her off-planet experience was minimal and it had been on Colonel Samantha Carter’s insistence that he’d taken Jennifer along on this mission. It wasn’t that John didn’t respect the young doctor or anything like that, but she was an unknown quantity. He wasn’t sure how she’d react in a given situation…and that was why he’d brought her with him instead of letting her tag along with Ronon.

And there was something else. Something going on between Keller and Teyla. Sheppard knew that recently the two of them had shared a dangerous experience when they were trapped by marauders on New Athos, and not for the first time he found himself wondering if something was being kept from him.

He dismissed the idea with a slight shake of his head. Keller didn’t seem the type for keeping secrets, and Teyla… Sheppard trusted Teyla implicitly. If there was something the Athosian woman had to tell him, she’d get to it soon enough.

Keller walked with them, her head turning this way and that as she tried to take in all the sights around them at once. “This place is so cool,” she said. “Can you imagine how much work it took to build something like this? A whole community, homes and a school and a market, a hundred feet off the ground.”

John nodded. He had to admit, he’d never seen the like himself. Broad wooden walkways curved around the main trunks of the giant trees in shallow spirals, with smaller avenues radiating off like the spokes of a wheel. The homes Keller talked about clustered to the sides of the spokes, held there by rope, wooden trestles and big fat gobs of what had to be some sort of natural resin glue. At first glance, the Heruuni settlement had a ramshackle, shanty-town look to it; but on closer inspection it became clearer that the folks who had constructed it knew a hell of a lot about engineering, and probably about just as much about ecology. They were walking through the greenest town they’d ever seen, in more ways than one.

“We’re being followed,” said Teyla quietly, darting her eyes behind her.

Sheppard nodded. “I had noticed.” It was hard not to. A troupe of bronzed kids, a mix of them maybe eight to twelve years in age, were pacing the three Atlanteans a little way behind them. Every now and then, a new child would slip out of a side avenue and join the bunch. They talked among themselves, pointing and giggling. “We’re like the circus come to town, I guess.” He smiled to himself, amused by the idea of how Ronon and Rodney would be dealing with the same thing.

It wasn’t just the children that were interested, though. Adults studied them from slat-windows or through half-open doors, but with an altogether more watchful and wary manner. For his part, John continued to smile a tight-lipped, neutral smile at all of them, and kept his hands away from the P90 strapped to his chest. He gave one man a jaunty nod and a “Howdy!” In return, the guy turned away and set off at a pace along a connecting rope-bridge. Sheppard shrugged. “Something I said?”

“They’ve never seen voyagers in the settlement before.” Laaro emerged from the lee of a overhanging branch up ahead and approached them. He nodded at the children. “It’s all new to them.”

“Not to you, though,” said Keller wryly.

“No,” Laaro agreed, playing it nonchalant in front of the other kids.

Sheppard had to hold down a smirk at the youth’s air of studied coolness. “You got over this side of the town pretty quick.”

“I know all the short-cuts,” he explained airily.

“How is your father?” Teyla asked.

A shadow passed over the boy’s face. “He’s resting now. But I…”

“What’s wrong?”

“I just wanted to make sure he was going to get better. Kullid knows all about that sort of thing.”

“The healer,” explained Keller, off a look from the colonel. “He was with Errian when we found him?”

Laaro pointed up along the curving thoroughfare. “The sick lodge is just ahead. He’ll be there. He’ll know what to do.”

Sheppard threw Teyla a level look. “Let’s go introduce ourselves, then.”

The sick lodge was a wide wooden disc wedged between two large tree trunks, held up by a fan of saplings cut from the living tree itself. Rattan window shades had been propped open to let in the morning air, but the place still had the faint scent of illness about it. Clockwork fans extending from the walls chattered slowly as they rotated, and all around Teyla saw low cots arrayed in circles. Many of them were occupied, mostly by men and women of a similar build to Errian. The Athosian woman found something about the place slightly disturbing; the quiet. The people in the beds did not moan or cry out. They seemed hollow and drawn, bereft even of the energy to do any more than lie dormant and breathe. One of them caught her eye — a man around her own age, or so she assumed — as he reached for a lacquered cup of water. Every move he made seemed like a huge effort, and she saw a twitch of palsy in his fingers as he eventually took his drink.

