The Chosen

Chapter Three

It was nothing more than a flock of large seabirds. John didn’t have to ask Teyla; the look on her face was enough. The Wraith weren’t about to start feeding on everyone, but hysteria sure was. Unless these people calmed down, someone else was going to get trampled. Possibly a lot of someones. “Okay, everyone, just hold on a minute!”

Maybe a few villagers heard him, but it was tough to tell. “Well done, very effective,” Rodney shouted through the screams.

“Any more inspired ideas?”

“As a matter of fact—” John leaped on top of what looked like a market cart full of reddish fruit, and fired a short burst from his P-90 over the heads of the crowd. A few bullets ripped clumps of sod from the roof of the nearest building, and sent bits of timber and an ornate weather vane-looking thing flying.

“Yes.”

It had been a risky maneuver, potentially triggering the very thing that he was trying to avoid. But the flash and the explosive clamor from his weapon had the desired effect. A few high-pitched screams abruptly cut off when everyone except his teammates fell to the ground. Only the sound of distant horns and surf rolling up the shingled beach penetrated the shocked silence.

“That’s better. Now that I have everyone’s attention, who’s in charge here?”

A big, yellow-bearded guy, dressed in filthy clothes and a generous coating of fish scales, cautiously got to his feet. Before John could address him, Teyla stepped forward and said, “We are sorry to have further alarmed you.” She tossed John a slightly disapproving frown.

He replied with a shrug. In this instance, he was okay with the idea of the ends justifying the means. Around the square, more people began getting to their feet, eyes darting nervously between the sky and the newcomers.

“I am Teyla Emmagen, daughter of Tagan. These are my friends, Dr McKay, Lieutenant Ford and—” She glanced up at him. “Major Sheppard. Why is it that you believe the Wraith are coming?”

Several people started to reply, but the fish-scale guy silenced the crowd with a curt gesture, and spoke in a deep voice. “The alarm came from the Chosen within the Citadel. As chief of this village it is my duty to send the warning signal forth.” He lifted a half-spiral animal’s horn. “From whence do you come that you do not know this?”

Maybe it was time to jump down before he upset the entire applecart. At least, the red things John was crunching under his boots looked like whatever passed for apples on this world. The guy standing by the cart, considerably younger than the chief but just as barrel-chested, appeared none too pleased with him. Apparently even an imminent attack couldn’t deter some folks from keeping business foremost in mind.

“What is it with the introductions?” Rodney demanded. “We need to find this transport and get it operating. Where is it exactly?”

This time, there was nothing slight about the disapproving look Teyla sent in Rodney’s direction.

John opened his mouth to reply to the chief’s question, but Teyla got in first. “I am Athosian. How long before the Wraith appear do the Chosen raise the alarm?”

“They didn’t raise any alarm last week,” declared someone in the crowd.

“That’s because it was night,” barked the chief. “And the Shields of Dalera did not awaken the Chosen.”

“You mean the Chosen slept while the Wraith stole our children from their beds.” The woman’s voice was filled with acrimony.

“Now they have not come to the transport, dooming us all to die!” The disgust in the man’s voice wasn’t exactly subtle, and echoed that of many in the crowd.

“Silence! All of you,” demanded the chief. “You bring the Wraith upon us because of your barbarian ways. Little wonder the Chosen have abandoned you.”

“You are more guilty of trading in Wraithcraft than any of us.” The young applecart owner spat on the ground. “But now that the Wraith have returned, you have all suddenly reacquired your faith in the divine power of the Chosen.”

“Perhaps the Chosen are mistaken,” declared the runner who had come close to knocking John off the road.

“The Shields of Dalera are never mistaken,” retorted the chief.

“Shields?” piped up Rodney.

Ignoring him, the chief turned to Teyla and John. “My name is Balzar. The Chosen do not always give warning, but when they do the Wraith follow, of that there can be no doubt. Still—” He pulled at his beard. “The Chosen may not come to our village this time because we are protected by the Shields. Perhaps the Wraith have gone in search of easier game.”

Lisera whimpered and clutched Ford a little tighter. Easier game. The outlying farms and villages unprotected by the patchy EM fields definitely fit that category.

Teyla looked less certain. “I do not believe the Wraith have yet arrived on this world.”

“Which probably means that a hive ship is bearing down on us right now, coming from somewhere in not-so deep space,” Rodney snapped. “I won’t know for certain until I get a look at their warning system. Either way, the Wraith will have to land outside the EM fields, which means they’ll attack on foot. And that brings me back to my earlier point. We came here to see the transport, and while we’re on the subject, I’ll need to take a look at those shields.”

