The Chosen

Chapter Ten

Yann and his fishermen buddies were waiting at the clearing that had more or less become their official landing site. No sooner had the Major shut down the engines than the whole group came tromping up to the hatch.

“Here goes nothing,” Sheppard muttered.

Rodney hitched the medical pack on his shoulder and stepped out of the jumper.

“You have brought the potion?” Yann asked in lieu of any greeting.

“It’s right here.” Rodney patted the pack.

Immediately, the pair of fishermen moved to take it from him, but Sheppard stepped in to block them. “We’ll hold onto it until we see our friends, all right?”

Their faces twisted in identical scowls. “And how are we to know that the potion truly works?”

Sheppard didn’t bat an eye. “This is not negotiable.”

The men either didn’t recognize the word or didn’t care. Even though he was pretty sure the Major had stashed an additional weapon somewhere on his person, Rodney didn’t like these odds. “You need us to show you how to administer the gene therapy,” he said hurriedly, at last halting the men’s advance.

Cocking a thumb over his shoulder at his teammate, Sheppard added, “What he said.”

Yann raised his voice above the resentful grumbles. “It is a fair bargain. Come.”

After retrieving their Shields, they were led back through the village and into the transport, a route Rodney was beginning to think he could now travel in his sleep. When the transport doors began to open, however, the dynamics of the situation once more abruptly shifted. A hard shove from behind propelled him out into the Sanctuary Hall. An even harder shove sent Yann sprawling out across the grubby floor, which, given the size of the merchant, was an indication of the aggression of the person doing the pushing.

Rodney suspected that the only reason why he’d been treated to less force was that he was carrying the medical pack — which he would no doubt be divested of in short order, because it seemed that Yann wasn’t the only one who wanted it. Great. Things had just gone from extremely bad to incalculably worse.

“What are you doing?” The merchant rolled over and shouted at his erstwhile fishermen buddies. “What is this?”

The Sanctuary Hall was deserted except for some overfed official types who dressed more outrageously than Kesun, backed up by a bunch of goons armed with long daggers — or maybe they were short swords. For a brief moment, Rodney wondered if he and Sheppard had not somehow been transported into an entirely different city, perhaps even a different planet — until he noted that two of the goons were carrying their P-90s in such a way that suggested they’d figured out how to use them. Then Rodney spotted Balzar’s smirking face. “The genetherapy,” commanded the chief, stepping menacingly toward them. “The potion of which you spoke to Yann. Give it to us. And the small weapon you carry.” His eyes fell to the holster strapped to the Major’s leg.

“Now, is that any way to ask?” Sheppard replied.

“You wish to see your friends again?”

Rodney could have sworn that, despite a moment’s hesitation, Sheppard handed over his handgun nicely, but the goons felt inspired to show them who was boss. While two of them held the Major’s arms behind his back, one sent a punch into his stomach that doubled him over. A second fist to Sheppard’s face jerked him out of the arms of the men and threw him against the wall of the transport. It didn’t knock the Major out, but as he pulled himself to his feet, spitting out a mouthful of blood, the cut on Rodney’s arm began a sympathetic ache.

“What the hell did that prove?” The goons who had been doing the punching turned their attention to Rodney, and his brief burst of outrage evaporated. Backing away, he muttered, “Maybe I should just shut up.”

“Good idea, Rodney.”

Sheppard’s belated advice was lost, however, because Yann was now shouting at his ex-fishing buddies, “You…treacherous barbarian scum. You agreed that the potion should go to the poor!”

“The poor have no knowledge of how to govern,” scoffed Balzar. He swung the handle of an axe against the young merchant’s legs, forcing him to his knees, and demanded of Rodney again, “The genetherapy?”

Rodney saw no point in being beaten into submission. But as he pulled the pack from his shoulders, he was compelled to ask the other chiefly looking types, “Who are you people?”

“Who are we?” snarled the largest of the overdressed officials. “You come to our city and conspire with village rabble like this—” He directed a ruthless kick at Yann’s left kidney, which sent the young merchant sprawling again. “—to overthrow our rule, and you demand to know who we are?”

“Your rule,” choked Rodney. “But I thought…”It was then that he realized that none of the officials wore Shields. They weren’t Chosen. Given the air of absolute authority being wielded, the awful truth struck him with a force that was almost as crippling as the blows that had been rained on Sheppard and Yann.

