“It’s okay. He’s with me!” Lorne shouted. “Nice entrance, McKay.”
“You’re welcome.” Rodney picked himself up out of the rubble, eyeing the Satedan soldier whose weapon was still trained on him. “Who are our new friends?”
A tall man wearing a tan duster replied, “Name’s Devin and this is Steed. We’re all that remain of the western defenses. Who are you?”
“That’s a long story.” He threw a look at Lorne — long, and impossible to answer. “You didn’t happen to see a couple other people dressed like us and a big Satedan guy with crazy hair, did you?”
“That almost sounds as if he is speaking of Ronon,” Steed said.
“As if Ronon would ever fight with the likes of him.”
“What? Why wouldn’t he?” He hated feeling defensive, but he should have expected it. All the Satedans he had met were brutes and had little use for the type of intellect it would take to actually defeat the Wraith.
As Devin and Steed took off towards a distant tree line, visible now through the ruined city, Rodney felt his bag being pushed into his hands.
“Come on,” Lorne said. “Let’s go. There’ll be more Wraith on the way.”
Teyla fired from cover as the rout continued.
This was a bad idea: they would either end up dead, or with no future to which to return. A dart screamed overhead, its high-pitched whine assaulting her ears as it beamed more drones into the battle. Several Satedan soldiers remained, but they had to know it was a lost cause by now.
Satedan artillery hit a dart, sending it into a red brick building. The dart’s death knell was deafening, ending with a fiery explosion. Three soldiers were thrown by the blast and one stayed down, scorched beyond recognition, the acrid smell of burnt flesh filling the air.
“We need to withdraw!” she shouted, but Ronon was too focused on saving the woman he loved to hear her.
Breaking cover, she considered what she would do if she had the chance to save her father. A great deal, no doubt.
She raced toward Ronon and Sheppard, flinging herself out of the path of another culling beam. But it caught two soldiers and she watched with a sickening lurch as they were swept away.
“We cannot remain here,” she yelled as she reached Sheppard and Ronon. “They will overwhelm us.”
“Agreed,” Sheppard said. “Ronon, we have to find another way.”
A second dart was hit and spiraled into a dozen Wraith, engulfing them in the detonation — and opening a path through the enemy forces.
“This way is fine,” Ronon grunted as he took off, slaloming around the dart’s flaming debris and sprinting through the hole in the Wraith line. Sheppard cursed, but followed, and Teyla brought up the rear.
Ronon was several steps ahead of them as he raced towards the hospital. But a blast from the orbiting hive hit the building and hurled him across the street.
Teyla dropped to the ground, arms over her head as debris rained down. When she looked up, Ronon was trying to stand, blood streaming down his face. But he stumbled, fell back to the ground, and didn’t move.
“Cover me!” Sheppard was on his feet, running towards Ronon.
Teyla followed, weapon raised, surveying their surroundings.
Sheppard crouched next to Ronon. “He’s out cold. We need to get him out of here. Help me get him on his feet.”
Teyla resisted the urge to point out that she had been saying that all along. “We are exposed,” she said. “We must find shelter immediately.”
“We need one of those tunnels,” Sheppard said. “And a wheelbarrow would be nice.”
Taking some of Ronon’s weight from Sheppard, she feared how Ronon would react when he woke to discover he had failed to save Melena again. She could not imagine the horror of watching her people annihilated for a second time.
Three close encounters later, they found their way back into the tunnels. Safe from the battle raging overhead, they began to move a lot faster. Ronon was still unconscious, but she and John had fallen into a rhythm that allowed them to make good speed. Their luck held and they didn’t run into anyone else. Perhaps there was no one left in this part of the city to run into?
When they reached the end of the tunnel, Sheppard said, “You stay with him. I’m going to recon the area and look for Lorne and Rodney.”
It was a long fifteen minutes before he returned.
“I didn’t find them,” he said as he dropped back into the tunnel, “but I did find this.” It was a wrapper from one of the Lantean food bars. “I guess Rodney got hungry.”
Teyla smiled. “Do you think they’re close?”
“If I know Lorne, he headed north. He’d want to find a safe place for McKay to work, but he wouldn’t want to go too far from the gate.” He crouched next to Ronon. “C’mon, let’s get him out of these tunnels.”
They crept on through the remains of the city, staying in the shadows wherever possible. Not that there was much left to cast a shadow in this part of the city. Judging by the numbers of bodies — Wraith and Satedan — the fighting had been fierce. She prayed that Rodney and Lorne had survived.
In the distance, the sound of battle continued, but nothing moved here except them. Thick smoke hung over charred buildings and the ruins extended all the way to a distant tree line.
That’s where Sheppard was taking them, stopping every so often to study marks and scratches in the rubble. “Trail of breadcrumbs,” he said with a smile when Teyla asked.
When they reached the forest, he laid Ronon against the trunk of a large tree and began to scan the area for another marker. Peering at something carved into the bark, he smiled. “They’re close.”
“Are you sure?”
He indicated the carving. “McKay says they’re half a klick away.”
