The shuttle, Ronon agreed, and the way they went after Sheppard and Teyla. They knew if they only wounded whatever ship approached the shuttle, it would have to set down here. That's why they were waiting here. They probably got traps set up all around the area. Sheppard and Teyla must have tripped one of them.
But you are sure they are still alive? Rodney pressed.
Pretty sure, was the less-than-inspiring reply. They know there are more than two of us. They'll be cautious, careful, prepared for the worst and that means assuming whoever left is dangerous. Killing them means two fewer enemies to worry about, but it also means they don't have any leverage, or any lures. Keeping them captive is a better bet. That way they can draw us in and kill all of us together.
Great. That's something to look forward to, Rodney muttered. He was still thinking about Ronon's story. So you were with them for almost two years?
That's right. Beside him Ronon shifted, probably trying to make himself a little more comfortable in their rocky prison.
And then you were on your own for five years after that?
Yep.
Rodney was having trouble processing that. How the hell did you survive that long? — he finally blurted out. Well, he wasn't known for beating around the bush. I mean, those first two years you had a whole team with you, and your signals cancelled each other out. But the last five it was just you, and nothing to shield you from the Wraith!
I was lucky, Ronon told him bluntly. But after a second he added, and well-trained. All those skills Nekai taught me? They kept me alive.
I assume the Wraith came after you?
All the time, Ronon answered. They had my tracking device visible on their monitors now, but even so they were cautious. For two years, every time they found a Runner a pack of hunters wound up dead. That helped me it meant they didn't just charge in. They took their time. And that gave me time to notice them coming, and set up a proper welcome. Rodney saw a flash of lesser darkness in the shadows, and realized Ronon had grinned. He shuddered. He’d seen that grin far too many times, always right before Ronon shot something. Or someone.
Something else was bothering him, though. “Beckett never said anything about explosives.”
Thanks to their narrow confines, Ronon heard him. “You mean on the tracking device?” He laughed once, a sharp, bitter sound rather than his usual amused chuckle. “That’s because there weren’t any.”
“Nekai lied about the explosives?” It made sense, though. What better way to keep the team together than to make them think they had to stay together?
“I wasn’t sure,” Ronon admitted, “not until Beckett examined me. But I’d suspected. I’d actually wondered about it back when I was still with them, that and a few other things.” He shook his head. “Nekai needed to remain in control. So he kept us in the dark as much as possible, and lied to us when he thought it would help.” He shrugged. “I tried removing the device myself, right after I got away, but I couldn’t get the right angle. And I couldn’t trust anyone to help me.”
“Until you met us.” Then Rodney flashed back to their first encounter with Ronon, and how the Satedan had taken Teyla hostage and had ordered Beckett to remove the tracking device at gunpoint. “Or maybe trust isn’t the right word there, either.”
Ronon grunted. “I trust you now,” he admitted softly. Rodney was surprised how much he appreciated that simple statement. And he trusted the big guy, too.
Not that he was about to tell him that.
“So you think it’s still Nekai himself?” he asked after a minute.
“I don’t know,” Ronon replied. “Maybe. Or maybe the others just kept up what he’d started.” He shifted again. “I know one thing, though. They’ve taken it a step further.”
“How’s that?”
“When I left, Nekai was talking about killing anyone who crossed their path, Wraith or not,” Ronon pointed out. “But this trap was way out in the middle of nowhere. No one was going to happen across it.”
“So they’re actively hunting humans now as well,” Rodney agreed. “Swell.”
He waited a second, but Ronon didn’t say anything else, so after a minute Rodney leaned back and closed his eyes. But sleep wouldn’t come.
“They don’t know it’s you, do they?” he asked finally.
“I doubt it,” Ronon answered. “No tracking device, and I didn’t see anyone watching us.”
“Sheppard and Teyla might let your name slip.”
That got one of Ronon’s more typical chuckles. “They won’t talk. At least, not the way the V’rdai are hoping. Sheppard won’t give them anything.”
“Well, what now?” Rodney asked. “We can’t just stay in here forever.”
“No, we can’t,” his companion agreed.
“So what do we do?”
Again he caught a quick glimmer of the Satedan’s grin. “They’re hunting us,” he replied. “So we hunt them first.”
Chapter Twenty-two
Rodney woke to a world of hurt.
“Oh, ow!” he complained, shifting slightly and producing a wave of sharp pain across his back, shoulders, and neck. Another twist and his legs and butt joined in, all protesting angrily.
“Shhh,” Ronon warned beside him.
“What do you mean, ‘shhh’?” Rodney snapped, but quietly. “We’re trapped in a tiny cave somewhere on a godforsaken planet in the middle of nowhere! Who’s going to hear me?”
“The people hunting us.”
That shut Rodney up, but only for a second. “Oh right, because they’re going around and putting their ear to every rock and cliff and hillside they can find, just on the off chance they’ll hear us in this little cave nobody knows exists?” He tried stretching again, but only succeeded in banging his elbow, forearm, and wrist on the low ceiling. The new injuries joined the chorus of older ones in shrieking at his misuse of his own body.
“Sound carries,” Ronon answered softly. “And we have no way of knowing if these walls have cracks in them. Our voices could be heard miles away.”
“But if they were,” Rodney argued, “wouldn’t that make us impossible to locate by sound alone?” He grinned, and was pleased to discover his face was one of the only parts of him that didn’t hurt. Thank God for small favors!
“Best not to chance it,” was all his companion replied. Which meant Ronon knew he was right but couldn’t admit it. The pleasure of winning yet another argument helped offset the pain of sleeping curled up in a hard rocky niche but didn’t drive it away completely.
“What time is it?” Rodney asked, though he did whisper the question. “How long have we been in here?”
“It’s almost dawn,” Ronon told him. “We slept maybe four hours.”
“Four hours? I’m useless without at least six.”
“Guess you don’t sleep much, then,” his companion said, and Rodney could tell the big lug was grinning.
“Ha ha, very funny. So when are we getting out of this lovely little hole in the wall? Dawn?”
But Ronon shook his head — Rodney’s eyes had apparently adapted enough to their environs that he could see the motion, even though the Satedan’s features were still a blur. “Too early,” came the answer.
“Too early? What are you talking about? We have to go find Sheppard and Teyla. We’ve got to get the Jumper up and running again. We’ve got to call Woolsey and let him know where we are!”
His companion turned and looked down at him. “They’ll be waiting for us at first light,” he explained. “It’s the best time to hunt — the prey’s still tired, not fully alert, and the early light can be misleading, even blinding at the right angles.”
“Oh.” Rodney thought about that. “So what do we do?”
“We wait until mid-morning. They’ll be getting restless by then, which means they’re more likely to make mistakes.”
“Great. So what do we do until then?”
Beside him, Ronon leaned his head back against the cave’s curving wall. “Sleep,” he answered. And within seconds he was doing just that.