John used the viewscreen's magnification and spotted an arrow stuck through Ronon's shoulder. The big guy didn't look too bothered, which was about par for the course. After he'd wasted a few seconds trying to figure out what exactly had transpired to set up this situation, John gave up. With the enhanced view, he scanned the holsters of the Marines, found an empty one, and made a mental note to tear Denfield a new one later. There was no excuse for losing a weapon.
"It takes a few minutes to power up the jumper," he heard Elizabeth say as Alderman ineffectually pushed some buttons on the remote. "If you try to enter too soon, it'll give you a.jolt. Security feature."
He had to give them both credit for an effective stall tactic. Sekal looked impatient, but not suspicious. So far, John amended. They couldn't keep it up indefinitely.
Landing wouldn't do any good-he'd lose the advantage of surprise and end up in the same position as Elizabeth and the others. How to knock Sekal out from above, then? Jumpers weren't equipped with anti-personnel weapons; a mini-drone, needless to say, would be overkill in the extreme.
"Guys, I could use some ideas." He turned to check on the scientists. Rodney and Radek had slid out of their seats to rummage through the contents of the rear storage areas. "You find a tractor beam or anything back there? Maybe an Asgard transporter, and, while you're at it, an Asgard to operate it?"
"We have a simpler strategy in mind. You'll like it." Rodney sat back on his heels in the rear compartment. "Put the jumper exactly where you want it and I'll take over flying-er, hovering-duties. Then just lean out through the back hatch and shoot the guy."
John was a damned good shot, if he said so himself-and a damned good shot `for a freaking zoomie,' by the grudging admission of more than a few Marines. Still, he wasn't wild about the plan. "As soon as we open the hatch, the interior of the jumper will be visible. Somebody's bound to see us and react enough to tip Sekal o.
"Only if we open it fully," Radek pointed out. "The hatch control is not difficult to manipulate. Ifwe can command a partial opening, just large enough for you to get an arm through, we would, for the most part, preserve the cloak."
"An arm and a sightline. I'm not aiming a gun anywhere near my own man without a solid sightline." John couldn't shake the memory of a few paralyzing seconds in the storm-lit gate-room two years ago: looking down the barrel of his P-90 at Kolya and Elizabeth, a matter of inches separating success and tragedy. He hadn't hesitated then, but of course he hadn't had much of a choice.
"I am thinking that a gun may not be the ideal instrument for this." Reaching into the weapons locker under the bench, Radek came up with a taser in one hand and a slightly mad gleam in his eyes.
John returned the Czech's grin. "Radek, I like the way you think."
Although Teyla had faith that her teammates would be able to resolve the standoff with Sekal, she was not sure what form that resolution would take. She was startled, then, when the raider jerked and went rigid with an unintelligible yell.
His reflexes clearly primed, Lorne wrenched free as Sekal tumbled to the ground in convulsions. Teyla followed the pair of slender wires now embedded in Sekal's back up to their source. Suspended only five feet over their heads was a familiar Earth weapon, gripped by an equally familiar, if disembodied, arm.
Seemingly out of nowhere, John Sheppard's head and shoulders appeared. He squeezed the taser's trigger again, and Sekal twitched once more before finally going limp.
The nearby Falnori warriors gaped at the sight of a man's torso floating in midair. Of the Lanteans, no one looked more relieved than Sergeant Denfield, who stepped over Sekal's prone body to retrieve his sidearm.
John offered a wave with the taser. "Somebody call for the cavalry?"
"We certainly did," Elizabeth called up to him, relief evident in her features. "Nicely done, Colonel."
Rodney's grousing could be heard from within the cloaked jumper. "Now this had better be the end of the excitement for a good long while. At the very least, I'm owed a long, hot shower and a sandwich the size of my head."
Teyla exchanged a smile with Ronon, who'd finally allowed some of the weariness he surely felt to show. At long last, all of them could afford to think about the future.
Chapter eighteen
Outside the Hall, Elizabeth knelt to inhale the scent of the flowers that grew along one pockmarked stone wall. The very idea of having this moment of serenity, taken at the end of a full day of negotiations, would have been unimaginable just forty-eight hours earlier. She still marveled at the difference in tone between the previous talks and today's.
The decisions being made by Governor Cestan and Minister Galven were groundbreaking, to say the least. In short, the Nistra and Falnori would be trading roles and sizable expanses of territory. Where the informal border once ran east-west through the plains, it would now angle more north-south, so that the richest adarite veins would fall under the jurisdiction of the Falnori, and many of the Nistra would move into more fertile growing lands. The Nistra miners would train the gene-bearing Falnori in the techniques of adarite extraction, and in turn the Falnori would teach the miners about the best farming methods to support their community.
Atlantis had dedicated no small amount of effort to assisting in the transition. Currently, four jumpers were on the planet, already shuttling people to the areas where new settlements would be developed, and a team of scientists and engineers had begun work on a shield for the gate on the hill, now considered to be the south gate. Unlike the north gate, which had started its life as part of an orbital station, the south gate did not have a shield built into its systems. Fortunately, many of the expedition's engineers were conversant in all things Stargate-related, including the iris designed for the gate at the SGC. Although the two gates would not be able to function simultaneously, setting up a schedule of operation had been a relatively smooth process, to the relief of all concerned.
The sun had just begun to sink below the trees when she noticed a figure walking down the slope toward her. Elizabeth recognized the stride even before the unkempt hair became visible enough to be a dead giveaway. "How goes it, Colonel?"
"Radek thinks his team will be able to finish the iris tomorrow," John reported, slowing to a stop beside her. "They were able to salvage a lot of scrap material from the station segment that crashed with the north gate in order to manufacture the panels. Now it's just a matter of getting the panels in place and hooking up the control system."
She doubted it was quite as simple as that. "So far there haven't been any major disturbances among the displaced villages," she said, standing up. "A few disagreements and reluctant citizens, but hardly enough to be a problem. Both the Falnori and Nistra seem to be extremely adaptable when given a reason to be. It's amazing how quickly they came around to our way of thinking once we'd proven ourselves in their view."
"So if we'd just risked life and limb at the beginning of all this, we could have saved ourselves some trouble?" John cocked an eyebrow.
Again, not so simple, and this time Elizabeth suspected he knew it as well as she did. "I think they needed to see that we were truly on their side-both their sides, so to speak. Maybe getting involved in the battle was the only way to accomplish that. I don't know." Although she didn't like to think of violence as being necessary under any conditions, she was beginning to realize the limitations of applying Earth-based principles to Pegasus events. Her single-minded determination to mend this society's rifts had ended in an armistice, but it easily could have ended in disaster. She would not overreach that way again.