The scream grew louder. The Dart was getting ready to return home.
And then it exploded.
Ronon threw himself down as the blast flattened the trees around them, chunks of organic metal flung every which way like jagged missiles. The Dart had released a tremendous burst of energy as well, green-white like its transport beam, and that wave incinerated the first row of trees and blackened the next, the ones Ronon and the others had hidden behind. He felt it singe the hairs on his head and on his outflung arms, and his entire body tingled from the heat. Then it dissipated, and he glanced up and around.
The copse was now a charred circle in the forest, the very ground there torn apart and in some places melted to glass from the force of the explosion. The trees they had used for shelter were bent and bowed away from the impact, and many of them were charred and still smoldering, their leaves burned away. He held his breath as he looked for signs of the other V’rdai, releasing it slowly as he saw heads and shoulders and limbs rise into view.
“Everyone okay?” Nekai called out, his voice a little shaky. The V’rdai leader rose to his feet from behind what had been a sturdy tree and was now a hollowed-out, smoking piece of trunk.
“Barely,” Frayne grumbled, but the orange-haired man looked intact when he stood up a short distance away. “Damn near lost my eyebrows!”
“That would have been a good look for you,” Setien told him, springing up from behind a small cluster of rocks. She looked completely unfazed, her cheeks flushed and her eyes dancing even though she was covered in dirt and grass and bits of burnt bark. “That was glorious!”
Adarr was wiping himself off. “I’m fine,” he acknowledged. Then he grinned at Ronon. “Looks like it worked.”
“Definitely.” Banje looked exactly as he had — if he’d gotten covered in debris it didn’t show. “Nice idea.”
Turen was fine as well, and crouched to pull a piece of shattered Dart from a nearby tree. “Strange material,” she murmured, running her fingers along it. “Like metal, but not quite.”
Ronon noticed a piece near him as well, and tugged it from the ground where it had lodged. It was long and narrow and pointy, possible the tip of the Dart’s nose. Held in one hand, it was almost like a naked blade, though one without a handle or hilt. He waved it about a little, considering the heft, a new idea forming.
“Think you could make something out of this?” he asked Turen, showing her his find.
The little Hiñati woman examined it, then nodded. “It’s strong and sharp,” she said, “and sturdy enough to withstand deep space. I don’t have all the proper tools, but I could manage to do something with it, yes.” She grinned up at him. “You want a sword.”
“I do, yes.” Ronon’s people carried swords and knives as well as guns, and he missed the familiar weight of a blade in his hand. “I bet this stuff could cut through Wraith armor, too.”
“Probably,” she agreed. She began scanning the area, retrieving a few other likely pieces, and Nekai let that continue for a minute before he called them all together again. He had something in his hand as well, and several of them gasped in surprise when they saw what it was. It looked a lot like the consoles that stood beside each ancestral ring, only significantly smaller.
“This must be how the Dart opens a ring,” Nekai explained, holding it up for them to see better. “I’m thinking it could come in handy.”
“Definitely.” Adarr was clearly itching to study it. “I could wire it into one of our shuttles and we could fly through rings just like they do! Or we could rig a handle for it, and use it to open them before we reach the clearing, so we can just jump through! Or — ”
“There are a lot of possibilities,” Nekai agreed, cutting him off, “but we’ll worry about that later. Right now we need to get moving. Killing a trio of hunters is one thing. Destroying a Dart is another. The Wraith will definitely notice that, and they’ll send more Darts to investigate.” He clapped Ronon on the shoulder. “It was an excellent idea, and I’m sure we’ll use it again, but not today. Time to return to base.”
Ronon nodded and fell in line with the others as they prepared to move out. But he kept the Dart fragment clutched in his hand, and there was a small smile on his face. Shattering that Dart had been his idea, his plan. His kill. Something the V’rdai had never managed to do before.
Something he fully intended to do again. And again.
The Wraith would learn to fear him. To fear the V’rdai.
And then they would die.
Chapter Sixteen
“Wow.”
Ronon nodded. Adarr’s unusually short statement more than summed up what he suspected they were all feeling. “Wow,” indeed.
They stood there, staring down at the devastation that stretched out before them. Ronon had been with the V’rdai, had been part of them, for almost eight months now. They had killed Wraith by the dozens, possibly by the scores, even with Nekai’s caution about making themselves too visible and Banje’s concerns about letting the Wraith track them too long or come too close to their base. He’d gotten used to the ancestral rings, or at least able to walk through one without being disoriented more than a few seconds and capable of approaching one with only a slight shiver. But this was the first time they’d traveled through to any place larger than a small village.
This was the first time they’d seen a city after the Wraith had finished with it.
The first time, for Ronon, since Sateda itself.
He gaped unashamedly at the ruins below. The ring had been placed on a short, wide, flat-topped hill, almost a plateau save for its tough blue-green grass and the tiny yellow and white flowers dotted among it. The city was less than a hundred meters away, obviously built close enough to take full advantage of the ring and its possibilities.
No doubt that had made them a clear target for the Wraith.
There was no telling how long it had been, but there was no smoke, no fire. Everything had long since burned out. The buildings were blackened wrecks, what remained of them, and the streets were littered with rubble where those same buildings had been shattered. If there were bodies, Ronon couldn’t see them from here. That, at least, was a blessing.
Banje reacted first, as usual. Ronon had long since learned that the quiet Desedan was never fazed for long by anything. “Change of plans,” he announced. “Scavenging parties.”
The others nodded, including Nekai. That was something else Ronon had gotten used to. Nekai led the V’rdai, but more often than not when they were actually on the ground it was Banje who gave the orders. Still, that wasn’t unusual. Ronon had seen similar situations plenty of times before, back on Sateda. Nekai was a commander, a leader, the man with the grand plans and the long-range strategies. Banje was a lieutenant, practical and hard-nosed and good at the minute details and the immediate concerns. And Nekai knew that. He respected Banje enough not to contradict him, and Banje respected him enough not to counter any of Nekai’s plans, or to argue with him in front of the others. It was a good, solid system, and obviously it had served the V’rdai well long before Ronon had arrived. It still worked nicely now.
They split into three teams: Nekai and Turen, Ronon and Frayne, Banje and Setien and Adarr. Again, smart. Each team had a heavy-hitter: Nekai was a good enough hunter to count, even if he didn’t have the same physical combat skills as Ronon or Setien. Something they’d proven in the ring, Ronon remembered with a grin, thinking back to one of the few times they’d been able to coax the Retemite into joining their sparring matches. He was good, but Ronon had put him on the ground almost immediately. And he and Setien were still a dead match for best hand-to-hand combatant in the unit.
Each team also had a spotter, since Turen had the best eyes in the V’rdai, with Banje, Frayne, Adarr, and Ronon himself not far behind. Adarr was their only real mechanic, but Frayne knew enough to fake it, especially around anything with an engine. Plus Banje was the only one who could really keep Setien in line, and Turen would sulk if she didn’t get paired with Nekai — the little Hiñati had it bad for their leader, though she was careful to keep things professional. No romance among Runners. It produced too many entanglements, clouded judgment, dulled reflexes, contradicted survival instincts — all of which could be fatal.