Leave it to Rodney to have such a universal sense of entitlement.

Balzar’s expression turned thoughtful, which could only mean that he’d missed Rodney’s demands entirely. Addressing John, he said, “Only last week the Wraith attacked as you say. They arrived on foot and stole the lives of many of our people. We were fortunate in that there were only two of the monsters.”

“Did the Chosen kill them?” John asked.

“The Chosen wouldn’t dare risk their almighty, overfed hides,” scoffed the applecart owner. “That is why they have not come and opened the transport—”

“Yann!” Balzar snatched up a wicked looking double-bladed axe and brandished it. John dodged sideways, bumping into Rodney. Most of the men, none of whom were exactly tiny, raised equally deadly-looking swords and axes. Okey-dokey. That answered the question of how they’d managed to kill a Wraith.

“Time, people. We’re running out of time here!” Despite the oversized pack on his back, Rodney was all but jumping up and down. “Transport? Shields?”

“Cool it, Rodney.”

“Cool it?” he cried, still hopping. “The Wraith are coming, probably in one of those hive ships we’ve all heard so much about, and you’ve now broken my toe, which means that even if we leave these good people to their little Stephen King-style Wagnerian opera, the chances of us reaching the jumper and thus the ‘gate in time are approaching statistical insignificance!”

“The Shields and transport are forbidden to all but the Chosen,” snapped Balzar. Not much doubt how he felt about that.

“Well, can we at least take a look? We may have something similar on our world.” The transport sounded to John like those on Atlantis, which meant it might just operate on the same principles.

“What harm can the strangers do, Balzar?” Yann the applecart man cast an appraising eye at John’s P-90. “The horn from the Citadel still blows, and the Chosen do not come.”

“It is a test of our faith,” Balzar replied belligerently.

“More a question of payment,” Yann muttered.

Balzar curled one of his ham-sized fists and stared at Yann with narrowed eyes.

“I promise I won’t touch anything,” John added with a reassuring smile.

Lisera moaned again. Ford was looking more than a little worried. “Sir, I really need to take another look at her leg.”

Yann abruptly pushed past Balzar. “If I am to die this day, let me at least die with ale in my belly. Innkeeper!” he called, motioning with his head for John to follow. “Five of your finest, against my coin.”

The inside of the tavern smelled of spilled beer laced with the stench of mortal fear. Somewhat better dressed people clutching armfuls of bags reluctantly moved aside to let them through. John nodded and smiled politely as they made their way to the bar, well aware that they might as well be wearing neon signs blazing ‘Not from around here.’

It wasn’t until he glanced toward the far left side of the inn that he saw the distinctive geometric glass doors. Aha. “Oh, Rodney?”

“I see it.”

“Thought so. Just…take it easy, all right? We don’t want to upset these nice folk.”

“What makes you think that I upset people? I’m the epitome of reason and composure at the moment, in spite of what I’d call an increasingly hostile atmosphere. Notice also that I’m not even complaining about my mangled toe, so you’re welcome. I would like to state for the record, however, that you’re heavier than you look.”

Outside, another argument — or maybe it was the same one — got underway. Those in the inn eyed them, silent and suspicious, unwilling to give up their place by the transport doors. Judging by their dress, it seemed merchants and townspeople had first crack at gaining entry to the Citadel. Although John was sorely tempted to push his way past the bar and through the crowd to the transport, Teyla’s expression told him that the Wraith were still a ways off. In his experience, giving people a little time to get used to strangers invariably resulted in fewer misunderstandings and lower body counts.

“You risk much, Yann,” growled the innkeeper, a wizened old man with a potbelly and arthritic, misshapen fingers. He filled a copper tankard with something that frothed like beer and set it on the wooden bar with a thud, spilling half the contents in the process.

The distant horn sounded again, and the argument outside spread into the tavern. People began muttering among themselves. They’d been primed to expect a Wraith attack, or a rescue, or both, and now nothing was happening except a bunch of out-of-towners dropping in for a surprisingly good beer.

Man, how long had it been since he’d had a beer? And it was real this time, which was a bonus. Too bad they were on a tight schedule. John licked the froth off his lips and smiled winningly at the innkeeper. “Mighty fine brew you make here. I’m just gonna go take a look around, okay?” With a meaningful glance at Ford, he tried to edge his way between a couple of farmer types who smelled like the animal dung that Rodney had discovered. They refused to budge, deliberately blocking his path.