Balzar snatched the bag from his hands and handed it to the official doing the talking. The man wrestled with the unfamiliar pack for a moment before taking a step forward and shoving it in Rodney’s face. “I am Gat, the high chief of all of Dalera, and you will open this and show me this potion.” The coldness in his eyes was several degrees closer to absolute zero than Kolya’s had been. “Then finally,” he added with a glance back at his entourage, “we can slaughter the last of those decrepit old priests who hide in their Enclave praying to a long dead exile from a forgotten world.”

The men with him nodded agreement and voiced their approval. Rodney was certain that the groan coming from the Major’s direction wasn’t entirely due to physical pain. The degree of his own monumental blunder had only just begun to sink in when, naturally, someone felt it necessary to state the obvious.

“You… You lied to us,” Yann blurted to Balzar. “You lied to everyone! You told us that it was the Chosen who demanded payment for transport into the Citadel.”

“That fool Kesun is run off his feet all day in exchange for a few tokens of appreciation. But while he might have the power to operate the transports, it is we who control the inns and Sanctuary Halls. And once we have this genetherapy, we can finally be rid of the Chosen and anyone else adhering to that pathetic cult of theirs.”

“You led us to think… You knew the truth all along, why the Chosen rarely came to our village, yet you deceived us with lies twisted to suit your purpose!” The look of betrayal on Yann’s face was almost pitiful. He turned to Rodney and added in a plaintive voice, “I believed it was the Chosen who were secretly storing food!”

Balzar’s laugh was a short, ugly bark of disdain.

“You stole from us and turned our hearts against the Chosen,” Yann spluttered, barely able to get the words out past his outrage. “For what? To stuff your own bellies?” Eyes wild with panic, he added, “You cannot do this, Balzar. The Chosen have warned us countless times. Those who defy the will of Dalera will bring the Wraith upon us all!”

“You young fool. Anyone with eyes to read the teaching windows knows that the Wraith come, no matter what ‘laws’ those witless priests invoke. There is no way to fight the Wraith. Only those with foresight to plan for the great cullings will survive. There is sufficient room in the bowels of the Enclave to hide several hundred, and this—” He snatched one of the P-90s from the goon’s hand. “—and others like it that we took from your friends, will aid us in making certain that only those that we choose may enter.”

“Enough!” Gat’s attention shifted from Balzar to Rodney. “The potion.”

Still reeling from the impact of this revelation, Rodney fell back on the streak of stubbornness that he’d employed with Kolya. “Fine,” he snapped. “Whatever you want. But it’s like I told Yann.” He pulled out the box of prepared syringes and opened it so that they could all see. “Only Lieutenant Ford knows how to administer it.”

Nothing would have given Rodney more pleasure than shoving one of the needles deep into Balzar’s arm, preferably with a few embolism-triggering bubbles in the mix. But getting Teyla and Ford back might in some way mitigate this unbelievably disastrous turn of events.

Gat motioned to one of the thugs and said, “Bring the other two that you found. Then round up the priests’ warriors. Once we become Chosen, they must obey our orders.” A vengeful smile distorted his features. “When the Wraith come, we will transport the ‘warriors’ out to the villages, to stand in defense as they claim their ancestors once did. That will provide the Wraith a suitable diversion while we evacuate those loyal to us.”

“Well,” Sheppard said to Rodney as they were marched to the end of the Sanctuary Hall and shoved into a rank-smelling corner. “That’s another fine mess you’ve gotten us into.”

“Me? I wasn’t the only one who assumed the Chosen were running things around here.” He wished his words didn’t carry such an obvious lack of conviction. “Kesun could’ve said something to clue us in!” Even as he spoke, he realized that was exactly what Kesun had done. The cycle continued as the priest had explained — but the power currently rested with the barbarians. The problem was that Rodney’s disgust at the idea of an advanced technology being regarded as a religion had instantly lured him into his assumptions about the Chosen. Teyla could now add ‘blind bigot’ to ‘hypocrite’.

Before he could further ponder the depth of his flawed judgment, he was surprised to see Teyla and Ford being led in their direction by a squad of goons. Sadly, two of these men also carried P-90s.

“Good to see you guys,” Sheppard told the rest of their team when they neared. “They treat you all right?”

Teyla glared at the smirking bully boys and then eyed the growing bruise on the Major’s cheek. “Better, I believe, than you. The Chosen are not the leaders of these people.”

“Yeah, we got that.”

Their guards motioned for Ford and Teyla to also sit on the floor. Rodney waited for the inevitable stream of recriminations from his Athosian teammate, but then Balzar tossed the box containing the gene therapy in his general direction.