Teyla looked to Keller. “What is wrong with them?”

The doctor’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not certain…”

“There is no special name for it,” said another voice. “We just call it ‘the sickness’ and leave it at that.” A striking young man emerged from behind a hanging muslin curtain. “Jennifer…” he said, with a wan smile, the woman’s name sounding odd in his accent. “These are more of your people?”

“I brought them here,” insisted Laaro, as if that fact would entitle him to something.

“Colonel Sheppard and Teyla Emmagan,” said Keller, indicating them in turn.

He bowed slightly. “My name is Kullid. How can I help you?”

Jennifer’s manner changed before Teyla’s eyes. Outside on the walkway she had seemed enraptured by the alien world around them, almost enthusing over every new sight and sound; but the moment they had entered the sick lodge she became focused and intent, her medical training taking over by instinct. She reacts to this the way I would react to the sight of an enemy; her skills come to the fore.

“Actually, maybe we can help you,” Keller began. “If there’s a disease here, we have a lot of medicines where we come from. We might be able to find a cure —”

Kullid shook his head. “It’s not a disease, not in the manner of something that can be spread by infection. This malady is inflicted upon our people.” His manner grew grave and Teyla saw him shoot a look at Laaro, as if he didn’t want to say too much in front of the boy.

Keller’s mind was working as she studied the patients in the room. “Disorientation? Chronic fatigue, physical weakness?”

Sheppard frowned. “The same as —”

“My father,” Laaro broke in, swallowing hard. Abruptly the deliberate bravado the youth had shown outside melted away and all at once he was just a scared little boy. “He’s worse. Worse than he was the last time. I knew it would happen if he went to the Aegis again… I knew it…” He trailed off.

Kullid put a friendly hand on Laaro’s shoulder. “I’ll come to your lodge later, before the celebration, see to him, yes?” Laaro looked at the ground and nodded. “But you should go home now.” He ushered the boy out toward the door.

Laaro composed himself and looked at Sheppard. “If you need a guide, I can do it. Come find me.”

“Will do,” said John.

The moment the boy was gone, Keller shrugged off the medical pack she was carrying. “His father has this… ‘Sickness’ too?”

Kullid nodded. “At first it was only one or two of the Taken and Returned who had it, and then they would recover in a few days. Now…” He spread his hands, taking in all of the sick lodge. “More.”

“Laaro said the last time,” noted Sheppard. “How many times has his dad gone missing?”

“This is the fourth Returning for Errian,” Kullid replied grimly.

“I want to draw some blood,” said the doctor. “Maybe run an analysis?” She pulled a syrette from her pack.

The Heruuni healer held out a hand to stop her. “It… You must not.”

“She’s offering to help. We all are,” Teyla told him.

“I can’t let you.” Kullid was shaking his head, making dismissive gestures with his hands even though the tone of his voice said the exact opposite of his words. “I’m sorry. You must go. Laaro should never have brought you here.”

Keller held out the injector. “If this is some local taboo thing, then you do it. Just put the needle in the vein.”

“No!” he snapped. “Please don’t ask me any more!”

Teyla felt the tension in the room jump a notch as one of the less listless patients around them reacted to some new arrivals. She turned, her hand dropping by reflex toward one of the fighting spars sheathed on her thigh.

Elder Aaren and a trio of men bearing similar golden bracelets of rank filled the sick house doorway; Teyla recognized one of them as the man who had disappeared in the street after Sheppard had greeted him.

Aaren’s expression shifted from annoyance to suspicion and then finally settled on a forced geniality. “What brings you here, Colonel Sheppard?” It was less a question, more a demand. “This really isn’t a suitable place for voyagers.” He gave Kullid an acidic glance.