Ford tensed, but the young Lieutenant’s eyes were resolute. There wasn’t a whole lot he could do at the moment with Lisera clinging to him, but if things went to hell, he’d drop the girl. For once, even Rodney seemed to pick up on the tenuous situation, and wisely channeled his energy into observing rather than commenting.

The farmer types glanced past John’s shoulder, presumably at Yann, and then, with a surly growl, separated. The rest of the crowd also shuffled back, letting the team through. A buxom, well-dressed woman with apple-pink cheeks and an amazingly hideous hairdo blocked the wall where the control panel was generally mounted. John turned on his most charming grin when Yann, who was now bringing up the rear, said, “The newcomer will not take your place in line. He just wishes to see.”

“Love what you’ve done with the—” John waved his hand in the direction of the woman’s tangled braids and added a few more degrees of curvature to his smile.

Uttering something between a simper and a huff, she edged aside. Without a second thought, John brought his hand to the plate. The glass doors opened — and kept opening until the entire side of the inn seemed to fold back.

The effect was instant and profound. The woman visibly paled. Gasps filled the inn, and a cry went up. “He is of the Chosen. They are all of the Chosen!”

Instead of the small, elevator-sized room he’d been expecting, the floor angled down beneath ground level and widened out into a room large enough to take several hundred people.

John was finally getting used to the idea of expecting the unexpected on these missions. And this was mild on the unexpectedness scale, at least so far. Which could only mean that there were a number of proverbial other shoes still waiting to clonk him on the head.

“Whoever these Chosen are, they must have the Ancient gene,” Ford reasoned.

McKay rubbed his forehead, grimacing as if that comment had physically caused him pain. “Another brilliant deduction, Lieutenant.”

A horde of people surged forward and down the ramp, tripping and sliding as they went. “The Chosen will save us.” The call rolled across the mob, bringing with it a palpable wave of relief.

“Whoa! Slow down,” John yelled, barely managing to get out of the way.

Everyone froze and stared fearfully at him. Well, that was an improvement over his first couple of attempts.

A florid-faced woman near the inn’s doors called, “Forgive us for our doubts.”

“We beseech you,” implored someone else. “It was only fear that drove us to speak as we did. We beg of you to save us!”

“Oh, please,” Rodney said with disdain. “Major Sheppard wasn’t ‘chosen’ for anything besides iceberg duty back home. How many times do I have to explain that the gene doesn’t—?”

John slammed the heel of his boot down on Rodney’s toe, trying not to take any satisfaction in the affronted yelp that resulted. “I didn’t say stop,” he called out, directing a threatening glare toward the scientist. “Just take it easy.” Ignoring Rodney’s theatrics as the scientist grasped hold of the bar and massaged his foot, John turned to Teyla. “Still no Wraith, huh?”

The villagers and fishermen kept pouring past them and down into the transport, although their pace was somewhat less frantic than before. Balzar, and then Yann walked past, ducking as he went, as if trying to hide.

“Hey, Yann?”

The man froze, and then turned a wary head in John’s direction, refusing to meet his eyes.

“I owe you a beer, pal.”

If anything, Yann looked even more confused, but he nodded and kept walking.

“I still do not sense the Wraith,” Teyla said. “Nor do I understand how it is that anyone on this world carries the blood of the Ancestors within them.”

“Gene,” corrected Rodney through clenched teeth. “And did you absolutely have to injure me? A simple ‘shut up, Rodney’ would have sufficed. Although why it is—”

“Rodney? Shut up.”

“Maybe they’re straight-up, no-kidding Ancients, sir,” Ford said. “Just think, we might finally get to meet one.”

The crowds began to pile up, until it was clear that no one else could fit in the transport. “Looks like we’d better save that thought for later. Ford, go with Rodney and these people into the Citadel. Teyla and I will hang out here and bring up the rear.”

An imminent objection was visible in Rodney’s eyes even before he voiced it. “What’s the rationale behind this division of labor? I’m all for leaving, but we don’t have the first clue what we’ll stumble into when this thing dumps us out into the Citadel.”

John’s discomfort with the unstable situation was growing, and his teammate’s commentary wasn’t helping, so he wasted no time with his rebuttal. “The alternative is for you to stay behind and risk facing one of those Wraith ground assaults you spoke so highly of. We can’t be sure that whoever takes the transport will be able to send it back here in time or at all, and one of us with the gene has to go, so you tell me who it’s going to be.”

