TITLE: Il Condottiere.
AUTHOR: Doqz
SHOW: Stargate: Atlantis
ARCHIVE: Please ask.
DISCLAIMER: Main characters mentioned belong to Brad Wright and Robert Cooper. No profit is being made.
Ronon detested the AK-47 from the first moment he saw the specs. Paradoxically it was in Elizabeth's files - a terrifying in its inconsequentiality report on the vectors of Earth weaponry spread throughout the Milky Way, and their impact.
Or, at least, it seemed inconsequential at the time.
Being locked in the Pegasus Galaxy with the Wraith, the concerns of the NID had shockingly little bearing on his existence. He familiarized himself with the wide variety of NATO weaponry that filled the Atlantean arsenal, of course (G36 remained his favorite, to the delight of the Bundeswehr contingent and the chagrin of the Americans).
But his first glimpse of Kalashnikov's creation came through a computer screen.
It was hate at first sight.
Fifteen generations of soldiers always trapped in the back of his mind forced him to admit the practicality and genius simplicity of the design. Yet the warrior-noble - that even the Runner had not been able to subsume - instinctively rejected the weapon.
There was no art to it, no killing grace. No skill, no effort. A tool made by peasants for the peasants. An instrument to arm the levies with to 'spray and pray' as Caldwell told him once. A nice turn of phrase that.
Not a professional's weapon.
But the price was right.
He still wondered sometimes how he ended up here and now, in a galaxy not his own, fighting wars of someone else's choosing and passion.
There was a dreadful symmetry to it all he recognized readily. A cycle completing and beginning anew. He realized, of course, that he was not truly the last of the Satedans. (After a few months of the repeated snickering by the various SGC science geeks every time someone described him thusly, Jeannie Miller finally took pity on him and gave him a copy of Fenimore Cooper's book. He did not find it funny.)
No, he was not the last.
His people were there still, scattered in lost tribes and tribelets throughout Pegasus. Fighting and dying, surviving and rebuilding. Carrying on. One day, perhaps, a new Sateda would arise to shine its glory among the stars once again. Or they would disappear like drops of ink spilled into the ocean of people not as shattered, consumed or spent; the last scions of a dead world.
The news from Pegasus came through, irregularly but steadily – the Travelers' chieftain visiting with increasing frequency, her odd and violent and disturbingly effective courtship of Sheppard proceeding apace. And the SGC never failed to pass on the reports to him – the mutual dislike that quickly reached its full bloom between Landry and himself did not prevent the head of the Stargate Program from carrying out the latter's perceived duty to the full letter and spirit.
And the news had been good. The Coalition, now firmly dominated by the Genii made great strides in a very short span of time. Many in the SGC strongly suspected that had been assisted on their path by the rogue Asgard, yet no hard evidence ever emerged, one way or another.
Still it was hard to otherwise explain their rapid success, both in progressing toward manned space-flight, and in the field of bioweaponry. Divided and fighting among themselves, the Hives had been unprepared and soon enough found themselves on the defensive, their civilization imploding.
It all seemed so… sudden. Almost anticlimactic, as Sheppard'd put it, grimacing with the incongruity of it all. The work of years of effort coming to fruition seemingly in a blink of an eye.
It seemed like the most logical thing for him to find his way back, to join the Trackers perhaps. He would be welcome. If any group would open its arms to him it would be that motley collection of former Runners, survivors and bounty hunters, grudge-holders and desperados hunting the fleeing Wraith throughout the Pegasus, bringing the final payback – sometimes silent, sometimes public and grisly - to the destroyers of worlds.
And yet Ronon found himself putting off his departure for one reason or another. There always seemed something to keep his attention, something distracting him from catching a berth on one of the ships still plying the route between the galaxies.
He spoke with Teyla about it once. She faced the same choices and doubts, after all. The former Voice of the Athosians turned on him her infamous crooked grin, that seemed to grow infuriatingly calmer and wiser every day, and shrugged. Their choices were similar, and yet, she confessed, perhaps it was easier for her.