“I’m a doctor,” Keller replied. “A healer. We have a lot of experience with infections, and we could help —”

Aaren cut her off with a tight, false smile. “No need. The Aegis will provide, and our friend Kullid has everything else in hand.” He beckoned them with the same gesture he had used before, out in the grasslands. “Come now. Elder Takkol would be most distressed to learn you were in this place.”

“Who?” said Sheppard.

“The settlement leader,” explained Kullid. “Elder Aaren’s superior.”

Aaren nodded. “He asked me personally to see to your well-being. He looks forward to meeting you at the feast…” At a nod from the elder, the three larger men standing silently behind him took a step forward; a thinly-veiled threat lay beneath their manner and Sheppard saw it, stepping into their path.

“Hey, how you guys doin’?” he asked mildly. The colonel’s eyes said something very different, however.

Keller spoke again, her tone rising. “I’m not going to stand by and —”

“Jennifer,” Teyla silenced her. “Perhaps we should respect the elder’s request. We are guests on his world, after all.”

“You are, certainly,” Aaren insisted.

The doctor looked down at the syrette in her hand, and then returned it to her pack with a frown. “Okay,” she said at length, clearly unconvinced.

“My men will escort you back to Jaaya’s lodge,” Aaren insisted, before any more words could be spoken. In a silent line, they followed the elder’s guardians out and back into the bright sunshine of the morning. As they walked away, Teyla caught the sound of two men arguing; the words were indistinct, but she knew it was Aaren and Kullid.

“That was… Interesting,” said Sheppard, in low tones that didn’t carry to the ears of their erstwhile new companions.

“Some of those people were dying,” hissed Keller, drawing a sharp look from Teyla. “We can’t just walk away from that!”

“We’re not walking away,” John insisted.

“Looks that way to me, Colonel,” Keller retorted. “It looks exactly like that.”

“The direct approach is not always the best one,” Teyla explained. “We cannot afford to disaffect these people. Your actions may have angered them. They may have cultural strictures against alien intervention.”

Keller sniffed. “What kind of strictures do they have about letting sick people die?”

Sheppard threw her a look. “Look, Doctor, I know your heart’s in the right place, but trust me, you try to bulldoze these people and they’ll dig their heels in. I know Aaren’s type, I’ve dealt with them before.” He sighed. “Too many damn times.”

The other woman lent in closer and when she spoke, she said the words that John Sheppard had been thinking. “That wasn’t about any ‘taboo’ thing back there. We stuck our nose in the wrong place and the people in charge didn’t like it. We saw something we weren’t supposed to.”

“Maybe so,” he agreed, “but still, we’re supposed to be playing this sortie on the down-low. We’re not here to mount a humanitarian mission. This is a reconnaissance.”

“I think the mission has changed, Colonel,” Keller replied. “It changed the moment we stepped through the Stargate.”

Sheppard blew out a breath. “Story of my life.”

They walked in silence for a while before Teyla spoke again. “John…” She said his name like a quiet challenge.

He didn’t look at her. “Go ahead, say it.”

The Athosian grimaced. “I think Doctor Keller is right. We should consider being more… Candid about our purpose here on Heruun. If only to build some trust with these people. We cannot expect them to be open with us if we keep things from them.”

Sheppard eyed her. “I’m not ready to do that yet. We’ve only just got here. There are still too many unknowns…” He stopped and gave a dry, humorless chuckle. “Like that’s a change from the usual.”

But the fact was, John didn’t like it any better than she did. He thought about the reasons they were here, and for a moment, he was back there in Atlantis’s control room, his arms folded across his chest as he watched Zelenka and McKay give an animated briefing in front of one of the big screens.

Radek pointed at a single star out at the edge of a nebula. “M9K-153, according to the Ancient database, an Earth-normal world with a planetary Stargate.” The Czech scientist adjusted his glasses.

