STARGATE ATLANTIS: The Wild Blue (SGX-05)

by Melissa Scott

  “You’re sure of that?” Tas sounded skeptical, and Ronon put every ounce of conviction he could muster into his answer.

  “Yeah. I’m sure.” Sheppard and Teyla would be sorry to be proved wrong — it would hurt Teyla badly when the Wraith betrayed her — but he had no doubt at all that they would join the rest of the galaxy to defend humanity. It was a truth he hadn’t acknowledged before, and even at this moment he was obscurely warmed by it.

  “You work for them anyway,” Tas said.

  “We disagree. I think they’ve made a mistake.” Ronon took a breath. “But that doesn’t make them bad people.”

  “And you still live on Atlantis,” Sur said, into the spreading silence.

  “I do, yeah.” Ronon nodded. “While they need me. But — probably not forever. I’ll come home one day.” He hadn’t known that until he’d said it, but it felt right, another comfortable, comforting truth.

  “You trust them that far,” Tas said.

  “There wouldn’t be a home to come to without Lantean support,” Ronon answered.

  “If you’re not working for Sateda,” Arton asked, “why were you up here?”

  “Colonel Hocken — she’s Lantean herself, but she works for the governor now — she was doing some surveying. We’re still looking for survivors,” Ronon answered. “I was leading a team that was looking into getting the Narmoth Falls power plant running again when Hocken had engine trouble.”

  “That explains a lot,” Tas said. “I saw the equipment they brought back with the prisoners, and I talked to people who saw the aircraft. It didn’t sound like anything the Wraith would make.”

  “I don’t know what General Mar wants from you,” Ronon said, “and right now I’m not in a place to help you figure that out. But if you’ll help me get my people out of here, we’ll help you deal with him.”

  “We don’t know what he wants either,” Tas said. “He’s lied to us for years, and I have no idea why. So, yes, we’ll help you, and then, yes, I’ll be glad of your help to figure out what to do next.”

  “It’s a deal,” Ronon said, and they shook hands across the table.

  ***

  When the miners returned, they returned in force, not just Ronon and Nen but a dozen people led by a graying man whom Ronon introduced as Erkesen Tas. Radek dragged himself to his feet to be introduced, tiredly amazed that Hocken still seemed fully alert and functional, and made himself listen to the plan.

  “— make our way to the gallery,” Tas was saying, “get out through the old lift window.”

  “That hasn’t been opened in twenty years,” someone protested.

  “We’re just going to let them go?” That was Kei, stepping out from among the Satedans who had come with Ronon. There was no way to tell one group from the other, Radek thought, which would work to their advantage if there was a problem. It was just a pity that the Atlantis team stuck out like sore thumbs. “They said they’d help us with the general, well, they ought to help us! Not run off and leave us to deal with him.”

  “It’s an earnest of our good intentions,” Tas said. “They don’t know which of us kidnapped their people.”

  “And I’ll be staying with you,” Ronon said. “On behalf of Atlantis and the provisional government.”

  Radek gave him a sharp look at that, ready to protest, but swallowed the words. Ronon was right, that was a fair exchange for help escaping. Hocken looked as though she was making the same reluctant decision. “Ok,” she said, “but we’d better get a move on. They’re going to find out any second now that we’re loose.”

  “Agreed,” Tas said. “Vassi, what’s the general doing?”

  “The last time I checked, still yelling out the front gate.” That was a thin girl with her hair pulled back in a double pony tail. “The Lanteans were talking nice, though.”

  As they would, Radek thought. Lorne wasn’t going to risk the captives. And by now, they’d probably brought in reinforcements, more Marines and even Sheppard himself.

  “Right.” Tas gathered his people with a gesture. “Let’s go.”

  They made their way through a series of tunnels that seemed to Radek’s tired eyes nearly identical to all the other tunnels he had been through. At one point, he thought they were going down, and then they crossed to another, wider tunnel that sloped steeply upward. He reached again for his tablet, trying to keep track of where they were, and one of the Satedans hissed at him.

  “Hey. Put that away, someone will see.”

  She was right, of course, and Radek obeyed, but he hated the feeling he was running blind. Hocken gave him a wary look, his P90 still clutched to her chest.

  “I guess you don’t have any idea where we are?”

  Radek shook his head. “I could find us if I had to,” he said, and hoped it was true.

  There was a flurry of movement at the head of the column, and a confused and muffled noise that traveled back along the group and resolved into whispers of “Hold it! Stay still!” Radek froze, gripping his pistol tightly, and hoped he wouldn’t have to use it. A meter or so ahead of him, he saw Tan adjust her grip on the staff she carried as an improvised weapon, and Hocken slipped off the safety on her P90.

  “What is it?” he whispered, and Tan shook her head.

  “The way’s blocked? I don’t know…”

  And then there was more movement behind them, shouts and stumbling, bodies jostling into him. He whirled, holding the pistol high, and saw another group moving toward them, more of the heavy staffs in their hands, lowered like spears.

