Nightfall

Chapter Three

“Get out of my damned way,” snarled Sheppard, barely keeping his temper in check.

The guard was a thickset man, his head shaven except for a queue of black hair extending down from the back of his scalp, and the light robes he wore rustled as he turned to block the colonel’s way, one hand dipping into the folds, reaching for a weapon. “You cannot enter here, voyager,” he grunted.

“Colonel —” Behind him, Keller started to speak but McKay silenced her with a shake of the head.

John stabbed a finger at the great lodge in front of him; it was the largest collection of woven pod-huts they’d seen so far in the settlement, something like a cross between a village hall and a townhouse. “This is Takkol’s place, right?” he demanded. “I want to see him, right now.”

“You cannot enter here,” repeated the guard, eyes darting around, looking for assistance. It was the early hours of morning and the walkways were deserted, the people all retired to their beds after the celebration.

Sheppard glowered at him, for one moment his hand wandering toward the grip of his P90; but then he shook his head. “You know something? I don’t have time for this. I apologise.”

The guard asked the question before he had even thought about it. “For what?”

The colonel’s free hand shot out and hit the man in a nerve point just above the clavicle; the guard howled in pain and clutched at himself, his arm suddenly going dead. “For that,” he replied, and shoved the man out of the way, taking the steps to the lodge door in two quick strides.

“Where’d you learn to do that?” said McKay.

“You spar with Ronon long enough, you pick up some things.” Sheppard shouldered open the wooden doors and advanced into the entrance hall. Other guards — the same ones who had been their ‘escorts’ earlier — appeared from side doors, each of them hoisting a short, spindly rifle, drawn by the yell from their comrade.

McKay clutched the butt plate his P90 to his shoulder, blinking, and at his side Keller moved nervously from foot to foot, not quite ready to draw the Beretta pistol that Sheppard had ordered her to strap to her leg.

“Takkol!” called Sheppard. “We need to talk.”

“What is the meaning of this?” From the upper tier of the hall came a grumbling, terse voice. The senior elder came forward on bare feet, angrily knotting the belt of his nightgown around the waist. “You cannot enter this lodge without my sanction, Colonel Sheppard! It is the dead of night! What do you think you are doing?”

“Where are they?” Sheppard demanded. “What have you done with our people?”

“Your people?” Takkol frowned and rubbed his face.

“Ronon Dex and Teyla Emmagan,” said Keller.

“I have no idea what you are talking about.” Takkol made a dismissive gesture.

At the door there was a commotion and Aaren entered, still dressed in his day clothes, his expression anxious. “Elder, I heard the noise, I came as quickly as I could…”

“Where are my people?” Sheppard turned the full force of his fury on the other elder. “Teyla left the celebration early, and I sent Ronon after her. Neither of them ever arrived at Jaaya’s lodge out by the tree’s edge. Where did they go?”

“Back through the Gateway, perhaps,” offered Takkol with a snort. “If you cannot keep track of your own people, that is your concern, not ours, Colonel!”

“They wouldn’t just leave,” insisted McKay. “Not without contacting us first.”

Takkol came down a line of wooden stairs, fixing the Atlanteans with a baleful stare. “You come here in the middle of the night to accuse us of misdeeds? You, visitors to our world, those who we have shown hospitality and openness?”

“The hell you have,” Sheppard’s voice was low.

Takkol’s eyes narrowed. “I will forgive your impertinence on the understanding you leave now and let me return to my rest…”

Aaren cleared his throat. “Elder, there has been a misunderstanding here. The missing voyagers… I know where they are.”

“What?” said McKay. “Where?”

The other elder nodded to himself. “There was… A sighting this night.”

A ripple of surprise moved across the faces of all the Heruuni in the room, throwing Sheppard off a little. “A sighting of what, exactly?”

Takkol’s manner changed immediately, his annoyance turning to understanding. “Of course. I should have realized…” He paused, thinking. “But still… So soon? It is unusual.” With an off-hand wave he gestured to his guards to lower their weapons.

“A witness said they saw the Giants out at the edge of the farmsteads. Perhaps they came early because of the arrival of the voyagers?” offered Aaren.

“Hey!” Sheppard barked, irritated at being ignored. “I asked you a question. I want an answer.”