“Ordinary and uninteresting, rather like my colleague here,” added McKay, ignoring the affronted look his comments brought him, “or at least it was until recently.” Rodney worked a datapad and remotely toggled a series of sensor overlays, placing one on top of another. “We’ve been monitoring Wraith activity as far as the city’s sensors can scan, keeping a check on the battle lines in the fight with the Asuran replicators…”

Sheppard nodded. He knew all this; heck, he’d been instrumental in kicking off the whole Wraith-Replicator punch-up. “The more of them that wipe each other out, the better it is for the rest of us. What does all that have to do with some backwater planet?”

“There’s been some unusual activity around 153,” said Zelenka.

Standing opposite from him, Colonel Carter ran a hand through her blonde hair and studied the display. “Define ‘unusual’.”

Zelenka nodded. “I will. We didn’t catch it before because we weren’t looking for it. But a few weeks ago this happened…”

“This is a playback of a real-time feed from the sensors,” added McKay.

Sheppard watched as the scanner showed the appearance of what was definitely a Wraith scout vessel at the edge of the star system. The glowing target glyph drifted closer toward planet M9K-153, and then vanished without warning.

“Gone,” said Rodney.

“Destroyed,” clarified Radek. “There was an energy release consistent with a reactor explosion, but no sign of any enemy craft in the area. It seems to have just… Blown up.”

Carter shrugged. “A Wraith scout suffered an engine malfunction. So what?”

“That was my first assumption, too,” said McKay, “and just as incorrect as yours. Look at this.” He tapped the datapad and Sheppard watched a replay of what he had just seen.

“That’s the same thing. Why show it to us again?”

“Aha,” McKay grinned. “That’s just it. It’s not the same display. Check the timestamp. This is months before.”

“And here’s another. And another.” Zelenka pulled up four replays, all of which showed a Wraith scout ship entering the 153 system and coming to an untimely — and baffling — end.

“We dragged all this data together from dozens of different places, the city sensor logs, astronomical records, even material we salvaged from Wraith ships.” Rodney tapped the screen. “Something weird is going on out there, something that can apparently swat starships out of the sky just like that.” He snapped his fingers for emphasis.

Carter nodded slowly. “Well, I’m interested.”

“And so are the Wraith,” added Radek. He worked the controls to zoom out from the nearby stellar group to a wider zone of local space. “We’ve been picking up increased chatter between vessels in one of their clans.”

“It’s encrypted, so we can’t read it,” said McKay, “but combined with pattern matching of their ship movements and we’ve got a pretty good idea of what’s going on.”

On the screen, a single glyph detached itself from a larger fleet and followed a course toward a white dwarf star several light years distant from M9K-153. “That’s a Hive Ship,” said Carter. “They’re bringing in the bigger guns.”

John mulled it over, trying to imagine how he would have addressed the same problem. “They’ve had their nose bloodied. They wouldn’t just send in a capital ship, not if there’s a chance it’d go the same way as the scouts.”

“Yeah,” sniffed McKay. “Kaboom.”

“The Wraith are staging here,” said Carter, pointing at the dwarf star. “Waiting for something.”

“But we don’t know what,” admitted Zelenka.

John looked over at his commanding officer. “So, what do we do about it?”

Carter nodded at the screen. “We go to M9K-153 and take a look.”

“And if there are people living there? What do we tell them? Hey, how are you, nice to meet you, don’t want cause a panic but there’s a Wraith warship floating around one hyperspace jump from your front door…”

“Atlantis has had enough problems with Wraith sympathizers, Genii and Replicators…” She met his gaze. “Until you find out for sure what’s going on, this information remains classified among our personnel, Colonel.”

Sheppard blinked away the moment of memory. Carter’s orders made sense on one level; if his team had come through the gate spouting doom-laden warnings about a Wraith invasion, there was no way of knowing how the locals would react. At best they’d cause a panic, at worst they might end up burned at the stake, or something equally unpleasant. But still… He didn’t like keeping secrets. It cut against his grain.

John was aware of Teyla watching him. “How are we to proceed, Colonel?” She asked the question with careful formality.

“Same way we always do. Figure it out as we go.”

The sun had set by the time the celebration for the Returned got under way, and it seemed as if the entire population of the tree-village was packed into the central town square, along with braziers and big iron griddle troughs laden with food.