  “This way!” someone shouted, and Radek turned with the crowd, fighting blindly down a too-narrow tunnel. And then there was light ahead, and the tunnel opened abruptly into the mine’s broad entrance. A group of armed men turned to face them, and Tas yelled, “Go, go, go!”

  He and his armed men charged forward, trying to overwhelm the general’s group by sheer weight of numbers, but only a handful of them had rifles. Radek saw Ronon firing bolt after bolt, but the charge faltered, people dropping back into the shelter of overturned carts and mining equipment.

  “Back here!” Hocken yelled, and fired a burst from the P90. She aimed high, the shots chipping stones from the arch and Radek saw the men at the head of the tunnel flinch and duck back into its shelter. “Zelenka! Ammo?”

  Radek fumbled in his pockets, came up with the spare magazines and passed them over, then reached for his radio. “Major Lorne, this is Zelenka. Major Lorne, come in.”

  The response was reassuringly prompt. “Doc! What’s going on in there?”

  “We’re in the entrance area,” Radek answered, “caught between two of the general’s teams —”

  “Hang in there.” That was Sheppard, no surprise. “We’re coming to you.”

  “Understood —” Radek began, and Ronon’s voice crackled in his earpiece.

  “We’re halfway down the hall from the entrance, anything in front of you is hostile.”

  “Copy that,” Sheppard said, and a moment later there was a bang and a great flash of light from just inside the entrance. Radek ducked, swearing, his eyes tearing from the blast, and there was another flurry of shots from the general’s men, as though they were firing blind at the source of the sounds. Radek swore again, searching for a target, but it was hard to tell friend from enemy in the shifting light. The miners were all dressed alike, armed alike, and he shook his head in frustration. Behind him, Hocken fired again, bullets chattering off stone, and Radek flinched, thinking of ricochets.

  “Hold it!” The shout came from the center of the fighting, and Radek turned to see a confusion of shadows resolve to the general with one arm crooked around the neck of a dark young man, his other hand holding a pistol to the young man’s head. “Erkesen, I don’t want to hurt him, but I’ll kill him if you don’t call off your men.”

  “Hold your fire!” Tas shouted. “Evrast, you can’t keep this up. You’ve been lying to us all this time —”

  Radek reached for his radio, s
poke quietly into the mic. “Colonel Sheppard. We now have a hostage situation.”

  “Copy that,” Sheppard said. “I see it. Lorne, anything you can do?”

  “Nothing.” Lorne’s frustration was clearly audible. “Too long a shot, and we don’t have sharpshooters with us anyway.”

  “Stand by,” Sheppard said grimly.

  “Lying?” Mar managed a laugh. “Ok, maybe I exaggerated a little, but Atlantis is not our friend.”

  “You lied to us,” Tas said, “lied about who was in the capital. Satedans are coming home, they’re rebuilding, and you lied to us about it.”

  “They’ve allied with Atlantis,” Mar said again. “And Atlantis has made a deal with the Wraith. Oh, I bet they didn’t tell you that little detail, did they? They’ve sold half the galaxy to the Wraith, and it’s just luck we’re on the human side of that line —”

  “I told him that,” Ronon said. He stepped out from behind the cover of an overturned ore car, his weapon leveled. “And I told him why.”

  “It’s crazy — we’ll all end up dead,” Mar answered.

  “I believe him,” Tas said. “And whether they’re wrong or not — that doesn’t matter right now. Your stories — they never quite added up, and now we know why.”

  Mar tightened his grip on the young man’s neck. “Call off your people, and call off Atlantis, or I’ll shoot him here and now.”

  “Shoot him, and you’ll never walk out of here,” another voice said, and Tas lifted his hand.

  “She’s right, Evrast. Let my son go, and we can talk.”

  “No.” Mar’s hand didn’t waver on the pistol. “I want passage to the Stargate — the Lanteans can bring me there in one of their aircraft, you can arrange that. And then through the gate. After that, I’ll send Arton back.”

  Radek saw Ronon take a slow step sideways, and then another, angling for a better shot at Mar. With the weapon set to stun, he didn’t have to worry about hitting Arton, but even so, it wasn’t going to be easy. And it all depended on Mar’s attention being elsewhere.

  “I don’t know what the Lanteans can do,” Tas protested. “I don’t have any way to talk to them.”

  Mar hesitated, and Radek took a quick step forward before Mar could focus again on Ronon. “I can. I can call them —”

  He didn’t know what else he would have said, was saved from having to babble on by the sudden crack of Ronon’s weapon. Mar and Arton both dropped, the pistol rolling free unfired, and both Ronon and Tas rushed forward, Tas to pull his son away from the general’s now-lax grip, Ronon to fire a second shot into Mar’s limp body. Only then did he look around.

  “Nice distraction, Doc.” He put his hand to his ear. “Sheppard. Everything’s under control here. We’re all right.”

  “Yes, well.” Radek realized his hands were shaking. Carefully, he put the safety back on, then jammed hands and pistol into the pockets of his jacket. “It’s better if nobody gets shot.”