“Then let us go.” With a weary sigh, she helped John lift Ronon one more time.
Five minutes later, Lorne came running out to meet them with Rodney in tow.
“What do you mean you have to go back, Colonel?” Lorne knew his tone bordered on insubordination, but didn’t much mind.
“There’s still a chance to save Melena. I have to try.”
“You already tried,” McKay said. “And Ronon almost got himself killed. Anyway, there’s no way you can get there in time now.”
“I think I can.”
“But there’s no reason to risk yourself, we should —”
“Yes there is!” Sheppard gestured at Ronon who lay unconscious on the ground. “He would do the same for any one of us, without question. We have to try.”
“No. We have to get home,” McKay said. “That’s our priority.”
“This is not a debate, Rodney. Just figure out the problem with the damn gate.” The colonel looked at his team. “Teyla, stay here. And Lorne, keep them out of trouble. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Before they could reply, Sheppard was heading back to the dying city.
Into the silence he left behind, Lorne said, “Okay, let’s get Ronon a little more comfortable.”
As much as Lorne considered the team his friends, he sometimes felt like an outsider among them. Sheppard’s unit contained no other member of the military and, as a result, their style was unorthodox to say the least. He preferred things by the book, but he was willing to adapt for this team.
Maybe that’s why they’re so successful, he mused as he helped Teyla lift Ronon.
“How’s the gate problem coming, Dr. McKay?” he asked with a grunt as they carried Ronon deeper into the woods. “Any chance we’re getting home?”
“The gate problem, as you so eloquently describe it, is an incredibly complex set of calculations requiring a massive power source and a perfectly timed solar flare, neither of which we have at the moment. So our chances of getti
ng home are slim. Unless I perform another miracle.”
Lorne couldn’t help himself. “So, half an hour?”
“Ha-ha, Major.” McKay’s scowl deepened.
“How massive a power source are we talking here, doc?”
“A ZPM would be nice, but in lieu of that, a Wraith blast from orbit should do the trick. The timing would have to be perfect, but it may be our only option.”
“So we would need to lure the Wraith into firing on the gate at the precise moment we need them to?” Teyla stopped for a moment to adjust her grip on Ronon.
But Lorne decided they were far enough into the woods to take a break. “Let’s put him down here, we’re deep enough to be hidden.”
Rodney started, snapping his fingers. “What if we use a — No, that won’t work.” Furrowing his brow, he pulled out his tablet and sat down.
“Perhaps I should go after Colonel Sheppard,” Teyla said as she propped Ronon’s head on one of the backpacks.
“That would be a bad idea,” Rodney replied without looking up.
Teyla opened her mouth to object, but Lorne said, “He’s right, we should stay together.” The last thing he needed was to be looking for scattered teammates in a warzone. Sheppard had ordered him to keep them out of trouble and that’s what he planned to do.
Ronon began to stir, muttering a few unintelligible words. Teyla exchanged a look with Lorne. Neither of them wanted to tell him what had happened.
“What…?” he asked, his hoarse voice little more than a whisper.
Teyla helped him lift his head, offered her canteen. “You were caught in an explosion and injured.” She let him take a sip of water. “You’ve been unconscious some time.”
“Where are we?” He blinked up at the trees with unfocused eyes.
“Colonel Sheppard and I brought you to the forest north of the city.”
“What about...?” Gulping hard, he found it difficult to finish the question.
Lorne could see the pain set in as Ronon became more alert. He couldn’t imagine what the Satedan was going through. “Colonel Sheppard returned to the hospital to try and save Melena.”
“He what?” The confusion in his eyes stemmed from more than just the head injury. “Why?”
“He’s hell-bent on getting himself killed, that’s why,” McKay said.
Teyla shot Rodney a glare. “What Rodney meant was that Colonel Sheppard believed you would do the same for him, and returned without hesitation.”
“No.” Ronon tried to sit up, but Teyla held him in place with one hand and he slumped back to the ground. “No, he shouldn’t have done that.”
“He was quite adamant that he should.” Lorne could see the emotion playing across Ronon’s usually stoic face. To say this had been a difficult day for the man would be an understatement, and it was far from over. Taking a deep breath, he said, “In the meantime, what sort of power sources do you have here on Sateda?”
Ronon looked at him with a blank stare and McKay said, “I know where you’re going with that, Major, but it won’t work. It has to be orbital bombardment.”
Teyla lifted an eyebrow. “Why?”
“Do you really want me to waste time answering that incredibly complex question? Or are you going to trust me when I say we need an orbital bombardment to coincide with a solar flare?”
“Whatever, McKay,” Lorne said. “Since we have no way of knowing when, or if, there will be a solar flare that will match the previous activity —”
“Future activity.”
“Whatever!” Lorne threw his hands in the air.
“We must also entice the Wraith to strike at the correct moment,” Teyla added.
Ronon said, “That’s the easy part.”
“Oh really?” McKay peered at him skeptically. “And how exactly is that the easy part?’”
Wincing as he sat up, Ronon said, “By tomorrow morning, the Wraith will stop dialing in to our gate. But they’ll remain in orbit for three days. That’s our window.”