Of course, the square was actually oval in shape, and the whole idea of having naked flames burning in a place that was made almost entirely of wood did not sit well with Rodney McKay, even if the locals seemed unconcerned by it. He followed the rest of the Atlantis team into the open area, all of them in turn moving under the hawkish gaze of one of Aaren’s so-called ‘assistants’. Sheppard had told him of his encounter with the elder at the sick lodge; apparently the leaders of the settlement didn’t like the idea of outsiders — voyagers, as they insisted on calling them — wandering around unsupervised. There hadn’t been a threat, per se, but it had been clearly implied that this wasn’t the done thing. Ronon, typically, didn’t react well to that. Rodney could almost hear the Satedan bristling at any suggestion of being told what to do.

“Huh,” said Keller quietly. “A few beer coolers and this could be a tailgate party.” The whole celebration-feast-whatever-it-was had the manner of a summer barbeque to it, informal and relaxed, although McKay had to admit he wasn’t feeling any of that at all. He never liked parties. It was a deep-seated disdain for them he’d developed as a teenager; they always seemed so staged, so false, just a place to parade yourself around and mingle. Well, Rodney McKay did not do mingling. It wasn’t his thing.

“So what happens?” he asked, glancing at Teyla. “Do you think they bring out a big ‘Happy Returned Day’ cake with candles and frosting?”

She shot him a look. “I think everyone here is just happy their loved ones are back with them.”

“Oh. Yes.” He immediately felt like a heel. Way to go, McKay. Why don’t you remind her again about her people still being missing?

Aaren approached them, and with him came an imposing bald man in a long toga-like robe flanked by two more well-muscled flunkies. Like Aaren, this new arrival had an impressive number of metal bangles up his arm, but unlike him there were more hanging from a leather necklace about his throat. He was a few years Aaren’s senior and he had enough decorations on him to snap a Christmas tree. This had to be the guy in charge.

“Voyagers,” began Aaren. “Let me introduced Elder Takkol, our community leader.”

Takkol gave a shallow bow and he studied each of them in turn. The man had a square face with deep-set, searching eyes and a thin mouth. He smiled a little, but it seemed perfunctory, as if he had something better to do than to be talking to them. When he spoke, it was like he was giving a lecture. “Aaren has told me much about you and your friends, Colonel Sheppard. I welcome you to Heruun on this special day. I hope you will enjoy our hospitality.”

“I’m sure we will,” Sheppard replied. “And I hope you and I could speak later.”

Takkol hesitated; Rodney could see the man was already mentally moving on, about to dismiss them, and John’s comment caught him off-guard. “I’m sure Aaren can deal with any questions you might have.”

McKay sensed Keller shifting impatiently, her hands knitting together. She hadn’t been the same since they had returned from the sick lodge, withdrawn and quiet. Once or twice, Rodney had spotted her working on her laptop, paging through the medical database stored on the computer’s hard drive, frowning as she looked for answers that weren’t there.

Sheppard must have noticed as well. “We’d like to offer the help of Atlantis,” he continued. “With your medical problems? Consider it a gesture of goodwill from us.”

“Really?” Takkol gave Aaren a sideways look. “That is a most generous offer. I will certainly take it under consideration.” Keller opened her mouth to speak, but Takkol cut her off. “But if you will excuse me… I must circulate. It is expected of me.” The elder drifted away, giving Aaren another glance. In turn, his subordinate put on that same fake smile he’d worn before.

“There is a meal for everyone tonight, including our visitors,” he explained. “Please partake. It is our way of thanking the Aegis for its protection.”

“And for letting you have your people back?” Ronon asked, an edge of sarcasm in his words.

Aaren gave no sign of noticing. “Of course.” He wandered away, leaving the Atlanteans to their own devices.

“That was productive,” Keller deadpanned.

Ronon folded his arms. “Can we eat now?”

Sheppard nodded. “Yeah, go ahead. But mind your manners.”

“I’m the picture of politeness,” replied the Satedan.