She was, after all, truly the last of her people. And although her hate for the Wraith had not diminished, it was tempered now by the concern for her child. And Earth, for all its frequent crises, was undoubtedly a safer place to bring up her son. Nor did her commitment to the fight against the Wraith had ever reached Ronon's bone-deep, instinctual (or as Jennifer in a heated moment put it once) pathological level of a vendetta.
That hate, hers and his, was the only real link either of the still had tethering them to their home galaxy. And in the end, Teyla said ruffling the hair on the head of her son - who was growing like a weed - love is always stronger than hate.
He rolled his eyes at the cliché, and she elbowed him in the ribs with the familiarly unerring aim. And then they laughed, and he threw TJ in the air, and caught him, before they joined the others at the grill.
Cliché or not…
Perhaps she was right and it was his clan that kept him rooted in the Milky Way. Although not Earth. Not forever. He couldn't say they didn't warn him. In fact they lined up to do so – shrinks and friends, bureaucrats and officers, humans and Jaffa. Some days it seemed he couldn't turn a corner without bumping into someone telling him that transition was bound to be hard, and it would be some time before he acclimated to his new life.
It got old fast.
Thankfully he did not lack for refuge. During those first months - when his own status, and that of the city was still uncertain - he found himself a frequent guest at the Miller household. Little Madison was a delight (and found his hair utterly fascinating). And Jeannie had a soft spot for him ever since he found her sobbing in that hallway, nerving herself up to face the shattered remnants of her brother, trapped in his worst nightmare come true, unable to escape his own decaying mind.
Her husband, on the other hand, quickly worked up to Ronon's last nerve. There was only so many time he was prepared to listed to the interminable variations on the theme of the horrors of militarism and the glories of cooperation, tolerance and coexistence. Ronon had the distinct impression that Miller thought he was an Athosian, and was perennially waiting for him to break out into meditation or spontaneously commune with nature, or something.
Jeannie detected the undercurrent of barely suppressed violence that her husband seemed to effortlessly provoke in their guest and did her best to smooth out the tension. Still, Ronon grew to moderate his visits. It would probably strain even Jeannie's fondness for him if he punched her husband in the face repeatedly. With a chair.
Canada just wasn't the place for him, it seemed.
It did not trouble him unduly. Miller and McKay were also hardly the best of friends, and so most of the times Jeannie and Madison visited Atlantis by themselves.
Among other things, Ronon strongly suspected that teleportation freaked Miller out at least as much as it did Beckett, and possibly more. (Maddie thought it was the best thing since Dora the Explorer. In all frankness, Ronan could not help but wonder periodically whether the kid was actually Miller's.)
It did not take long to equip Atlantis with the beaming technology. He had to give credit to McKay for that (although never within his hearing, obviously). In retrospect it was predictable, he supposed, that Atlantis could not just stay moored off the coast of California. Cloaked or not, it was bound to attract some attention eventually.
Nor was the IOA amenable to having the city so firmly within the control of the Americans. After years of losing a battle upon battle over the citizenship of the head of Atlantis Expedition, this was simply not negotiable.
That left only two real choices.
Antarctica was rejected quickly and with heartening degree of uniformity by everyone who had the slightest degree of interest of ever working in the city. The IOA weighed in quickly as well, bringing up the non-proliferation treaty.
That narrowed the options down to one.
And once it became clear that the IOA agreed, and was committed, to putting Atlantis into orbit, McKay's finest hour arrived. (The language used by McKay at the conference quickly became somewhat legendary. As far as Ronon knew there were still drafts of it being passed around, growing with retelling and with each copy made.)
Jennifer still cringed when his epic hissy fit was brought up, but it definitely got the job done. The beaming tech was installed to pacify the once and future Head of the Atlantean Science Department, the city was launched and the work quickly commenced to make it the hub of Earth's orbital defense network.
And the IOA personnel still blanched visibly every time McKay's name was brought up or possibility was floated (usually by smirking O'Neill) that the duties of liaison officer should be added to Rodney's docket.
As it was it kept the city remarkably free of their presence, which made the McKay-Keller household the one place where Ronon increasingly found himself escaping to, as the walls of the SGC began to close in on him.