Aaren favored him with that fake smile again. “Your friends Ronon and Teyla are well, Colonel.”

Rodney’s face fell as comprehension caught up with him. “Oh no.”

Sheppard felt ice forming in the pit of his stomach even before Aaren spoke again. “They have been given a gift by the Aegis. They are among the Taken.”

“You mean… Like Errian and the others?” said Keller.

“They will not be harmed,” Takkol said lightly, turning to walk back up toward his bedchamber. “The Taken are always returned safely within a span of two weeks. You will see them again.”

“Unharmed?” snorted Sheppard. “Like those people we saw in the sick lodge?”

Takkol rounded on him and glared down at the group. “There are some, it is true, who cannot support the great burden that the Aegis gives them. We do what we can for those souls who have been too close to the light of its protection.”

“That’s it?” Rodney shook his head. “You just let your people be kidnapped for who knows whatever reason and do nothing about it?”

“We didn’t sign up for this,” said Sheppard. “Two of my team are abducted and you knew all about it. In my book, that’s an attack on all of us.”

“There is no attack!” Aaren insisted. “The Aegis protects, it does not destroy!”

“It also does not ask permission,” said Keller.

“I’m sure they went of their own free will,” Takkol added.

Sheppard shook his head. “Trust me, I’m sure they didn’t.”

“How often does this happen?” McKay walked further into the room, talking directly to the senior elder. “Every month? Every week? Have you ever even seen this Aegis you keep talking about?”

“You have no right to come here and judge us,” Takkol folded his arms. “The Aegis has kept us safe for generations. It has turned the scourge of the Wraith from our skies, it has let our planet prosper. Do you understand that, Doctor McKay? Since the coming of the Aegis, there has been no conflict on Heruun! We are united under our great protector!”

“Yeah,” snorted Sheppard. “I can see how fear of being kidnapped from your house while you sleep would make you more worried about keeping awake, than picking fights with other settlements.”

“You do not understand our ways, this is apparent. Because of that, I will overlook your rash behavior here tonight. If there is no repeat of it, you are welcome to stay until your friends are counted among the Returned. But you will not interfere here or question our society.” Takkol shot Aaren a look and in turn his guards brought up their weapons once more. The message was clear. This conversation is over.

But that wasn’t enough for John Sheppard. He took a step forward, every gun in the room tracking him. “You know something? It’s clear to me you don’t understand our ways, either. Where we come from, we don’t turn our back on our friends.” He spun on his heel and strode out of the hall, Keller and McKay following along behind.

Rodney jogged to keep up with the colonel. “Boy, is he pissed off,” he told Jennifer out the side of his mouth. “Sheppard? Sheppard!”

“Colonel!” called Keller. “What are we going to do now?”

He shot them a look. “I tell you what you’re going to do. You two are going to go back to Jaaya’s place and stay there. Radio me if anything even remotely freaky happens, got it?”

McKay’s head bobbed. “Where are you going?”

“Stargate,” came the reply. “This has just become a rescue mission.”

The three of them rounded a thick trunk, passing out of sight of the guard on the door, who watched them go as he nursed the spreading bruise on his shoulder. He worked the muscle to get a little feeling back into it, and as soon as he was certain they were gone, he found a shadowed corner and removed a small roll of message paper and an ink-stone from his robes. He listened carefully at the window of the lodge, and then, taking care to be certain he was not seen, he scribbled quick, careful sentences on a length of the tissue-thin paper.

When he was done, the guard crossed the walkway to a nondescript lodge facing to the west. He tapped on a window blind and it was opened by an elderly woman, her tanned face like old leather. She gave him a nod; they knew each other well. “Here,” he said, handing her the slip of paper. “Soonir must see this, before high sun.”

The old woman nodded once and plucked the message from his fingers.

The metallic-electric rattle of the gate chevron sequence cut right through the web of thoughts in Samantha Carter’s mind. Without even pausing to think, she was out of her chair even as Chuck’s voice called out over the tower’s intercom.

“Unscheduled off-world activation!”

She still had the datapad she’d been reading and the coffee mug she’d been sipping from as she crossed the short skybridge from her office to the control tier. Carter glanced down into the gate room below and saw the third, then fourth chevron illuminate in clusters of brilliant blue dots.