McKay drifted after Ronon toward the food trays and watched the other man hunt and gather his way though a spread of different dishes. Rodney was more careful; after all, the ex-Runner could stomach just about anything even remotely edible, while McKay had the whole citrus thing to think about and a marked aversion toward even mildly spicy food. He could never understand the appeal of eating something that actually hurt. He got some rough flatbreads and what appeared to be cheese, and found himself at the end of the troughs where warm and savory meat-smells filled the air. A large pot caught his eye.

“That’s whole roast mai,” said Jaaya, walking up to his side. “Would you like to try one?” She opened the lid and Rodney spied a hairless animal torso bobbing in some thin soup. It looked like…

The woman continued. “Laaro was in the party that caught them. These are the young of the hunter cats, so it’s very tender.”

He thought of the big lion-things that had stalked around them out in the grasslands and swallowed hard. “You’re saying that’s a roasted…kitten?”

Jaaya nodded, and McKay blanched. He had no doubt one of the feline beasts would have little qualms about eating him, but doing the reverse suddenly seemed unpalatable. “Uh… Could I just get a green salad instead?”

He left Jaaya at the server and found Ronan and the others in the shadow of a leafy branch. Keller studied her food with a similar look of doubt to Rodney, while Sheppard and Dex ate like they hadn’t had breakfast. Teyla sipped water and pushed her food around its bowl, looking distracted.

“You see Errian?” said the Satedan, around a mouthful of something. “Over there.”

McKay glanced over and followed Jaaya back to her table. Laaro was with his father, talking intently to the older man, but he seemed unaware of the distant look on Errian’s face. “He looks a bit… I don’t know, spaced out.”

“He’s not the only one. See the others? The Returned?” Sheppard indicated with the jut of his chin.

Chewing on a bit of rind, Rodney let his gaze wander across the whole distance of the oval, and one by one he picked out the people who didn’t quite fit. Here and there, men and women, some younger, some older. He thought back to what Jaaya had said. Twenty are taken, twenty are returned. All of the Returned had the same look about them, a weariness that seemed bone-deep, like each one of them had just come off a fifty-mile hike. Suddenly McKay became aware of something in the mood of the celebration. He hadn’t noticed it at first, but the more he looked the more he saw it; for all the smiles and jocularity, there was something strained about it all. Like the parties of his youth, it all seemed like a big show. For us? he wondered. Or are they just trying to convince themselves that everything’s okay?

Teyla sighed and drew back. “Colonel, if I may, I would like to turn in early.”

“Sure,” said Sheppard. “You okay?”

Rodney saw Keller pause in mid-bite, watching the Athosian. Teyla gave a wan smile. “It’s the heat. It’s quite tiring. And the food, it’s not to my tastes.”

“There’s ration packs in the gear back at Jaaya’s lodge,” began the doctor.

Teyla nodded. “If you’ll excuse me.” She gathered up her tunic and left them behind.

After a moment, Ronon leaned over and pointed at her unfinished meal. “Any of you going to eat this?” He didn’t wait for an answer, and helped himself.

When McKay turned to Sheppard, he found him looking directly at Keller. Jennifer broke off and went back to her food.

Ronon licked some gravy off the second bowl and set it down, missing the moment entirely. “So do we just get one helping, or what?”

Teyla walked back through the winding avenues of the settlement, having memorized the route on the way to the celebration. The lanterns were lit on every intersection, and warm glows spilled from homes on either side of the street; but there were few people around, and as she moved further away from the central oval, the sounds of life grew fainter until all she could hear was a distant murmur of voices and the chorus of some sort of insect life. The little nightflyer bugs haloed the street lights, settling now and then to make a chit-chit-chit drone before humming away again. The noise added to the drowsy feeling brought on by the close, humid air of the evening.

