Disclaimer: I still don't own them, but if I did, I sure wouldn't have cancelled them. Even I'm smarter than that.
Warning: Although not really graphic, this includes some detailed descriptions of an execution-like murder that some people may find disturbing.
Execution - Chapter 1
By Titan5
Teyla came to an abrupt halt when John's fist jerked up. Following his lead, they all crouched down and peered through the trees to the small clearing ahead. Lt. Baker's team was now almost two hours overdue and they had not answered any of the radio calls designed to obtain information about their current situation. The four man team had accompanied two scientists to the Ancient outpost that the locals had agreed the Lanteans could study. Arriving early that morning, they had missed their scheduled return and their radio silence gave everyone pause for worry.
John motioned for Ronon to go around back and for Teyla and Rodney to move to either side of the building. The Colonel made for the front door as they went to their respective assignments, all moving quickly and silently. As John reached the door, Ronon rounded the building shaking his head. Apparently there was no back door, so the large Satedan joined John, the two of them moving quickly through the door. Teyla and Rodney moved in right behind them, stopping two steps from the entrance to stare in horror.
Six bodies lay on the floor in pools of blood, bags tied over their heads and hand bound behind their back. It took only moments to figure out what had transpired. They had been lined up and made to kneel on the floor and then had been systematically shot through the head. Teyla was staring so intently at the grisly scene before her that she was caught off guard when John rushed past her, bumping her shoulder quite forcefully and spinning her partially around.
"John?" she said as she turned to follow him out. She had a vague impression of his face being completely drained of all color. Stepping outside into the sunlight that contradicted the carnage inside, she quickly found John, standing bent over in the tall grass to the side of the small path, heaving his lunch into the foliage. Although she sympathized with his reaction, she was also surprised. The senseless killings were certainly horrifying on a variety of levels, but it wasn't the first time they had encountered senseless and horrible deaths. She had never seen her team leader this disturbed by death before.
She felt more than heard Ronon and Rodney come up behind her.
"What's going on?" asked Ronon.
"Hel-lo, have you been in there?" asked Rodney, making a slight strangling sound as he pushed back his own nausea.
A low rumble preceded Ronon's response. "He's seen as bad before. We all have. This is personal."
Teyla remained silent, but she agreed. Something about this was personal. They watched John straighten and then stagger a few steps before getting his balance in line. He spit and then wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. Grabbing her canteen, Teyla met him partway and handed it to him. With a small nod, he washed his mouth out a couple of times before taking a few drinks and handing it back.
"Thanks." His face was almost rigid, the mask of indifference firmly in place as he strolled past her as if he hadn't just dry heaved until she was afraid he'd pass out from lack of oxygen. He purposely walked back into the building and stood staring at the bodies. Rodney and Ronon glanced at her and then each other, shrugging their shoulders before following John into the Ancient structure.
Teyla chose to study the room instead of John's blank face as he stared down at the bodies. Consoles lined one side of the room, but they had been gutted and smashed. Rodney inspected them for a moment before sighing and turning to face his team. "This was done recently, as in very recently. I'm betting our killers are responsible." The scientist was keeping his eyes on his teammates and away from the death on the floor.
Transfixed, they all watched as John knelt by the first body. He carefully loosened the bag's drawstring, pulled tight around the neck but not tied, and eased the bag off the first victim's head. "Keasler," he mumbled with a shake of his head. He placed two fingers on the man's bloody neck to check for a pulse, even though they all knew from the condition of the head what the results would be. When he pulled his hand back, it was shaking slightly. Silently the pilot moved body to body, gently removing the bags and tossing them in the corner.
When he was done, John stood and stared down at his bloody hands, rubbing his first finger and thumb together as if fascinated by the blood. "The blood is still a little tacky in places, so it hasn't been a long time. And the bodies haven't had time to cool off very much." Suddenly rubbing his hands on the sides of his pants, John walked a full circuit around the bodies, as if looking for something and not finding it. Ronon frowned at Teyla and then walked over to stand beside the pilot.
"What's up? Something's got you spooked."
John stood painfully still for a moment before sighing and rubbing the back of his neck. "It's just a really bad way to die," he said softly, his voice wavering almost imperceptibly. Jerking his head up as if he'd just realized other people were in the room, John turned to his team. "I need you to keep watch, make sure no one comes in here. Be careful, but we don't know what the killers were here for, so they could return. You might scout around for something that will tell us who did this, but don't leave the area just yet. We'll check in the village later."
"What are you going to be doing?" asked Rodney.
"Getting some help moving our people home," he said. His voice was lower and huskier than usual, a sign to those that knew him that he was barely holding his emotions at bay. "I'll be back as soon as I can, but it shouldn't be more than an hour or so."
Teyla's eyes widened. "Are you sure you can get back so quickly. It took us forty minutes to walk."
"I'm having Lorne bring a jumper so we don't have to carry . . . " His eyes strayed to the bodies and he bit his lower lip so hard she was surprised it didn't bleed. Clearing his throat, he averted his eyes back to his team. "We don't want to have to carry them all the way to the gate."
