Within seconds the only people standing were Turen and Ronon. She was wiping her blades clean and returning them to their sheaths. Ronon thought he saw her hands shake slightly, but wasn’t sure. He was too busy turning to glare at Nekai, who was finally rising and stepping toward the carnage as well.
“Let’s get out of here,” Nekai said, finally lowering his own pistol. “This hunt’s ruined.”
“Ruined?” Ronon stared at him. “The hunt? What about them?” He gestured at the bodies.
“What about them?” Nekai squinted up at the sun. “Scavengers will find them soon enough. The sun will finish whatever they don’t. But no way the Wraith won’t notice the stench, or the blood. We’ll have to retreat, try again another time.”
“Never mind the hunt,” Ronon shouted, stepping closer to the other man. “You just murdered five people!”
Nekai met his glare, the Retemite’s scowl showing he was starting to grow angry as well. “‘You’?” he repeated softly. “We’re a team, Ronon. A unit. You’re one of us. Don’t go thinking you’re not.”
Ronon brushed the distinction aside. “Fine — we just murdered five people!”
“We did what we had to do,” Nekai answered. “That’s all. Now let’s go.”
He turned away, but Ronon wasn’t finished. “We didn’t have to do this!” he insisted. “They weren’t a threat to us!”
“Of course they were,” Nekai replied. “They interrupted our hunt. They could have attacked Turen.” The look of gratitude and hero worship she shot him almost turned Ronon’s stomach, especially after the violence he’d just witnessed. War was one thing, but slaughter was another. And this hadn’t been war.
“They didn’t draw a single weapon,” he pointed out. “They were offering her water! They were asking if she was hurt!”
“You’re going soft,” Lanara sneered, stepping close to Nekai. Turen’s happiness vanished instantly, replaced by the scowl she often wore these days. “They’re sympathizers. Sympathizers deserve to die.”
“Sympathizers?” Ronon glanced around at the others. Frayne and Adarr wouldn’t meet his eyes. Banje did, but his expression was unreadable. Turen was still scowling, as were Lanara and Nekai — he thought Turen was more annoyed at Lanara than at him but it was hard to tell. “What did you see that could possibly suggest they were sympathizers? They didn’t mention the Wraith, they aren’t carrying Wraith weapons, and they didn’t look like they were trying to hurt or capture Turen. They were going to help her! How does that make them sympathizers?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Nekai answered brusquely. “They weren’t part of this unit. That makes them the enemy.”
Ronon couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “What?”
“Look,” his mentor said, stepping a little closer to him. “You know the Wraith as well as I do. You know what they can do. They can get to anyone. They could turn them, or torture them, or simply bribe them. The point is, if we’d let them live, the Wraith could have used them to get information about us — and that would put all of us at risk. It would put our mission at risk.” He laid a hand on Ronon’s shoulder. “We couldn’t trust them not to turn on us, or to be turned against us. We can’t trust anyone except ourselves. It’s us against the Wraith, and with their influence that means we have to treat it as us against the rest of the galaxy. Everyone else has to be considered hostile. It’s the only way we can survive. The only way we can continue our hunt.”
Ronon shrugged free of Nekai’s grip. “I don’t believe that,” he responded. “Treat anyone we don’t know as a potential threat, yes, but actively hostile? What, do you just want us to kill anyone who crosses our path, no matter what?” He glared at their leader, but the glare turned to a stare of disbelief when the Retemite didn’t even try to deny the accusation. “You would!” Ronon said softly, the words hissing between clenched teeth. “You want us to wage war on the entire galaxy, and everyone in it.”
“We’re already at war,” Nekai shot back. “I want us to win.”
“We’re at war with the Wraith,” Ronon corrected. “Not everyone else. They’re not involved. They’re not soldiers. If we start killing them, we’re just murderers, not warriors. And that makes us no better than the Wraith!”
Lanara’s gasp warned him just in time as she lunged for him, a knife already in her hand. “How dare you?” she cried, slashing at his throat. He blocked the thrust and trapped her arm to keep her from trying again, but the look she gave him was almost sharp enough to kill all on its own. “How dare you compare us to them? They’re monsters!”
“So are we,” Ronon told her, taking the knife away and then pushing her back, not hard but forcefully enough that she couldn’t prevent it. “If we start killing innocents, we’re just as bad as they are.” He shook his head. “Worse. The Wraith kill to survive. You want us to kill just because it’s less complicated — killing everyone takes less effort than figuring out who we can trust.”
He turned and looked at the others. His teammates. His friends. “Are you all okay with this?” he demanded of them. “Are you fine with being told to murder people who’ve never done anything to you? Really?”
Turen was the first to reply. “If Nekai says we have to,” she asserted, raising her chin defiantly, “then that’s what we’ll do.” The approving nod Nekai gave her would have set her tail to wagging if she’d been a dog.
“I don’t have anything against those poor fellows,” Frayne admitted, gesturing toward the dead peddlers. “But if it’s them or us, I’m gonna go with us every time. What’s wrong with that?”
“It’s not my place to figure out who we do or don’t fight,” Adarr said. “I just do what I’m told.”
That left Banje. “Come on,” Ronon urged him. “You must see this is wrong. You commanded a unit, just like I did. You know what it means to give orders, and to have to live up to that responsibility. Some orders are just wrong. We’re not murderers. We’re soldiers — but that means only fighting other soldiers, not helpless civilians.”
Banje didn’t answer for a moment. When he did, however, he shook his head. “I don’t know,” he admitted so quietly Ronon had to strain to hear him. “Maybe we shouldn’t have killed them. But what’s done is done. And Nekai is right — everyone is a potential threat. We have to treat everyone outside our unit as a possible hostile, at least at first. It may be the only way for us to stay alive.”
“If you shoot to kill at first sight, there won’t be anything beyond ‘at first,’” Ronon replied bitterly. His shock at Nekai’s actions had faded, to be replaced by disappointment at the way his friends had simply accepted their leader’s skewed perspective as their own. He wished Setien was here, then realized that perhaps he didn’t. She wouldn’t have approved of killing bystanders, but she also would have thrown the decision back in Nekai’s face — she’d never known how to back down, and it might have led to violence among the V’rdai itself. Besides, she’d believed in their mission just as much as he had. Seeing it tarnished and twisted like this might have destroyed her.
Nekai was speaking again, and Ronon realized he’d tuned the other man out at first. “ — changing,” he was saying, “and we have to adapt if we’re going to survive. They’ve expanded their activities, increased their hunts, enlisted allies and scouts and spies. We have to be even more vigilant and even more careful as a result. We can’t risk waiting to see if someone is a friend or a foe — by the time we ask them and get a clear answer it could be too late. We’ll have to assume everyone is an enemy unless we already know otherwise.” The other V’rdai were nodding, though only Lanara showed any enthusiasm. The others were just accepting Nekai’s lead as usual.
“We aren’t looking for trouble, or for other people,” Nekai added, focusing his attention on Ronon. “But if we run across them, we can’t leave them behind to possibly go to the Wraith. We’ll have to take them out first.” His eyes bored into Ronon. “I need to know I can count on each and every one of you to do what’s necessary without a moment’s hesitation.”