She frowned as she walked, the expression marring the pleasant lines of her face. Teyla did not deal well with weakness in herself, as much as she strived to, but in all truth she had been feeling her energy drop far faster than was usual for her. She did her best to make no issue of it, but privately she wondered how much longer she would be able to keep her secrets. Soon she would begin to show, and then… Then they would all change in the way they treated her. Teyla knew what would happen; John, Samantha, Rodney and all the others, they would mean well but they would treat her as if she were made from spun glass. And above all, Teyla Emmagan despised the idea of being treated like a invalid.

While at once she was elated by the prospect of a new life growing inside her, she could not help but be afraid of what changes a pregnancy — and indeed, a child — would wreak on her life. She remembered the compassionate expression on Jennifer Keller’s face when she broke the news, and for a moment experienced again the strange mingling of joy and sadness she had felt. Joy at such great news, sadness that she could not share it with the father of her unborn. Kanaan’s face rose to the front of her thoughts as it did so often these days, and for a moment Teyla wished that she could have him return to her so easily as Laaro’s father had come back to him.

The apprehension in the young boy’s eyes found its mirror in Teyla. He feared for his parent, for his father’s health, just as she was so afraid of what unkind fate had befallen her people on New Athos. Teyla paused and gripped the careworn rail of a balcony, staring out into the night, looking up at a sky of alien stars. Somewhere out there, her people waited for her to rescue them, and she vowed she would, even if it meant going into battle with a weapon in one hand and her newborn in the other —

A dash of light in among the thin clouds caught her eye and Teyla turned to study it; but no sooner had she looked than it was gone. A flash of lightning, perhaps? But there was no thunder, no distant stormhead on the horizon.

“Hey.”

She turned to see Ronon Dex walking purposefully toward her. Teyla’s eyes narrowed. “Colonel Sheppard sent you after me.” It wasn’t a question. “I can take care of myself,” she began, her tone more defensive than she would have liked.

The big man shrugged, apparently unconcerned. “Ah, I was getting bored anyway. Food was good but the portions were small. Then that Takkol guy started making a speech and all of a sudden I felt restless.” He smirked slightly.

“You would prefer a less pleasant evening?” She raised an eyebrow.

Ronon nodded; he had no artifice about him. “We’re not here to play nice with people, Carter said as much. If there’s something going on here, Wraith or otherwise, we need to find out, drag it into the light…” He hesitated, looking over Teyla’s shoulder, out across the balcony.

She instinctively turned to follow his gaze. “Did you see something?”

The Satedan came to the edge of the balcony and looked down. Arranged in radiating rings beyond the canopy of the massive tree were curved plots of cultivated land turned over to crops and herd animals. He pointed. “Something moving down there. Like a… A shadow dropping out of the sky, black against black.”

Teyla opened her mouth to speak again when she saw the flicker of light again; but this time it was low to the ground, a quick-blue white flash out by the edges of one of the farm sectors. The light was strobe-bright and it faded just as fast as it came, leaving a purple after-image on her retina. A triangular shape, hovering slightly above the ruddy brown earth.

“I saw that,” Ronon growled.

Then a woman’s scream reached them, thin and faint but still distinct.

Dex moved quickly. There was a rope ladder-pulley affair close to the balcony, extending down through a square hole cut in the decking. He gave it a hard tug to check it, and then looped the guide cord around his hand. It was rigged for a fast-decent, maybe for use as some kind of fire escape or emergency egress; it would get him down to the ground in seconds.

Teyla had her radio raised to her lips. “John, do you read me? Colonel Sheppard, I think —” She stopped and stared at the device. “It’s not working. The radio has gone dead.” The woman paused. “Perhaps they would have heard the cry.” She glanced around, but there was no-one about.

“Not from out here.” Ronon felt a sudden, strange chill on the skin of his bare arms, and for a moment there was a metallic scent in the air like ozone. It seemed harsh and out of place among the warm odors of the trees. Then there was the scream again; a pure, animal sound of primal fear. “I’m going out there,” he snapped.

“Not alone,” she began, but he had already kicked off and was dropping toward the ground in a swift, controlled fall.

Ronon hit the dirt ready, his gun hand coming up with the brutal shape of the particle magnum. Teyla was a heartbeat behind him, and the defiant look she gave him dared the Satedan to suggest that she remain behind. He nodded. “Don’t slow me down,” he offered. It was as close to an assent as she would ever get.