Rodney’s jaw clicked shut. “Point taken.”

It wasn’t the scientist’s fault that strategic thinking wasn’t exactly second nature to him. John let go of the edge in his tone when he added, “Wait inside the Citadel for us. We should be able to move everyone in two trips, three at most.”

“All right.” Rodney sent him a quick, hard stare. “Don’t take long.”

“We won’t. Go.”

Once Ford had taken his place inside the transport with Lisera, Rodney squeezed in behind him, which wasn’t easy, considering the girth of his pack. The expression on the scientist’s face clearly said that he wasn’t enjoying the proximity of so many people. He squinted at what John presumed to be a control panel, then raised his hand to touch it. The wall slammed back into place with a forceful, metallic clang. Not exactly the smooth, relatively silent operation of the transport on Atlantis. A locally manufactured copy, maybe?

“Okay, then,” John said, exhaling a long breath. “Now we wait for the next train.”

Teyla kept a watchful eye on the remainder of the crowd, which was still large by any measure. They were calmer now that a rescue operation was underway, but the undercurrent of fear persisted.

“How long does it usually take between transports?” John asked someone who, based on the smell, was a fisherman. The young man was nearly bent double with the weight of the bag he carried. Apparently he subscribed to the McKay style of packing.

The man stared at him oddly for a moment before replying, “It is only the time needed to unload everyone inside the Citadel. A matter of minutes.”

“Minutes that we may not have if the Wraith are upon us!” wailed a woman’s voice from somewhere near the inn’s front door.

“Well, they’re not here yet, so let’s try to keep a positive attitude, all right?” Once the words were out, John winced inwardly at how trite they sounded. He wasn’t cut out for this reassurance thing. “Hey, Teyla?”

The Athosian turned toward him, eyebrows arched inquiringly.

“I’m sure this is a dumb question, but this connection you have to the Wraith…Is there any way you can describe how it manifests itself? How do you tell the difference between general anxiety and an honest-to-God alert?”

“If I could explain that, Major, we would have already solved more problems than this one.”

“I figured as much. Let’s check the situation outside.”

The jostling and shoving in the square abruptly stopped when the newcomers stepped from the inn. John scanned the sky with a trained gaze. Still no sign of the Wraith. He wanted to be reassured by that, but he knew better. The longer it took those bastards to show up, the better the chances that this would end up less like a fast-food run courtesy of a handful of Darts and more like a major harvest involving hive ships.

A fleet of at least sixty ships was out there somewhere, each filled to the brim with scores of repulsive creatures who wanted nothing more than to make a meal out of them. Every time John thought about it, a sick feeling reached in with icy fingers and twisted his gut. He’d been a military man for a long time and understood that people offered many reasons for killing: for duty, for faith, for mercy, even for sport. The idea of a race that killed for its very existence, though, was still barely fathomable to him. It left him with some serious doubts about the overall state of justice in this galaxy.

Having some kind of sensor equipment available would have made him feel a lot more secure right now. The EM shields were definitely worthwhile, but they left him functionally blind. Possibly in more ways than one, since he couldn’t be sure that the shields weren’t preventing Teyla from sensing the Wraith’s approach.

Something was pressed into his hand, and he glanced down to find a stooped older woman averting her repentant gaze. “I… I did not pay as much as I should have the last time I used the transport,” she confessed. “I beg forgiveness.”

John glanced inside the badly cured leather bag she’d given him. A handful of rough gold coins glinted in the morning light. Huh. This was a side effect of being Chosen that hadn’t occurred to him. He was tempted to make some lighthearted comment to Teyla about flipping her for the loot, but the entire situation was taking on a desperate edge that precluded that kind of levity.

Others began clambering around them, trying to press upon them everything from baskets of shellfish to furs. He started to say something, but Teyla already had it covered. “We have come to trade with you, not take from you,” she called into the encroaching throng.

“But you are of the Chosen. We must give payment so that you will transport us into the Citadel and protect us!”

A child tugged at Teyla’s hand. Wide-eyed, but more out of curiosity than fear, he asked, “Where is your Shield of Dalera?”

Teyla hesitated, looking to John. Still trying to convince the old woman to take her money back, he could only toss a helpless shrug in his teammate’s direction. If Teyla of all people couldn’t come up with a smooth answer, did she really expect him to be able to pull it off? Before she could attempt a response, the crowd surged forward and into the inn.