“We’re not expecting anyone back,” she began. It wasn’t a question, but she got an answer anyway.

“Not for another few hours.” Radek Zelenka was at the main screen at the back of the room.

Carter put down her burden, frowning. She’d been around to see more spontaneous gate openings than anyone else on Atlantis, and still every time it happened there was a tightening in her chest that never went away. It was like the sound of your telephone ringing at three in the morning; unexpected and alarming, with that little voice in the back of your head telling you This isn’t going to be good.

The wormhole coalesced and thundered into shimmering solidity, the flash of the city’s iris field hazing over the Stargate a split-second later.

The technician looked up from his console. “I have Colonel Sheppard’s IDC, ma’am.”

Carter leaned over him and spoke into the radio. “Colonel? You’re early.”

If Sam suspected that something was amiss, then the tone of John Sheppard’s voice over the open channel confirmed it for her immediately. “More like too late, Colonel. We got a situation here.”

Zelenka gave her a worried look as he came closer. “Is everyone all right?”

“Teyla and Ronon are M-I-A. We think they’ve been kidnapped.”

Her lips thinned. “By the locals?”

Sheppard paused before answering. “Not exactly. It’s a little more complicated than that.”

“It usually is…” murmured Radek.

Carter spoke quickly to the technician. “Major Lorne and his team are on standby alert, get them up here, double-time.” Off his nod, Sam keyed the radio again. “Tell me what you can, Colonel.”

She could almost hear him frowning. In a lot of ways, Sheppard reminded her of Jack O’Neill; both men had their own casual, unconventional ways of command, both inspired loyalty and respect among their people, and both officers took the safety of their team personally. His voice was laced with frustration and annoyance as he gave a terse report on the situation on M9K-153. Carter listened with growing concern as Sheppard laid out his impressions of the locals, these Heruuni, and their stories of a mysterious guardian force, of ritualized abductions.

By the time he was done she had dozens of questions pressing at the front of her thoughts, but she held them back. “What’s your evaluation, John?” she asked, giving Major Lorne a glance as the officer came up the stairs in full battle gear, ready for deployment.

“Takkol and his elders aren’t going to give us any help,” said Sheppard. “And every second we waste, the trail goes colder. If we’re going to find Teyla and Ronon, we need to do it ourselves.”

Lorne’s eyes narrowed as he caught the last of Sheppard’s words. Carter knew without having to ask that the major would understand what was expected of him. “I concur,” she said to the radio. “I’m sending a support team through the gate now. Sweep the area and report back as soon as you have anything.”

“Roger that,” Sheppard replied. “I’ll be waiting.”

“Should we take a Puddle Jumper?” Lorne asked.

Sam shook her head. “Let’s hold off on that option for a moment. If we come through with too much firepower, there’s no telling how the locals —”

“Or this Aegis…” broke in Zelenka.

“…Will react,” Carter concluded. “You have a go, Major.”

Lorne saluted and rejoined his men, snapping out orders as he went.

Zelenka pushed his glasses back along his nose with a finger and frowned again. “Colonel Carter… Do you think an aggressive posture is the best one?”

“One squad of men isn’t aggressive, Radek,” she replied. “It’s prudent. If you have a better suggestion, I’d be happy to hear it.”

He hesitated, then nodded. “Of course. I didn’t mean to suggest otherwise.” But she could read the unspoken addendum in his eyes; he’s wondering how Elizabeth Weir would have dealt with this.

Sam’s civilian predecessor cast a long shadow over Atlantis; the woman had guided this place with intelligence and compassion through that difficult and lonely first year, and then for two more, facing challenges from all sides. And while Weir had never been one to shy away from making the hard calls, Carter still felt, even after weeks in that office, that there were some of the non-military staff who saw her as less a scientist and more a soldier. In truth, she was both, and Sam would have been hard-pressed to chose between which calling meant the most to her. Not for the first time, Carter wished she’d had more of a chance to get to know Elizabeth before the woman had been lost to them, if only for any advice she might have shared.

From below, the gate murmured as Lorne’s unit stepped into the ripples, and for a long moment Sam felt a tingle in the base of her feet; she was almost rocking on her heels, drawn by the glow of the open conduit. I want to go with them.