They moved in quick, loping bursts of motion, staying to the edges of the farming tracks, dodging around low-lying huts and the stubby pillars of grain silos. The light flashed again, and Dex hissed in annoyance as the actinic blaze of color robbed him of his night vision. In the moment of brilliance, he saw the sharp-sided shadow of a barn and figures moving around it. He wondered if the light cast some kind of optical illusion; the man-shapes he saw were out of scale, too big to be humans.

Teyla kept pace with him, panting in the silence. “It could be raiders, perhaps from another village…”

“Or not,” Ronon said in a low voice.

And then the scream came a third time, chilling his blood as it suddenly ceased in mid-cry.

He broke from cover, leading with the pistol, and sprinted the rest of the distance toward the barn. The warrior’s battle-honed combat sense took in a dozen impressions at once; he saw a dozen stumpy herd beasts all fallen on their sides, as if they had been knocked down by a stun beam; he tasted the bitter ozone stink again, strong and acrid on his tongue; and out beyond the curved roof of the barn, lying in the long grass on a halo of muted green light, the shadow he had glimpsed from the balcony.

It was a craft of some kind, triangular, featureless and matt black. It hovered silently, drifting slightly from side to side like a boat at anchor.

“Not Wraith…” he said aloud. In fact, it was like nothing he had ever seen before, not in his service to Sateda, not in his time with the people of Atlantis.

“Ronon!” Teyla’s warning cry snapped him back to battle-ready and he spun in place as gangly humanoid shapes emerged from inside the barn. The first of them had a woman cradled gently in its arms, in the manner an adult would use for a small child. The Heruuni female was slack like a rag doll, and her sightless eyes stared into the distance.

The next two walked in military lockstep, heads turning as one to stare at the Satedan and the Athosian. They were giants; a full head taller than Dex, they were dense with planes of muscle that shifted beneath grey-green flesh. Long, whipcord arms raised from their sides, each ending in fingers with too many joints; and their features were strange parodies of human faces, less than sketches really, with inky, dark eyes that he could not read. They studied them while the one carrying the woman walked carefully toward the grounded flyer.

Then they came at them, and they were fast. Ronon saw something in their hands, a glassy egg that had to be some kind of weapon. His gun came up in an arc and he squeezed the trigger; but to no effect. The energy pistol was inert, the glowing power cell behind the beam chamber suddenly dark. Dex had a moment of shock; he had fully charged the weapon before leaving Atlantis, and not fired a single shot since they exited the Stargate.

One of the hulking figures threw a blow at him that he almost didn’t escape; the creatures moved too rapidly for something of their size and mass. Ronon spun, ducking low, and landed a punch on the meat of his attacker’s torso. His knuckles scraped dry, powdery skin, but the force of the impact had no obvious effect. No moan of pain, no reaction, nothing.

He was aware of Teyla sparring with the second creature, her fighting sticks in her hands, each one a blur as they spun in the light from the craft. She too landed blows, and like Ronon’s, any effect they had was invisible.

His adversary turned the egg-device on him and it glowed within. The Satedan felt a strange chill wash over him and without warning his muscles bunched and locked in paralysis. It became hard to breathe, as even his chest refused to move to push new air into his lungs. Something dropped from his fingers into the grass at his feet; his useless pistol.

Teyla! He wanted to cry out, wanted to warn her, but his body would not obey him. He stood there, trembling, a statue of meat and bone.

Ronon could not turn his head to look in her direction; so it was that he only saw her again when one of the giants carried her past him, following in the footsteps of its predecessor. He saw her face, her eyes blank and empty just as those of Heruuni woman; then his foe came closer, filling his sight with its strangely unfinished features. The glassine ellipse came up and he heard a whining from inside it move through the bones of his skull. The sound grew and grew, blotting out everything, every thought he could form, washing away every last trace of awareness.

Ronon Dex tried to bellow his defiance; he tried and failed.