"But there isn't enough room," Rodney complained. "That clearing is barely as wide as the jumper."
"Just because you couldn't land a jumper out there doesn't mean I can't," John snapped. "I'm actually a pilot, remember? Stay here and . . . just don't let anything else happen to them." Without waiting for comments or criticism of his plan, John whirled around and was gone.
"What was that?" asked Rodney, waving at where John had just been standing.
"Something is wrong," said Teyla.
Rodney let out a loud sigh. "I assume you mean something more than six dead bodies lying in a blood heap on the floor, six people that Colonel I-must-protect-everyone undoubtedly feels responsible for."
"Did he know any of them?" asked Ronon.
"Well of course he knew them," said Rodney, biting sarcasm having returned to his voice. "Four of them were soldiers under his command. And he just spouted their names off while he was . . . when he took the bags off their heads."
"I think Ronon means on a personal level, like friends," explained Teyla, wondering how Rodney could be so dense sometimes.
"Oh, uh, not that I know about." Rodney at least looked a bit disturbed that he hadn't caught on sooner. His expression slowly changed from annoyance to worry as he looked at the open door. "I just . . . I can't figure out what's got him so . . . rattled. I swear, for a moment right before he bolted, he looked afraid. And you hardly ever see John Sheppard afraid."
"Maybe he's seen this kind of death before. Maybe then it was someone he knew," offered Ronon.
Rodney snapped his fingers. "I'll bet that's it. I know he served several tours in the Middle East and lost some friends over there. Those people are just vicious enough to do something like this." The physicist suddenly straightened. "Oh, God, you don't think he'll start having flashbacks on the way to the gate and end up getting caught by whoever did this, do you? What if they come back and there's no backup coming because Sheppard freaked out on the way to the gate, but we don't know that so we think –"
"Rodney!" Teyla barked. "You must calm down. We are fine. John will be fine. Perhaps we should occupy ourselves doing what he suggested and look for some sign of who is responsible."
Rodney stared at her for a few moments and then swallowed a few times as he brought himself under control. Teyla had seen the scenario many times before and wasn't surprised when his usual, sarcastic disposition fell into place. "Yes, well, perhaps we should." He glanced around and then walked over to a laptop lying face down on the floor. "I'll see if I can figure out what they were doing when they were killed and if they had found anything of value. That might help determine if they were looking for technology to steal or if they were just here to destroy it."
Nodding, Teyla shifted her eyes to Ronon. With a slight nod, he joined her in searching the room for anything that might point to the identity of the killers or tip them off as to what was bothering John.
oOo
The jumper arrived one hour later, almost to the minute. Ronon, Rodney, and Teyla were all outside, breathing in air that didn't smell of blood and death. Rodney discovered that the images were branded into his brain, however, so that no matter how much he concentrated on the blue sky above or the varied shades of greenery that surrounded the clearing, he still saw red. Watching the jumper carefully land in a space that seemed way too small was a welcome distraction.
Getting to his feet, Rodney watched the hatch drop slowly to the ground and long-faced marines file out into the tall grass. Lorne and Sheppard were the last ones out, with the Colonel directing the four soldiers holding body bags to the Ancient facility. Rodney noticed that Lorne went with the marines and John stayed outside. He took a few deep breaths before making his way over to his teammates.
"Find anything?" John asked succinctly.
"They weren't after the technology," Rodney said. "They purposely destroyed everything, laptops and Ancient devices alike. One of the laptops was still connected, so they didn't plug in their own equipment to take readings or download information. It was almost like . . . like they only cared about destroying everything they could."
"They took all the weapons," said Ronon. "Someone on Atlantis will need to confirm, but it looks like they were killed with their own guns, or at least something similar."
"Well, the closest thing to our weapons we've seen has been the Genii weapons," said Rodney. "Do you think they were involved?"
"I doubt it," said John. "They would have tried to take the technology, even if they didn't know how to use it. And Dr. Cravens was a gene carrier. At the very least I think they would have taken her. Besides, I don't really see Ladon taking a chance on wrecking our little treaty just to kill a bunch of our people."
"No, I suppose not," said Rodney. "Kolya would if he was still alive."
Their attention was diverted as two marines came out with a body bag and carried it toward the jumper. John's face tightened in a way that meant he was clenching his jaws together. The line across his brow deepened with the growing tension darkening his face.
"You realize this was in no way your fault, right?" asked Rodney, watching John's expression carefully.
The tight, yet relatively blank expression flinched momentarily before dropping back into place. "We were originally scheduled for this mission. I shifted it over to Baker after our visit to the Kurians ran three days over." Their trade visit with the Kurians had turned into a search and rescue mission after a huge storm had led to a flood that wiped out half the town. They spent four days up to their eyeballs in mud and water digging out corpses and the remains of a whole village's life. When they drug through the gate the afternoon before this scheduled mission, they had been tired and wet and completely depressed. John had quickly found someone to take this mission and now that someone was dead.
"Carson told us to rest and stay warm and dry today," said Teyla. "I doubt that he would have cleared us for a mission so soon anyway."