Moments later, Rodney’s voice cut through the low, anxious conversations. “Excuse me, excuse me, coming through.”

A flare of anger erupted in John, overshadowing his relief that the transport had returned. There was a lot that he didn’t love about the Air Force, but at least there, people listened. Usually. “McKay, what part of ‘wait with Ford’ wasn’t clear to you?”

“He seemed perfectly all right with the others. The chief, what’s his name? Balzar? And Yann. Would you cross those two? They’re gargantuan.”

“Dammit, Rodney!” John pushed his way through the villagers toward the unapologetic scientist. “Did you even poke your head out of the transport and look at what they were walking into?”

“I didn’t see any point, given that both our options and our time were limited, and I couldn’t be sure that the transport would immediately return here without someone to command it. Would you rather I left you out here a while longer to soak up the ambiance?” He pivoted away, already moving on.

There was truth under that layer of perpetual impatience, John realized. For all his overdeveloped tendencies toward self-preservation, Rodney had been concerned enough about the rest of his team to override both his instincts and his instructions. Tough to argue with that.

The sea of people parted to let them pass, recognizing that deliverance was near. Once inside the inn, John shouldered his way through the crowd by the transport entrance and activated the panel. As before, the walls folded back, and as before, the villagers rushed inside.

The room filled to capacity in minutes, and for the first time, all the panicked shoving ceased. “Is that everybody?” John quickly moved through the now-empty inn and ducked out into the square to check. Sure enough, there was no evidence of life remaining in the village or along the beach — which, he noted for future reference, had a nice wave break near the point. He hustled back into the packed transport and scrutinized the control panel. The expected map was absent, and only one light glowed on the plasma screen.

“A single point of egress, apparently,” Rodney declared unnecessarily, smacking his hand down on the light.

Just like the transports on Atlantis, all right. The doors opened almost immediately, spilling filtered light into the chamber. Before any other sensations could make themselves known, they were assaulted by a pungent odor. John crinkled his nose in disgust and leaned closer to Rodney, sniffing experimentally.

His teammate jumped away, looking at him like he’d lost his mind. “What is wrong with you?”

“Just checking. You did shower after your little encounter with the waste storage tanks, right?”

Glowering, the scientist chose not to dignify the question with an answer. “Thank you oh so much for that reminder. I certainly couldn’t have done without ever thinking of that incident again.”

“The smell is…pervasive,” Teyla observed, her features carefully schooled against any reaction.

“Maybe they’ve got a busted pipe somewhere.” John stepped out of the transport and took a look around. They’d been deposited in some kind of huge, enclosed marketplace. The villagers, moving with far less haste now, began to disperse into an already large gathering.

“Merchants,” groused one of the new arrivals to another. “There are more of them each time.”

“Of all the places in the Citadel to do their peddling, must they take over the one set aside for our shelter?”

“They know this is our place of refuge, but that doesn’t put coinage in their hands. It seems to matter not to them that without us, they would have no goods to sell.”

So capitalism was alive and well, maybe at the expense of other things. John continued to mentally catalogue the area, filing details away. He wasn’t convinced that all was okay just yet.

The market stalls were mobile and arranged in no particular pattern, complicating the flow of foot traffic around them. Most likely it was an every-man-for-himself setup, with each merchant claiming whatever space he or she could find in the vast building. The upper walls of the structure were lined with a venerable display of medieval-style stained glass windows, which explained the dingy, filtered light. Above it all were ornately carved, cross-vaulted cathedral ceilings. Except for the fact that it was just one wide expanse of semi-organized commerce broken up by stone support columns, the whole place had a distinctly church-like feel to it. Completing the effect were massive, crouched gargoyles that were, oddly, positoned over the inside entrances at each corner of the building. John did a double take when he realized the larger than life statues weren’t gargoyles, but Wraith.

In general, the sellers seemed to be a better-dressed bunch than the villagers, which probably shouldn’t have surprised him. Nearby, in a stall featuring what looked like herbs and medicinal items, Balzar stood watching Ford and a middle-aged woman tend to Lisera’s leg. Some of the merchants eyed the kid periodically, casting glances of appraisal that tweaked John’s nerves. Where he came from, looking at a teenage girl like that typically earned a guy an introduction to her father’s shotgun.

Of course, Lisera didn’t have a father standing by. She had them instead.

“Begone from here, you village rabble! You’re disturbing my customers.”