Outwardly, she was impassive, but inside Sam tried to push the thought away without success. It felt odd to stand here and send her people through the Stargate on mission after mission, to stand here and watch and wonder what they would be confronted with. Carter was no stranger to the burdens of command, but her duties had always taken her out there. Atlantis was the first time she found herself with the responsibility of staying behind, and with each passing day in that role she had new respect for Hammond, O’Neill and Landry, her former commanders; officers who had done what she did now, sending men and women into the unknown, silently hoping that each order they gave would be the right one.

Lorne was the last to step to the gate, and he paused on the threshold, glancing up at her. He gave a curt nod, and Carter returned it.

“Bring our people home, Major,” she told him.

“You can count on it, Colonel,” he replied, and vanished though the event horizon.

In the blood-warm darkness of the craft, the air was close and heavy with the sharp scent of sweat. Each footfall was light and difficult, the gravity generators beneath the bone plates of the deck working at their lowest setting, just like every other primary system aboard the ship. The vessel’s commander moved up to the cockpit using handholds formed from ropey sinew, placing each step with care. If he had stopped and listened carefully, he would have heard the labored rasp from the atmosphere processor’s lungs. They were working the craft hard, beyond its normal capacities and durations.

The gloomy interior of the ship took in light from a viewing slit across the bow and the pale blue-white glow of two monitor lenses; these screens were the only ones in active mode.

Two of the six other crewmembers stood at their stations; one, a drone, impassive and motionless, the other, a worker, hunched over a chiming console. The latter looked up at him as he entered the broad cockpit.

“There has been a change?” he asked, absently smoothing the front of his combat tunic.

The worker — a member of the scientist caste — nodded, his pale face shining in the screen-light. “A detection from the planet’s surface. Another activation of the portal. More new arrivals.” His voice was low, almost a whisper.

“Show me,” demanded the commander.

“See here,” said the scientist, working the console. “The energy release plume corresponds with the formation of another wormhole. And these lesser peaks?” He traced a long-nailed hand over a digital mountainside of readout spikes. “Transit outputs. Several humans left the portal only moments ago.”

He considered this for a moment, playing with a tuft of white, wiry hair on his chin. “More humans. Off-worlders.”

“Likely,” said the scientist. “Should we… Intervene?”

The commander glanced out of the viewing slit. Faint color from Heruun’s yellow-orange sun reached them through the mass of dust that was the planet’s ring system; hidden in the shadow of it, drifting over the night side, they were virtually invisible. “And how could we do that?”

The scientist licked his pallid lips. “Perhaps, if we tried a gravity descent —”

He turned and glared at the scientist. “Why do you whisper?”

His crewmate cocked his head. “I do not understand.”

“You speak so quietly. As if you are afraid.” The commander pointed at the curving bone walls around them. “As if you think your voice might carry out there, through the void. It’s a foolish conceit.”

The scientist considered this for a moment, then nodded self-consciously. “Perhaps so. It is a natural reaction, considering the…” He swallowed. “The threat.”

“The threat,” echoed the commander. “A threat your suggestion would rouse, if we were to intervene.” He put sarcastic emphasis on the final word. “I have no desire to be blasted from space as our other scouts have been. This ship has survived in this system longer than any other of our vessels, and that is because we have been careful.” He considered the commanders of the other scoutships that had come here and been obliterated; they had been rash and slow to control their baser impulses. He, on the other hand, was patient. It had taken them days to close to orbital range, drifting in from above the plane of the ecliptic without motive power, letting the gravity of Heruun snare them, pull them in. Now they were perfectly placed to fulfill their mission.

“We will remain, then? And do nothing?” An edge of challenge entered the scientist’s voice.

The commander studied him, slightly amused. The tension of the past days was clearly difficult for him to tolerate; the scientist was in danger of becoming aggressive. Still, as objectionable as he might have found him, the scientist was vital to the duty at hand. “We are doing something,” he hissed, showing a mouth of pointed teeth. “We are observing, and what we learn in that will lead our hive to victory. We will wait for the new arrivals to depart, and we will remain in silent mode until they do. The smallest mistake, the faintest glimmer of unmasked energy, and our lives will be forfeit. This planet’s protector will kill us without hesitation.” He loomed over the scientist. “Your caste is one of thinkers. Think on that.” He turned away, toward the cockpit’s iris door.