“Careful!” Rodney just managed to catch it. “That stuff is fragile, and since our welfare would appear to be directly tied to to a positive outcome of this experiment—”

“Enough of your mindless chatter. The potion!” Gat’s eyes blazed. Unlike Kolya, the Daleran leader could never be reasoned with.

“All right, fine. Anyone ever tell you that patience is a virtue?” Rodney withdrew the requisite supplies, and handed them to Ford. The reaction was instantaneous. Gat, Balzar and what were presumably the other chiefs — or more accurately, extortionists — inched closer on all sides. As if he hadn’t had enough reminders lately that crowds weren’t really his thing.

With a glance at Sheppard, who reluctantly signaled his permission, Ford stood, and demonstrated the syringe. “Who’s going first?”

Balzar’s anticipatory smile vanished when Gat pointed at him. The village chief stared suspiciously at the Lieutenant when the needle was inserted into his arm. A moment’s silence followed before Balzar complained, “I feel nothing.”

“Well, what did you expect?” Rodney rolled his eyes and got to his feet. “It’s gene therapy, not a can of Popeye’s spinach! Besides, it takes several hours to come into effect, and not everyone will successfully receive it.”As he spoke, he noticed Sheppard and Teyla were also standing and exchanging brief looks with Ford.

It then occurred to Rodney that Yann had gone missing. So, for that matter, had most of their heavies, which meant that Teyla, Ford and Sheppard could conceivably take out this lot and—

A bunch of grubby rags and desperate, hungry faces suddenly spewed into the Sanctuary Hall from the nearby entrances. Before Rodney’s teammates could make a move, the Citadel’s desperate poor were climbing all over Gat and the other chiefs. Yann appeared from somewhere in the middle, and with the help of three or four wild-eyed cavemen types, wrested the syringe from Ford.

Yann’s wide, ruddy face was almost reverent as he thrust his hand high, holding the now empty syringe up for all to see. “Here is the end of our oppression!” he shouted. “Here is our salvation from the Wraith!”

A disorganized cheer went up. “Oh, brother,” Rodney said under his breath. Sure enough, just to keep things interesting, the transport doors opened, and Kesun began muscling his way through the crowds — with his warriors in tow. In addition, even more of the impoverished Citadel’s residents were pouring into the place from the other entrances, insane with desperation.

There were eighty doses of the gene therapy, and there were a lot more than eighty people here. Rodney jumped when hands grabbed at the pack, snatching it out of view.

“McKay! Let’s go.” Sheppard gripped him by the arm and started hauling him through the chaos in the direction of the closest exit.

“Kesun would steal your chance to become Chosen!” he heard Gat bellow. “Kill the Chosen. Kill them all!”

The mob seemed to change direction, but before Rodney could make out what was going on, Balzar’s voice added to the fray. “The Chosen from Atlantis are no better than the others. Let them be an example of the fate earned by all Chosen!”

There was no way that could go well. His heart rate spiking, Rodney stuck close to his team as they attempted to evade the subset of Dalerans who seemed to be on Balzar’s side. The Major started to reach into his pocket, only to be tackled from the side and shoved toward Teyla.

Rodney glanced around at the burly men moving to surround them. Just beyond them, someone cried out, “Warriors, defend the Chosen!” An axe swinging through the crowd resulted in a bloodcurdling cry from Gat. The other chiefs also began to fall beneath the avalanche of warriors. Surging against them, a sea of ragged humanity was howling for everyone’s heads.

Rough hands clamped down on Rodney’s biceps and dragged him out of a crowd too caught up in the frenzy to notice. Sheppard was pulled alongside him, while Ford and Teyla were yanked in the opposite direction. Maybe Yann and his army of destitutes hadn’t intended to hurt them, but Rodney didn’t feel nearly as confident about their prospects at the hands of Balzar and his crew.

A burst of P-90 fire prompted him to look back between the flailing arms and swinging axes. Kesun had somehow been separated from his warriors. In the brief moment before he vanished beneath the blades of the enraged horde, Kesun returned Rodney’s gaze. The full weight of the man’s desperate plight for his people struck an even more powerful blow than Rodney’s earlier realization of his flawed judgment.

Sheppard yelled something at him. Rodney could only stare in reply. He knew he was telegraphing his anguish loud and clear but couldn’t find the energy to give a damn. Never before had an action — okay, maybe not an action, but a statement — of his generated such catastrophic consequences. He filed away a mental memo: exhibiting any kind of humanity only ever ends badly.