John turned to see an irritated merchant shooing away a pair of village children who’d made the mistake of lingering near his fruit stall. The kids’ mother protested hotly. “You have no right to call us such — this is our place of safety. The Chosen have decreed it to be so. We paid to come, and you should have long since departed!”

Similar quarrels had broken out in other areas. All in all, these merchants were a very different crew from the villagers. When one of the farmers gestured toward John in an obvious attempt to explain his Chosen status, the merchants displayed none of the obsequiousness that he’d witnessed at the inn. In fact, he was getting a definite vibe of resentment from them.

“I’m thinking that maybe we don’t want to advertise ourselves too loudly around here,” he suggested to Rodney, who blinked, unaware of the tension.

“Not quite as impressed by the Chosen as the villagers were?”

“Something like that.”

Any further conversation was cut off as the underlying noise level in the marketplace increased sharply. Storming in from all four entrances were men outfitted in leather uniforms, reminiscent of Wraith soldiers. The metal breastplate was an innovative addition, and the animal horns on the men’s helmets added a distinctly Norse twist. More attention-grabbing was the fact that each warrior carried a leather bola in one hand and a double-bladed axe with a long handle in the other.

John had three thoughts in response to this dramatic display. The first was that those axes looked damn heavy, and that the men wielding them were even more muscular than the villagers. The second was that unless the Wraith had brought can-openers with them, the chest armor was likely an effective deterrent to snacking. And the third was the vain hope that these guys hadn’t shown up because of his team.

Behind them, a sound signaled the reactivation of the transport, and an imperious but oddly pitched voice shouted above the clanking of metal. “Wraithcraft. There are Wraith objects among us!”

The pathways between the stalls cleared rapidly to let the warriors through. John turned back toward the opening doors of the transport and got a look at the person doing the yelling. Despite the gravity of the situation, he had to bite down hard to keep a smirk off his face. The guy, walking out of the transport ahead of an incoming bunch of yet more villagers, was the walking definition of ‘overdressed.’ The cape of striped fur fastened at his shoulder with an elaborate gold pin contrasted sharply with their generally grimy surroundings. On his head was a winged helmet and around his neck hung a thick gold chain, from which dangled a familiar looking pendant about the size of a child’s fist.

“Oh, man,” Ford said. “This guy dresses worse than a Goa’uld.”

Not having had the pleasure of a Goa’uld encounter, John didn’t have much of a basis for comparison, but it sounded good. There was a fair amount of déjà vu involved here. The thing around the guy’s neck looked remarkably like the personal shield device that Rodney had discovered their first week in Atlantis. Then, almost as an afterthought, it hit him: the crystal inside the pendant was glowing. Not green this time, but the same hue as the ‘gate chevrons.

There weren’t all that many coincidences in this galaxy, so this was yet another avenue they’d need to investigate. Later, though, for a whole new wave of panic was now sweeping across the marketplace.

“Wraithcraft!” bellowed the robed man, his hands waving furiously in the air. The timbre of his voice carried easily above the murmurs of the crowd, even as they grew in intensity. “Who defiles Dalera’s Citadel by bringing Wraith objects here?”

“They tricked us!” That shrill cry came from the same woman who had given John her gold coins only minutes before. The cynical part of his brain knew what was coming even before she stabbed one gaunt finger in his direction. “They are not Chosen. They do not wear the Shields of Dalera.”

“They must be Wraith disguised to walk among us,” accused another voice. “They have used Wraith trickery to penetrate the Citadel!”

Terrific. Help a few hundred people avoid a culling, and this is the thanks you get.

Ford sprang up from his position near Lisera to join his teammates, and John appreciated his instincts. Getting separated would definitely not help matters. “Hey, hold up a minute,” he tried to yell over the din, but that turned out to be a fairly useless effort.

People and voices swarmed accusingly around them. The Valkyrie-helmeted guy advanced, his features distorted into a snarl of rage. His axe-wielding buddies formed a barricade around John and his teammates that effectively pinned them against the nearby wall. Behind the row of axes, the merchants egged the warriors on, joined enthusiastically by some of the villagers.

“Did we or did we not just save those guys’ asses?” John demanded, tightening his grip on his weapon.

“Preaching to the converted, Major.” Rodney’s glib remark was belied by the unrestrained dread in his eyes. “A little on the mercurial side, these folks.”

“Kill them!” shouted a fisherman.

“Quarter them!”

Lesson learned, John thought as the axe-men edged closer to his team. Next time you come upon an Ancient device, assuming there is a next time, keep your hands to yourself.