There was something about being in the city that comforted him. It was still theirs, even with the Sheppard and Teyla reassigned, along with himself, to the Cheyenne Complex, and the city growing, and evolving, and changing almost as fast as TJ.
It was still home.
He felt as much at peace there as he ever did. Sometimes, walking the halls of the Tower at night, he could still feel Elizabeth's presence throughout the city. It was strange, but he thought more and more of her as the time passed.
Growing old meant collecting regrets, his father told him once. But then he was a Satedan politician, and thus given to the maudlin. Ronon thought more and more of his father as well, as the protocol and strictures of the Stargate Command began to feel like a noose around his neck.
Jennifer and Jeannie accused him of having a full-blown midlife crisis pretty much in unison; Madison patted his head consolingly and offered him a place to live in her room; TJ gurgled happily and threw up on his shirt; Sheppard sympathized and invited him to a party; Teyla counseled patience, and McKay offered to have him reassigned to the Atlantis garrison.
But, shockingly enough, it was Teal'c and Wolsey who showed him the way out.
Wolsey, who had been promoted quickly after their return, found himself fitting remarkably quickly into his role as the head of the NID. With Malcolm Barrett as his Director of Operations, the two of them actually made a rather formidable team.
Wolsey's viciously effective skill at bureaucratic infighting combined astonishingly well with Barrett's rich field experience. It did not take long for them to make their presence felt, as the NID's role quickly defined itself, moving past the purely planetary concerns and increasingly deeper into the galactic affairs.
And the galactic affairs were growing messier by the day.
The Ori were gone, but their faith remained, metastasizing and growing far more rapidly than even the pessimists had predicted. The converts left behind had quickly proved to be, if anything, even more fanatical that the original proselytizers. The spiritual vacuum made by the departure of the Goa'uld had also to be filled by someone, while the Americans proved remarkably squeamish about sponsoring their own missionaries.
They could not prevent the spill-over entirely, of course. Not with the ever increasing efforts by the denizens of the Milky Way to discover all that they could about the people who had outlasted all the would be Lords of Creation.
Yet although many among the humans (and even some among the Jaffa) turned their attention to Earth's religions, the impact of the Terrans was miniscule compared to the footprint left by the prophets of the Origin.
As an ideology it was not as sophisticated as the monotheistic systems of Earth; handicapped by the inbuilt assumption that the room for faith was only barely necessary. Miracles, and the existence of the Gods, after all, could be readily proven.
Yet, even lacking the helping hand of the Ori, it adapted quickly, the fervor of the converts fueling the religion that many at the SGC hoped would simply wither and die on the vine. And it was increasingly proving quite attractive to many a planet, so used to the structure of Polytheistic pantheons, and so eager to explore the paths toward Ascension.
Religious instability alone would have been enough to make the galaxy a powder keg. But, inevitably, it was only one of the innumerable problems besetting the Milky Way.
The empires of the Goa'uld that lasted for the millennia, had fallen within a decade. And no one was ready for it. Astonishingly the age of brotherhood and peace failed to materialize in the wake.
The Jaffa were often at the center of the problems, still the fulcrum of the galaxy. They were by far less numerous than the humans, but slightly less fractured. And they were, after all, a warrior race – bred for combat and still in possession of the greatest technological base, apart from Earth. Less productive, perhaps, and still crippled by the feudal traditions, but they more than made up in quantity what they lacked in efficiency.
Were they ever to unite they might have proven a formidable rival – but at least a force for stability. At things stood, however, they were swiftly becoming an ongoing, bleeding ulcer of the galaxy.
Any number of the abortive attempts to bring them together under the rule of a quasi-democratic faction favored by Teal'c and Bre'tac ended in dismal failures. Whether genetics or centuries-old social conditioning was to blame – the High Council managed to bring into its fold only a minor part of the Jaffa.
The rest split and fought each other and the humans, the latter so eager for the revenge for the centuries of oppression – when they were too, of course, not too busy slaughtering each other. The bloody mitosis continued apace, the galaxy splintering and reforming, the warlords and would be Emperors rising and falling in the bewildering succession.