“There is another matter.” The scientist called after him.

He paused. “The hunger, yes?”

“Yes,” came the reply, and with it a hiss of raw need. “It’s been so long since we fed, and with a planet below untouched, filled with prey…”

The commander sneered. The subordinate castes did not have the fortitude of their warrior kindred. He too had not fed in some time, but he kept his hunger in check, containing it.

“There is no sustenance here,” concluded the scientist. “I do not know how much longer I can go without…”

“You are hungry?” he asked, drawing a stunner pistol from his belt. With a flick of his wrist he turned the weapon on the silent warrior and shot him at point-blank range. The drone-soldier collapsed to the deck. “Here. Feed, then. Take your fill, but do not dare question the orders of the Queen again.”

He waited a moment for the scientist to answer, but the other Wraith had already descended on the fallen warrior and jammed the feeding maw on his hand into its chest. With a sneer of disgust, the commander left him to his meal.

“McKay?”

Jennifer saw Rodney react with a start and pull the radio from the pocket on his gear vest. “Sheppard?” he replied.

The colonel was terse and clipped. “Carter’s in the loop. Lorne came through the Stargate with some backup. We’re doing a search-and-sweep of the area.”

“Have they found anything yet?” she asked.

Sheppard heard her question over the open channel. “One of Lorne’s boys spotted some scorch marks in the scrub…”

“Radiation burns?” said Rodney.

“Negative, we scanned ’em, they were cold. The only trace we found was Ronon’s gun. He must have dropped it, maybe during a struggle.” The colonel blew out a breath. “The power pack’s dead, but he never even got a shot off. It’s like it was drained.”

Keller said nothing. She’d seen Ronon Dex sparring in the gym, and Teyla fighting off four men at once on New Athos. An enemy that could take down both of them together had to be a formidable one.

Sheppard was still speaking. “So, in the meantime I need you and Keller to stay put until you hear from me, got it?”

McKay rolled his eyes. “Yeah, okay, mom.”

It was the wrong thing to say. “Don’t give me any static, Rodney, now’s not the time. Just sit tight and don’t screw around. We’ve got enough to deal with as it is.”

“We’ll be fine,” insisted McKay, gesturing around at the walls of Jaaya’s lodge. “I think later we’re even going to have some tea.”

There was a pause. “I’m sending a couple of men up there.”

“We don’t need babysitters,” retorted the scientist, throwing Keller a wan look, which she returned. “And you need every pair of eyes you’ve got. We’re fine. Honestly. You’re not the only one who knows how to handle a P90.” McKay nodded to himself.

“Whatever,” came the reply. “Ask Keller if you forget which end the bullets come from. Sheppard out.”

Laaro entered the small anteroom where they were sitting with a wooden food tray. “Your leader… He speaks like he mocks you,” observed the boy.

Rodney gave a weak chuckle. “He’s such a kidder.”

“We’re just anxious,” admitted Jennifer, breaking a small ball of baked bread that Laaro placed before her between her fingers. “Teyla and Ronon are very important to us.” She ate a little; the bread was tangy and flavorful.

Laaro sat and chewed on something leafy. Behind him, a dual sunrise painted the whole interior a warm golden hue. “Your friends… You are worried that they will return with the sickness.”

“We’re worried that they’ll ever return, period,” admitted Rodney. “Trust me, this kind of thing never ends well.”

Jennifer chewed her lip. “There could be another explanation. This might be nothing to do with the… The Aegis.”

Laaro shook his head. “No, it was the Giants who took Ronon and Teyla, and they serve the Aegis.”

“You know that for sure?” said Rodney.

The boy nodded. “I talked with Yuulo, who lives in the tall branches. It was he who saw the chariot come to the western farmstead. He told Elder Aaren.”

“Chariot? What is that, some kind of ship?”

“The Giants come and go in it. It is like a great shadow that moves over the ground.” Laaro held his hand flat and moved it in a slow, circular motion. “It is silent as a cloud, and dark like an ink-stone. Sometimes it rides in on rods of lightning, even though no rain falls.” He brought up another hand and crossed the thumbs, bringing the index fingers point-to-point, making a triangle. “This is its shape.”