"We're all due for a raging case of the flu or pneumonia after being wet and cold for four days. I think I still have mud in my ears," lamented Rodney, reaching up to wiggle his finger in his ear.
"At least you're alive," John said with a hint of annoyance before stalking off to join the soldiers moving the bodies. Ronon shrugged his shoulders and followed John into the building.
"I don't think I can go back in there," Rodney said quietly, staring at the entrance. He'd seen a lot of death since coming to the Pegasus galaxy, but this had been particularly gruesome. He couldn't get the smell out of his nose or the taste of the air from his mouth. He was beginning to understand John's reaction just a little better, thinking that his own reaction might have been delayed due to shock. Shuddering, he suddenly wanted a really long and very hot shower.
"Are you all right?" asked Teyla, placing her hand on his forearm in a way that always seemed to ground the scientist.
"No, I'm not," Rodney said honestly. "And I don't think I will be for a while."
Teyla nodded, letting out a deep breath in that calm, but disturbed way that she had. "I know what you mean. I feel the same way." They watched as Ronon and John walked by with a black body bag, their faces dark and strained as sweat beaded on their brow. Rodney knew he should probably offer to help, but he just couldn't make himself. He couldn't stand the thought of carrying a bag containing a body.
When all the bodies were loaded, Teyla and Rodney walked over to join John, Ronon, and Lorne at the foot of the jumper hatch. Lorne turned and walked up the ramp as they reached their destination.
"We're going into town to ask question," John said as the hatch began to rise.
"What? But . . . why? Shouldn't we go back first?" Rodney sputtered. He wanted that shower and then he wanted to lose himself in his research and forget about the blood and gray matter he'd been forced to deal with for the past ninety minutes.
"No, Rodney, we need to go ask questions and track these animals down before they get away. If we don't get on their trail quickly, we may never figure this out. Our people deserve justice and we need to make sure these guys never do this again." John was using his military commander voice, leaving no room for argument. As if to back up the fact that it was an order, he began marching down the path that led to the town even as the jumper slowly lifted off and maneuvered between the trees.
"Fine," Rodney snapped, angry with John for making him stay, angry with the killers for making him feel like his eyes and brain were dirty, angry with the world for being such a place that this could happen to anyone. He rushed to catch up to John, panting within minutes as he tried to keep up. "Just tell me one thing, Colonel. This is obviously very personal for you and since we're being drug along for the ride, I think that makes it our business. What's your problem, anyway?"
John turned on Rodney so fast that he flinched back, certain for a moment that the pilot was going to hit him. His eyes were as dark as Rodney had ever seen them, making John look wildly homicidal. Rodney realized he was afraid of his best friend.
"What's my problem?" John sputtered, spittle flying from his mouth and his face reddening. "You really have to ask? Close your eyes, McKay and pretend you're in the hands of the enemy. That should be easy since we've done it so many times before. Now they place a burlap bag over your face so that everything gets dark. You can smell the dust and the mold, an earthy smell that makes the oxygen suddenly seem in very short supply. You're hustled around with the rest of your people, but you can't see where you're going, so you just stumble along where they push you. Your hands are tied behind your back, making you feel even more helpless and throwing off your balance. Then you're made to kneel in the dirt and you can feel your friends kneeling beside you. You're shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip. Everything gets quiet and you think you know what's coming, but there's nothing you can do to stop it."
John was breathing heavily now, sweat rolling down the side of his face as his teammates listened in fascination. Rodney could feel the fear and dread building even as John continued to spin his story.
"The first shot is fired and the whole group flinches. You hear the thump of a body hitting the dirt, but you don't know who was the first to die. You can taste the extra dirt in the stale air making its way into the bag over your head. You can feel the muzzle of a gun in the back of your head so you know what's coming, you just don't know when. Another shot goes off and the man beside you goes down. You feel the heat of the bullet, feel the air displacement. You can feel something splatter against your arm and your neck where the bag doesn't cover. It's either blood or brains, doesn't much matter which. Both mean another man is dead and your turn is getting closer. You can't help but wonder what it will feel like. Will it hurt? Will you know in that instant before death that it's your turn? You wonder about friends you've left behind? Will they forgive you for getting yourself killed like this?"
John rubbed his hand across his face, wiping away the sweat and leaving the front of his hair sticking straight up. "It's a hard way to die, McKay. And it can be even harder to live with." John stepped back, as if he just realized what he'd said. His mouth opened like he wanted to say something else, but he just frowned and shook his head, turning away from his team and resuming his walk to town. His pace had slowed considerably, as if the wind had been knocked out of him.
Rodney looked at Ronon and Teyla and realized they were as horrified as he was. No wonder John was so shaken by what had happened. He had been where Baker's team had been and somehow lived through it. A deep scowl etched itself deeply into Ronon's face as he watched John's back. "We'll get them Sheppard," he rumbled.
With a deep sigh, Rodney nodded and fell in behind John. Teyla joined him, with Ronon covering their six. No matter what happened or how this played out, it wasn't going to pretty.
TBC