And in the midst of all that chaos Earth was haltingly and aimlessly blundering into an empire of its own, protesting shrilly all the time, eager for nothing more than a period of rest and consolidation, an opportunity to invest fully into the adaptation of the hard-won Asgard technology they now possessed.
But Fate was seldom that obliging.
Ronon was sure that it was Tealc who had passed the word to the NID about the Satedan's growing doubts about his place in this new universe. And so one evening Barrett and Wolsey appeared on his doorstep with an offer.
The chaos of the galaxy had to be managed, the best it could be. Nudged when possible, shaped and directed toward the ends that would benefit Humanity and Earth. Ronon forbore asking for the exact order of NID's priorities, too taken with the vistas opening up before him.
They needed a mercenary. Someone whose ties to the SGC were still largely unknown throughout the galaxy. Someone who could present himself as a free agent. Someone with the magic quality of complete deniability And who could fit the role better than him? A man without roots in the age-old feuds, free of old grudges and vendettas.
It was a match made in heaven.
It took him less than an hour to decide. Mostly he took the time to wring the best possible deal from the NID. His mind was made up before they finished talking.
It fit. It simply fit.
A new beginning, a new cycle. The not-quite-last of the Satedans given a chance to become a first. To make his own way among the stars. To be an ancestor. To rebuild the legacy of the Dexes.
It was, after all, how it began in the Pegasus as well. A smarter-than-most cutthroat slashing his way into the ranks of the respectable Satedan gentry, by sheer vicious talent at wreaking havoc. Given land and the title of nobility, and shrouded in honor and glory by the generations who had given face-saving lies the flesh of truth, by living them, by giving themselves utterly to the Code.
The Wraith had almost destroyed the thread of genes and beliefs that tied him to that old pirate; almost made him the last, the dead end in the line that stretched across time. There could never be a Satedan at the SGC. It was all the more different for many similarities with the Land of the Regiments. He could survive and make a place here. But it would never be his own.
But out there, among the suns… He could rebuild, restart, rebirth. Begin anew.
Here was the chance to rip yet another victory out of the cold, dead fingers of the Wraith. It made all the sense in the world.
For obvious reason he took no Earth personnel with him, walking out into the stars alone but for the pistol and a ridiculously large bank draft redeemable at a very private and demonstratively incurious intergalactic financial concern.
Finding willing cannon fodder proved to be easy enough. Out of work soldiers were one resource that filled the Milky Way to the brim. Shaping a quality tool out of the raw material available to him took a little longer. Time was needed to build his reputation both as a professional and as a reliable paymaster, before the better among the sell-swords of the galaxy began showing up at his door.
But time he had. And after a while, he quietly sent word for Amelia. Their relationship had been brief, volatile and utterly destructive. But she had proven to be a good friend, and an incomparable Chief Tech of Dex's Free Regiment.
One thing that seemed to breed true throughout galaxies and universes was the utter idiotic scorn with which most of the wannabe conquerors treated logistics. That extended to keeping tabs on the support personnel of their rivals.
He could have never enlisted Sheppard, or Lorne, or Teyla (even if he could have enticed them to join him). All three quickly made a name for themselves under the flag of the SGC, doing what they did best – namely killing things and blowing people up.
But absolutely no one paid any attention when one Amelia Banks quietly joined the Regiment and took over the Engineering Department. But then universe was full of suckers. He always said as much.
Life settled quickly into a whirlwind of unexpected routine. His reputation grew rapidly, as did his fleet. Ronon entertained no illusions. His reach was short enough, and he did not seek to turn the tide of the Galactic History all by himself. He looked after his people, and they tried to do the same. That was enough for him.
There was no shortage of contracts – even without the covert interest that the NID continued to take in him. His familiarity with the Terran weaponry and tactics stood him in good stead too, as their way of making war quickly grew to dominate the galaxy.
He crossed the Milky Way from end to end, and fought, collecting glory and wealth, building, and planning, and waiting. The life ahead of him seemed foreordained – a simple and direct route toward the obvious future.
He'd fight while he was able. And when he no longer could, he would settle and marry, and his sons would pick up the rifle and the sword.