McKay was interested. “Window for what? The proper solar activity?”
“All we have to do is set off an explosion large enough for the Wraith to register from orbit, then we dial Atlantis.”
Rodney’s eyes lit up. “Once we have their attention, they’ll want to make sure we don’t get away and they’ll try and take out the gate.” He looked back at his tablet. “Now all I need to do is figure out the solar activity around the planet…”
Lorne smiled at the thought of Ronon figuring out a problem Rodney had yet to solve.
As the sun marched towards the horizon and dusk settled in around them he looked at his watch, wondering when — or if — Colonel Sheppard would return.
Sheppard exited the tunnel in the same warehouse Ronon had led them to earlier. This time, however, there was no warehouse, only twisted steel. Plodding through the rubble, he saw the hospital still standing and prayed he wasn’t too late. The fighting was over in this part of the city, and dusk had given the area an eerie feel. The battle ending didn’t bode well for the successful completion of his mission. Darting across the street, using piles of debris for cover, he approached the medical center. Windows were blown out, the walls were scorched and black, but the building remained standing.
His gut clenched, however, when he got inside and realized there was nobody left alive. The building had been bursting at the seams earlier. Now there was nothing here but death. Wiping sweat from his brow, he paced through corridor after corridor of skeletal remains and charred bodies. He was too late.
“Damn it!” he yelled, kicking an empty gurney. How the hell was he going to tell Ronon? Aside from the wayward mission with his three Satedan friends, saving Melena was the first thing Sheppard could ever recall his friend wanting. Ronon always had his back, but Sheppard had failed him when he needed him the most.
As he left the facility, he saw three shadows drop into the tunnel he’d used to traverse the city. The passageway was compromised; there was no going back that way. Plumes of smoke, rising from hundreds of buildings, obscured the darkening sky and without the use of the tunnels it would be difficult and dangerous to navigate the ruined city. But he had no choice. With a heavy sigh, he headed north towards his team.
Two hours later, he could make out the tree line in the hazy moonlight. Half a klick through the city, a few hundred meters to the trees, a kilometer through the forest.
But as he prepared to round the next corner, he heard a noise so subtle he almost ignored it. Glancing around, he yelped as two pale hands reached out and picked him up, hurling him several meters.
He landed awkwardly on a pile of rubble, a searing pain stabbing through his shoulder. A piece of rebar, gored with blood, stuck out through his uniform. With a pained cry, he pried himself off of the metal rod and staggered to his feet, facing the half a dozen Wraith sauntering towards him.
“Today you die, human!”
The Wraith’s arrogant gaze ended with the first burst from Sheppard’s P90. Three more went down before the other Wraith were on him. A blow to his face staggered him, opening a gash above his eye. The Wraith ripped open his vest and reared back with a growl, thrusting its hand towards Sheppard’s chest. He blocked it, plunging his field knife through the creature’s feeding hand.
The Wraith snarled, cradling its hand, and Sheppard followed by emptying his Beretta into its chest. It fell back, dead, but was immediately replaced by another. Squinting hard in concentration, Sheppard focused through the pain. He released the empty magazine but fumbled his sidearm, blood in his eyes, his wounded shoulder making his arm useless.
A blow to his stomach sent the gun and the magazine flying from his hands and two rough hands hoisted him against the remains of an office building. Each movement sent agony through his shoulder, but worse
was the realization that he had not only failed Ronon, he had failed his entire team.
“I will kill you slowly for what you have done here, human,” the Wraith said, so close he could smell its fetid breath on his face.
Sheppard grunted his defiance as the Wraith hissed, pulling back to feed. Sheppard closed his eyes, refusing to give the Wraith the satisfaction of seeing his fear as he waited for the end to come.
The sound of a Satedan triple barrel shotgun jolted his eyes open in time to see the second shot launch the Wraith into a wall. He looked over to see a young Satedan soldier with dreadlocks standing with a frightened little girl. Wiping the blood from his eye, he realized it was a younger Ronon. He wanted to hug him but remembered this Ronon had no idea who he was and would probably shoot him if he tried.
“You need to get out of here. If you still have family, go be with them,” Ronon said.
“Thanks.” He turned to go but felt compelled to stop and say, “Hey, listen. Things are gonna get bad, but don’t lose hope. You’re gonna make it.”
Ronon scowled. “What?”
“Never mind.” He couldn’t say more or he’d risk changing too much. “Just keep fighting.”
Ronon shook his head and picked up the child, taking off toward the west of the city.
John watched him go, then grabbed his sidearm and limped on towards his team.
Rodney was not an optimistic man. In his experience, hope usually led to soul-crushing disappointment. A vast sampling of personal memories stood ready to refute anyone claiming otherwise, but still he hoped. As much as they teased each other and argued, John Sheppard was one of his very few true friends. Rodney wanted that to continue, but it would be difficult if Sheppard got himself killed on this fool’s errand.
STARGATE SG-1 ATLANTIS: Homeworlds : Volume three of the Travelers' Tales (SGX Book 5) Page 16