“And these giant men?” Keller leaned closer. “What do they look like?”

Laaro shrugged. “I have never seen them. My father spoke of them…” He trailed off, his gaze turning inward. “He sometimes dreams poorly, and they haunt him in his sleep.”

Jennifer and Rodney exchanged looks. Laaro and his family were the closest thing to friends the Atlanteans had inside the settlement, but both of them were well aware that pushing the boy to say too much could make him clam up altogether.

“Do you know why the Aegis takes people?” said McKay. “Does your father ever speak about that?”

Laaro shook his head. “When the Taken become the Returned, they sleep a long sleep and remember nothing. Elder Takkol says this is for the best. He says that we are not ready to know all the secrets of the Aegis yet.”

“Do you agree with him?” Keller said gently.

Laaro stood abruptly, gripping the tray so hard his knuckles drew tight. “I think the Aegis should leave my father be. Take me instead, not him. He is not well.”

“Laaro…” began Jennifer, not sure what to say to make the youth feel better.

Jaaya’s voice called out from another room, and he followed it to the doorway. “I have to go. I will be back later.”

When they were alone, McKay turned to her. “Did you get all that? Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Probably not,” she admitted. Keller found McKay’s thought processes pretty hard to keep up with, truth be told. He had this tendency to bounce from idea to idea, concept to concept, with no apparent train of logic between them. Her grandmother had called that having a ‘mind like a grasshopper’.

“That stuff he described, the ‘chariot’ and the ‘giants’? Black triangles, weird lightning, people being kidnapped, missing time experiences?” He gestured with his hands. “What, you’ve never watched an episode of The X Files?”

“We didn’t really watch the Fox Network —”

McKay kept talking. “This is a classic alien abduction scenario!”

“Take a look around, Agent Scully,” she retorted. “We are the aliens on this planet.”

Rodney shook his head. “No, no. You’d be Scully, I’d be Mulder. Anyway. That’s not important.” He tapped a finger on his lips, warming to the subject. “We should check the abductees for implants or unexplained markings on their skin…”

“You want me to look for evidence of probing, too?” Keller asked; then she chuckled without humor. “And strangely enough, that wouldn’t be the oddest thing I’ve done since coming to Atlantis.”

McKay nodded in agreement. “It’s not science fiction if you’re living in it every day —”

There was a rattle and crash from elsewhere in the house, and Jennifer heard Errian’s voice, gruff and angry. Heavy footsteps came closers, and Laaro called out her name in a warning.

McKay dove at the rattan floor where he had laid down his P90. “Jennifer, get behind me, quick!”

Her heart thudding in her chest, Keller’s eyes darted left and right, searching for an exit route and finding none. The window slats, maybe? But then she remembered they were in a mammoth tree house hundreds of feet off the ground. Maybe not.

Rodney had the gun up as the sliding door was roughly forced open on its tracks. Two locals, who had all the thuggish bearing of Takkol’s guards but none of the uniform robes or bangles, entered with a wiry man following on behind. The skinnier guy was clearly the one in charge. He had a tight cut to his hair and it had been deliberately stained yellow with some kind of earth dye.

“Where’s Laaro?” McKay demanded. “Who are you people?”

“The boy isn’t hurt,” came the reply. The man had a clear, frosty voice. “And Errian knows better than to stand in my way.” He nodded toward one of the bigger men, making the warning against such foolishness clear. None of the men seemed to be concerned that Rodney was pointing a submachine gun at them. “My name is Soonir. I want to talk.”

“About what?” said Keller.

“The Aegis. The things that Takkol refused to speak of.” He said the elder’s name like a curse word. Soonir beckoned them. “Come with me. I know you seek information, I know about your friends among the Taken. There are things you need to see.” He paused. “You may bring the weapons you carry if you feel better protected with them.”

Keller shot McKay a quick look, both of them remembering Sheppard’s clear and unequivocal order to sit tight.

“We’re not going anywhere with you,” Jennifer told him.

Soonir let out a slow, measured breath. “Ah. Now, that’s not the best reply to give me.” He stepped back, giving his men room to work. “You see, voyagers, I will not take no for an answer.”