A planet that the momentarily cash-embarrassed Lucian Alliance offered him in payment for one of the contracts proved to be a good world – a safe base for the Regiment, and a home for their families.
Not his home. No, not for him - but it would be for his children. One day.
As for Ronon, he still found himself coming to back to Earth when he could find the time, returning to the tall-spired graceful and deceptively fragile-looking city in the blue planet's orbit, enduring the inevitable madness of the raucous welcoming, finding himself as often as not sitting out the party in a quiet place, out of the way. Watching and drinking.
Until Teyla would pull him out of it to dance with her, or McKay would enlist him as support in yet another incomprehensible and interminable argument with Zelenka.
And the voices of the kids filled the air.
As the night would fall he'd find himself lying awake on McKay's couch, hand interlocked behind his head - just listening to the even breathing of Rodney's daughters. Oddly content, even with the unsettled ache deep behind his eyes and the brief moment of incomprehension when he would catch Jennifer turn Malena's smile at McKay instead of him.
He suspected they knew – Teyla and Jeannie certainly. And Sheppard had too often proved himself remarkably perceptive about these things. Perhaps Rodney did as well.
But marriage and fatherhood matured the man. To a point, of course.
Or perhaps it was his success.
Once the greatest secret in Earth's history finally came out in the open it proved rather less dramatic than a lot of people expected. Perhaps because by then it wasn't much of a secret.
With the mind-boggling numbers of people involved in building and manning the Fleet, policing and settling the colonies, and mining the discovered technology…
The quiet, and the not so quiet, rumors had been flying for years. If anything, the public confirmation – once the story finally broke – actually calmed people down.
And for Rodney it finally meant public recognition. Not only of his scientific discoveries but, remarkably enough, as a writer. Much of the Stargate Program remained classified, of course, but the decision had been made to pay due to the fallen.
McKay's seminal biography of Elizabeth Weir stayed on every bestseller list for months – even after he flatly refused to do publicity events. It was still being re-printed, now as a 2-volume compendium including Elizabeth's own, unfinished memoirs.
Rodney McKay was finally a household name. And, inevitably, hated every second of it. But perhaps that was also part of growing up. He seemed more whole these days, more sure of himself.
Up to a point, of course.
One way or another, however, he never showed any worry or jealousy. And that too made Ronon feel at home there. They made it work, Rodney and Jennifer. Fitting somehow into a puzzle that made no sense at all to outsiders, but all the sense in the world to them.
They were happy.
And what greater glory could a man hope for if not to live to see happiness fill the days of his clan.
His visits were irregular and all too brief, but they sustained him, more than he ever cared to admit. And then his life would pull him away again, toward another far horizon and the thunder of the guns. The path was settled and determined, the future set.
But the Fate was seldom that obliging.
It was simple chance, that he was there when Destiny came screaming out of the hyper-stream, the weapons of the great Ancient ship aflame as it sought to stave off its enemies, like a cornered stag surrounded by hounds.
A simple chance that started it all. But once that first step was taken, all the choices were taken away from him.
And so the Free Regiment rose into the skies and met the new enemy of Man, and took the first last stand of the Great Crusade. They bought time for evacuation, and for Destiny to make its way home, bought time as soldiers are meant to do. Bought it with blood, and suffering, and courage, and death.
Caldwell - himself past master by then of carrying off hopeless fighting retreats - would tell him later again and again, that his retreat was a classic. Destined for the textbooks and War Colleges' curriculums.
It was cold comfort, as the General - who seemingly gave up on aging and simply grew grimmer and more grizzled with every passing year - knew himself even as he would say it. As cold a comfort as Ronon's dead, left to be claimed only by the lightless void and the fields of that cursed world.
At least he led some of his people away. Enough to rebuild and fight again, and again. Throwing their flesh against the guns of the tide spilling malevolently and inexorably across the Galaxy.
They fought, and ran, and fought anew. The Grand Crusade did what no men of good will or even the threat of the Ori could. It united most factions in the Milky Way.
And yet their numbers proved insufficient stop the onslaught. There seemed no hope, no way out, no solution.
Until the Genii came to die shoulder to shoulder with them.
Until the Genii came, and Elizabeth came with them.