“So what if I was?” Sheppard said. “This is ridiculous! They’re not stupid enough to come back here!”
“They’ll be here,” Adarr assured him. Twenty feet. His partner was just a little behind him, and Sheppard hoped Teyla had a clear shot at the shorter man. He was planning to drop Adarr any second now, but he didn’t want to get shot while doing it.
As it turned out, he didn’t have to worry about that. Just as the two V’rdai reached him, Sheppard heard a faint noise from up among the rocks and a little to the left. It sounded like someone brushing against a boulder, someone who didn’t know how to keep completely quiet — or someone who did and was pretending he didn’t.
Ronon.
The two V’rdai heard it as well, and both whirled around, guns raised. Adarr was barely five feet away, but even so Sheppard wasn’t taking any chances. A quick step and his pistol pressed against the back of the tall man’s head, right above his jumpsuit collar. He had just enough time to stiffen in surprise before Sheppard pulled the trigger. Teyla had stayed against the Jumper’s hull but she’d taken careful aim, and she dropped the shorter V’rdai an instant later.
Ronon had obviously been watching the whole time, because as soon as both V’rdai were down he appeared from among the rocks and quickly picked his way back down to them. Sheppard helped him bind and gag the unconscious men, and then Ronon took them one at a time to wherever he was stashing the others.
“How’re the repairs going?” Ronon asked after he returned.
“They’re going fine,” Rodney replied — fortunately he’d been inside the Jumper, recalibrating the controls to compensate for the engine modifications. “But they’re not even close to done yet. I need at least another hour, maybe two.”
“Two?” Sheppard shook his head. “I thought you said you were good at this, Rodney?”
“You think you can do it any faster?” the scientist told him sharply. “Be my guest.” He had a diagnostic tool in his hand, and offered it to Sheppard. “No? Fine. Then trust me when I say I am doing this as fast as humanly possible — maybe faster — but if you actually want us to be able to make it all the way to the Stargate I need another hour at the absolute minimum!”
“Okay, keep your shirt on, Rodney,” Sheppard said, raising his hands in surrender. “I give up.”
“We all know you are working as quickly as possible,” Teyla assured him. “We are simply anxious about the remaining V’rdai, that is all.”
“There’s only two left,” Ronon pointed out. He pulled out the tracking monitor and held it where they could all study the tiny screen. Two dots showed, close together and a short distance from here.
“You think they heard what happened to their friends?” Sheppard wondered aloud. Most guns made a lot of noise when fired, and the V’rdai’s pistols were no exception. The sound of each shot had reverberated across the tiny valley, and probably up into the hills beyond as well.
“I know they did,” Ronon replied. He pointed at the monitor again, and Sheppard saw that the dots had now separated. One was stationary, but the other was moving farther from them. “That’s Nekai,” the big Satedan said, indicating the dot on the move.
“How do you know?” Teyla asked.
“I know how he thinks,” Ronon answered. “They know we took down at least two of the others, and possibly all four. So he’s worried. He wants to give us time to panic, to make mistakes. So he’s giving us some space. He doesn’t want to risk going after us unprepared.”
“And the other one?” Teyla pointed at the first dot, which still hadn’t moved. “That is the other woman, is it not?”
“Lanara,” Ronon agreed. He half-sneered as he said her name, just as he had back in the cave. “She’s too angry and too bitter to be cautious. She won’t back down, no matter what.”
“But they’re making themselves vulnerable,” Sheppard pointed out. “They’re visible to the Wraith again because they split up.”
“They must be more worried about us than about the Wraith,” Teyla remarked. “We are the more immediate threat, after all.”
“Lanara must be really worried if she disobeyed Nekai,” Ronon agreed. “She’s never gone against him before.” He frowned and tapped the tracking monitor with one finger, lost in thought. Then a slow, nasty smile spread across his face.
“Of course, I don’t blame her for being worried,” he said, not bothering to be quiet about it. If anything, he raised his voice slightly, and it echoed faintly off the rocks all around. “She’s got nothing without Nekai, and he’s got nothing without the V’rdai. So if we kill all the others, that leaves him weak and her even weaker.”
Sheppard saw what his friend was doing. “She didn’t seem weak to me,” he commented loudly. “Just angry.”
“That’s how she covers it up,” Ronon explained. “She’s always angry. It’s just a cover, though. Inside, she’s just scared. Scared of everything — and everyone. Scared to move, scared to fight, scared to run. That’s why she clings to Nekai so tight. She’s too scared to stand up on her own.”
There was a scritching noise from somewhere off to one side, and Sheppard saw a flicker of light speeding toward them. He dove to one side, but it hadn’t been aimed at him, and Ronon had been expecting it. The big Satedan spun to the side, and the throwing knife sailed past him, just missing his shoulder. If he hadn’t moved, it would have imbedded itself in his throat.“You missed, Lanara,” Ronon called out. “You’re getting sloppy. Is that why Nekai left you? Because you’re losing your edge?”
Sheppard heard what sounded like a low growl from the direction the knife had appeared, and he turned, training his gun that way. But he didn’t see anything except rocks and more rocks.
“You used to be a good shot,” Ronon was saying. “Of course, that was years ago.” He faced the same direction and spread his arms. “Want to try again?”
A second glitter, and another blade sped toward Ronon’s throat. This one was easier to spot, however — perhaps because they knew where to look and what to watch for — and the Satedan actually caught it, grabbing the knife by the handle. The blade’s tip was less than an inch from his throat.
“Definitely losing your touch,” Ronon remarked, holding the dagger up and examining it. “I hope you have a lot more knives. We both know you’re not going to face me directly — that wouldn’t even be a contest.”
Apparently that last dig was the final straw. Sheppard heard someone roar, definitely a person but someone driven to the limits, pushed so far she reverted to baser instincts and actions. Then there was a scrape and a clatter as Lanara burst from the rocks and charged them. She had a pistol in one hand and a third throwing knife in the other. And she was screaming as she ran, no words but just a long endless exclamation.
Ronon waited until she was ten feet away, then shot her in the throat. The impact actually brought her charge up short and knocked her off her feet. She groaned once, shuddered slightly, and then stopped moving altogether.
“Did you kill her?” Teyla asked, looking down at the woman but not making any move toward her.
“No,” Ronon answered. He holstered his pistol and crouched down beside Lanara, removing her weapons before binding and gagging her. “She’s just stunned.” Without another word he hoisted her onto one shoulder and stood, carrying her off into the rocks and the shadows.
“I need to go after Nekai,” Ronon announced when he returned. “Alone.”
“Alone? Don’t be ridiculous,” Sheppard told him. “One of us” — he indicated Teyla and himself — “can come with you. The other can stay here and guard Rodney and the ship.”
“I’m starting to enjoy this whole “Rodney is too important to risk’ attitude,” Rodney commented from under the Jumper’s right wing. “You should definitely handle situations this way from now on.”
“Shut up, Rodney,” Sheppard said without turning around. “I’m serious, Ronon. You can’t go after him alone.”