  “He’s just stunned,” Ronon said, to Tas, who nodded. Arton was already stirring in his arms: obviously Ronon had used the weapon’s lightest setting. “They both are, but Mar’s going to be out a while longer.”

  “As far as I’m concerned, that’s a matter for the governor,” Tas answered. “But obviously we need to talk this out.”

  Ronon nodded. “But the rest of us —”

  “You’re free to go,” Tas said, loudly, and there was no protest even from Mar’s loyalists.

  They made their way out into the twilight to find two jumpers parked in the open area in front of the mine’s entrance, two squads of Marines unfolding themselves from the positions they’d taken up over the course of the day.

  “Nice work,” Sheppard said, to Ronon, who shrugged.

  “They’ll turn Mar over to the governor. I don’t know what he can do with him, though.”

  “That’s not our problem, buddy,” Sheppard said, and Radek leaned against the side of one of the jumpers, suddenly exhausted.

  “I am too old for this,” he said, to no one in particular, but Lorne heard, and gave him a wry grin.

  “Hocken says they owe you for getting them out of the cells. You sure you don’t want to be on a gate team?”

  “Very sure,” Radek answered, but a certain warmth was spreading through him. He was filthy and tired and wrung out from the aftereffects of fear and adrenaline, but they had come through again.

  ***

  It was sunny and hot when Radek stepped through the Stargate into Sateda’s main square, a shock after a day of cold sleet on Atlantis. He nodded to the gate guards — there seemed to be more of them than usual — and then frowned as he realized that Ronon and the governor and half a dozen others were gathered to one side of the square, locked in sober conversation. Hocken was with them, he realized, her hair tied back in a bright Satedan scarf, and as he watched, she broke away from the others to join him.

  “Doc! You missed the big event.”

  “Big event?” Radek frowned. “I came with the new transformer — sorry, the modulator — for the Rapide.” He tugged at the strap of his carryall for emphasis.

  “The governor just exiled Mar,” Hocken said. “They had a trial two days ago, and everyone agreed to strip him of Satedan citizenship and kick him out.”

  It didn’t seem like enough, considering what he’d done, but then, Sateda had no jails, and no people to spare to guard them even if they wanted to turn one of the empty buildings into a cell. Better to let him go. “That seems reasonable enough,” he said cautiously, and Hocken scowled.

  “Oh, I understand why they’re doing it, but — it’s not enough. Keeping those people trapped up in the mine, exposed to radiation —” She shook her head. “That was wrong. Dr. Beckett’s offered to send a medical team up there to check on exposures. I’m worried about what he’ll find.”

  “He did manage to keep us safe,” a new voice said. Radek blinked, then recognized Dreshka Sur, Erkesen Tas’s wife. “During the great culling, and then after. I don’t know what changed him, what he wanted, after it was clear there wasn’t going to be any more killing, why he decided he had to betray us…”

  Her voice trailed off, and Ronon said, “I know.”

  Radek squinted up at him. “Well? Will you enlighten us?”

  Ronon grinned. “He wanted to trade pitchblende to the Genii, for their bombs. He’d heard rumors about them when he was in the capital, and he knew that the Wild Blue produced a source of radium. He figured they could use it.”

  “That can’t be good,” Hocken said. “The Genii are the last people I’d trust with nukes.”

  “I don’t think we can stop them,” Radek said. “They already know how it’s done.”

  “Yeah, but —” Hocken grimaced. “What do you want to bet he took some pitchblende with him? He’s been through the Stargate a bunch of times, people said, trading stuff he brought down from the mountains. I bet he’s got a cache just waiting. And you don’t need all that much for what they’re doing.”

  “I hope he did,” Cai said. Even Ronon gave him a sideways look at that, and Cai sighed. “The last thing I want is for the Genii to start sniffing around the Wild Blue. They’ve interfered enough on Sateda.”

  Ronon nodded. “I’ll pass that on to Dr. Weir.”

  “I’d appreciate that,” Cai said. “That was well-handled, Dex.” He clapped Ronon on the shoulder, and moved away, turning toward a stocky man who carried a slate note-board and a stick of chalk.

  “Yes,” Sur said. “We’re in your debt.”

  “I still think he got off too lightly,” Hocken said.

  Ronon gave her a look. “Lightly?”

  “He walked.”

  “He walked through the gate, yeah,” Ronon said slowly, as though he was groping for the right words. “But he left — he left himself behind. He can’t call himself Satedan anymore, and the Genii don’t accept strangers. Any place he goes, he’ll have to say he’s not from anywhere. There’s no gate address he can dial
where they have to take him in.” He stopped, shaking his head. “Even when I was a Runner, when Sateda was destroyed and empty, I was still Satedan. He’s… nothing.”

  Radek nodded once, and then again as the words sunk in. It was a bleak vision, and he shook himself hard. “He brought that upon himself. And I have the parts that Colonel Hocken needs to get the Rapide back into good order.”

  Ronon nodded. “Yeah. Better get to work, then. Who knows what you’ll find next time?”

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX