Title: To Honor
Author: stella_pegasi
Rating: K+
Spoilers: None
Characters: To be revealed…
Summary: One member of the Atlantis team has unfinished business to complete in order to honor a comrade.
Disclaimer: I do not own them; I would have treated them better.
Notes: There was a light / dark challenge on LiveJournal and I started this story for that challenge but it took a turn and didn't quite fit the community, I am posting it here. Hope you enjoy but please le me know one way or the other.
To Honor
Glancing up and down the dark alley behind the inn where his team was staying for the night, he slipped out the door and headed north through the dark, narrow streets of the town. He had been patient, waiting for a reason to return to this planet. Now he was here, determined to finish what should have been finished several months before.
They had gated to the planet to participate in a signing ceremony as this planet was joining the Pegasus Coalition. The people of this planet had been among the first ally's that Atlantis had made that first year of the expedition. As the years passed, they continued to trade their crops and other goods with the Atlantians. When the Pegasus Coalition had approached the planet's government to offer them membership in the coalition, the leaders had gone to Atlantis for advice. The trust between them was strong and for a fleeting moment, he was concerned that what he was on his way to do would put that trust in jeopardy. But he couldn't live with himself if he didn't.
Locating his quarry had been difficult; he had to keep a low profile and couldn't ask anyone to tell him where to find the person he was looking for so he had to piece together snippets of information. Too many people on the planet and on Atlantis would be suspicious if they overheard him asking how to find the person he was seeking.
He heard footsteps and ducked into a doorway while a lone man walked away from a darkened bar. It was nearly four o'clock in the morning but there had been a lot of celebrating going on that evening. Once the footsteps faded away, he headed for the next corner and turned toward the edge of town.
A ten minute walk brought him to his destination and he pulled his 9-mil from its holster and crept up to the window at the rear of the building. A single dim light cast a weak glow outside the dirty window and he slid under the window sill to the side where a tattered curtain hid part of the window. Slowly he rose to peer into the room.
Cowered on the corner of the bed up against the rough wood wall, a small, young woman was clutching at her ripped clothing. Her skin was pale, her face and shoulders streaked with red from being beaten. He was standing next to the bed, pulling a worn, ripped shirt over his head. This man was still the same slovenly, despicable man that he remembered from the events of nearly a year ago.
Laughing, the man reached across the bed and pulled the woman over to the edge. He ran his hand down her body and laughed, "Yes, you are a quite the woman now, Levangel. I should have taken you a long time ago. Now you stay right there, I am going to go get some ale and I'll be back, don't you go anywhere." The man backhanded her and her body slammed into the wall.
His target left the room and closed the door behind him, most likely locking the woman in the bedroom. Looking for a way to get inside, he felt along the outside of the window and found that the frame was loose and the window was about to fall out. He pulled out his knife and slipping the blade under a piece of the frame he was able to pry the left panel of the window out. Repeating the process with the other side, he laid that piece on the ground next to the first one he removed. Silently, he grasped the window sill and pulled himself up and onto the ledge. He dropped into the room and approached the bed.
Lying against the wall with her back to him, the woman was sobbing, her body shaking. He reached around her and covered her mouth with his hand, whispering, "Please don't be afraid, you're safe but you need to be very quiet. Don't look around; you don't need to know who I am. Come with me, I am going to help you get through the window so that you can get to safety." The woman stood up with her back to him and he lifted her so that she could get her legs through the window. She dropped onto the ground and he watched as she ran into the darkness.
With the cold steel of his 9-mil in his hand he tried the door that led from the bedroom, it wasn't locked after all and slowly he pushed it opened. Another dim lamp illuminated the shabby room where the man was sitting at a table, a stein of ale and a plate of food in front of him. If anything, he was more disgusting than he had been when he first laid eyes on him.
He eased into the center of the room only a few feet from the table, his gun pointed at the man's head. He waited for the man to notice him and when he did, he got the reaction he had hoped for, fear.
He spoke quietly, "You are still the same disgusting bastard and still preying on innocent women. Your latest victim is on her way home; I doubt that you will have much time before the authorities come to arrest you."
The man's fear was palpable but he attempted to act with bravado, "I am not afraid of you; you won't kill me in cold blood for I am an innocent man. I was twenty miles away in the next town when your, what was her name, Sergeant Broyles was killed. At least, that's what my buddies told the court."
He stood quietly, gun aimed at the man, "We both know that you raped, tortured, and then brutally killed her. We both know you are far from innocent and that you escaped justice. She was here to help your people and you murdered her for your own pleasure."
"Oh, it was pleasurable, she was quite a fighter; forced me to get really rough with her and that made it so much fun. She fought to the end and then I sliced her open and watched her die."
He bit his lip until he felt the taste of copper in his mouth; his finger pressed against the trigger of his sidearm but he remained in control, "She was good person and didn't deserve to die, especially at the hands of scum like you. You will pay for your crimes; there will be no escape." Watching the man closely, he knew that he was about to attack.
He was ready for him; the man rose abruptly from his chair and ran at him, a large knife in his hand. Before the man had a chance to stab him with the knife, he raised his left hand which held his Ka-Bar. The man, so intent on killing him, didn't realize that the large, sharp blade of the Ka-Bar had entered his abdomen. He pulled the knife upward as hard as he could and then pushed the man away.
Falling to the stone floor, the man gazed up at him through fading eyes, a look of surprise on his face. He leaned over him, "Now, you won't be able to hurt anyone, anymore. That was for her." Pulling his knife from the man's chest, he wiped it clean on the tattered shirt the man was wearing. Silently he left the hut as he had entered, through the bedroom window, and in the darkness, blended into the tree line along the road.
As he approached the edge of town, he heard voices coming toward him. Taking position behind a large tree, he slipped his night vision goggles off and from his vantage point, he could see in the light of the lanterns they were carrying, several men walking down the road. He recognized one of them as the local magistrate who had fought to bring the man to justice for killing Broyles; the others were men he had seen in town. One of them said something about his daughter and he assumed he was the father of the woman he had released earlier. They were walking quickly in the direction of the man's hut and he knew that he had little time to return to town. He waited until the men rounded the bend in the road and were out of sight before he continued on to the inn.
He entered the same door from the alley and made his way to the front door of the inn. The inn had a large veranda that overlooked the quaint town square with its ornate fountain and beautiful gardens. There comfortable benches and chairs were scattered about for guests relax in and enjoy the view. He walked over to a chair in the shadows near the side porch railing and sat down.
Breathing deeply, he knew that he should feel remorse, guilt, something but he just felt relieved. Sergeant Broyles was the daughter of one of his earliest commanding officers and he remembered her as a teenager visiting her father on base. A bright, vivacious girl who wanted nothing more than to have a military career like her father. He remembered her at the funeral of her father who had been killed by an IED in Iraq. He had gone to the funeral just days before he had left for his current assignment on Atlantis.
She was still as lovely as she had been as a teenager but with a maturity that belied her resolve to follow in her father's footsteps. She remembered him and had greeted him fondly at the funeral. She entered special ops after her father's death and requested a covert assignment. The SGC cleared her to assume a post with an off-world team and then assigned her to the Daedalus. Upon her first voyage to Atlantis, she requested transfer and served five months on Atlantis before she was murdered. He wondered if he hadn't encouraged her to join the Atlantis military contingent would she still be alive. He did know that he had to honor her memory.
He had been sitting in the dark corner of the veranda for almost an hour when he saw the magistrate walk up to the gate. His chair was still in the shadows and he was certain that the magistrate did not see him. The magistrate entered the inn and was inside for about five minutes before he left.
The sun was beginning to rise and the sky had turned from black to violet to a rosy gold. He knew he needed to go inside and face everyone but he wasn't ready. He feared that one person in particular would be able to take one look at him and know what he had done. The one person he didn't want to disappoint but the one person he thought would understand why he had to do what he did.
He was startled from his thoughts when front door of the inn opened and a tall man ventured out onto the veranda. He appeared to be looking around and when the man turned toward the corner where he was sitting, now visible in the weak morning light, he walked toward him.
"Major Lorne, I've been looking for you." Colonel John Sheppard sat down in the chair next to the major's and stretched out his long legs. "You must have gotten up with the chickens."
"Yes, sir; I couldn't sleep so I got up and came out here. It's nice to be able to enjoy beautiful sunrise from such a nice comfortable place." Lorne seriously wondered how much of that story the colonel would actually believe.
"Major, did you see the magistrate when he was here?" Sheppard was looking at him with his head slightly tilted to one side and that inquisitive look that crossed his face when he wasn't exactly sure someone was telling him the truth.
"Yes, I did, sir. Is there something wrong? I would hate for these people to deal with something bad on such an important day, sir." Lorne didn't think he sounded very convincing.
"He wanted to inform us, well, actually to inform you, that the man who he believes murdered Sgt. Broyles was killed an hour or so ago. Seems that he had taken a young woman hostage last night, raping and beating her. She was very fortunate that a man rescued her and she ran home to tell her father but, unfortunately, she didn't get a look at the man who helped her escape. When the magistrate and some men he gathered to help him arrived at the man's house, they found the guy inside, dead from a stab wound. A stab wound that opened him up just like his favorite method of killing. You didn't happen to see any one suspicious lurking about while you were sitting out here, did you?" The colonel's question was not really a question; the colonel knew what had really happened and he wanted him to know that he knew.
"No, sir. I didn't." He looked his commanding officer directly in the eye as he answered.
"I didn't think so. Well, major, the good thing is that this guy can't hurt anyone else and Sgt. Boyle can rest in peace. All in all, that's what everyone wanted in the end. Come on, the innkeeper was putting a fine looking breakfast on the table. Let's go get this day started, Lorne." As they rose, the colonel slapped him on the back and headed for the inn door. He followed knowing that the colonel understood.
The end…
PS: Curious…did you think I was writing about someone else before it was revealed who the main character really was? Let me know…I really want to know if I surprised you.