Part I, Chapter 4
As usual, McKay couldn't sleep without his twin pacifiers: Ambien and the headset. He hates offworld travel these days, and especially hates doing it with Teyla. She tried to get them both out of having to run this mission only because staying home means more chances to wheedle the headset out of him. Sometimes she does this by promising to let him see parts of her dreams—five minutes, ten minutes.
In his dream the previous night, Teyla appeared at his side. "What are you doing?" she asked.
"I'm watching a dream of myself watching myself dreaming," he responded.
It's been like this for a while. No new material, always the same story over and over: Dreaming about the act of dreaming rather than dreaming alone.
That morning, before their travels to the Ruined Planet began, Teyla stormed up to Rodney, barely restraining herself from striking him.
"You have been watching my playback without permission!"
"It was in the laptop when I turned it on," he countered, but his face gave him away.
"Do not lie to me, Rodney."
Then she swept past him, hastily checking her weapon. Quick movements attested to her level of annoyance with him. He'd been so careful: sneaking into her quarters, finding one of the playback disks he hadn't viewed yet. A quick copy and he was done. What trick had she used to catch him?
OoOoOoO
Dawn is just breaking over Maisica, the pulverized city on the Ruined Planet in which the stargate stands.
Rodney watches Ronon sniff the fetid air. The Runner's eyes used to match Sheppard's, with a sharp glint of profound concentration. Today they have a feverish quality, a desperation that Rodney's never noticed before.
The Ruined Planet won't give up its pods for nothing. They all carry packets of seeds to trade.
Junk and parts of buildings and rusting machinery lie in piles, like frozen waves, some so high and close to the gate that a puddle jumper would have crashed right into them. They have been to many worlds sucked dry by the Wraith. A pity that this place killed itself.
"Anyone know where to look?" Sheppard asks, then climbs a hill of garbage and looks about.
"Out of town," Ronon follows him up and doesn't stop moving. "Farm, maybe."
Rodney searches for energy readings. So far, his monitor is idle.
"Zilch," he sighs. "Just once I'd like a break. We might have to walk for miles."
"You could use some exercise," Ronon says, as Teyla smiles beside him.
Taking umbrage, he responds, "Don't laugh, Teyla. You're stuck on this mission as long as I am."
Her face stiffens almost imperceptibly, but Rodney sees it and adds a point for his side.
They walk on, making slow progress over the debris, like climbing sand dunes. From time to time, they pass simple painted signs nailed onto wooden posts.
The signs say things like "We become like what we worship" and "Everything is difficult before it is easy."
They pause beside one of the signs, taking a break for water and snacks.
"'Crusade for the Master and the Divine One will be pleased,'" Rodney wryly observes. "Job sharing. Cool. Wonder if anyone actually works here."
But they hear nothing, not even a distant grunt of a backhoe. The city is dead and looks like it will remain so.
By nightfall, the exhausted team holes up in the remains of a private home not far from the western edge of town. Ronon wants to walk farther, offers to take point, for he can see in the dark better than they.
Sheppard declines. "We'll stop for the night. I don't want any of us stumbling over this stuff in the dark."
Ronon rubs his hands together. "We're wasting time."
"We're. Staying. Here."
Ronon turns away and gazes up at the pock-marked moon rising red behind weathered beams and rotting boards.
Still furious with Rodney, Teyla's been silently slamming him all day, not even trying to prevent crumbling masonry from sliding his way, holding out a hand for him to grasp and then pulling it away at the last moment.
She wants to use the Dream Machine as much as he does. When they get back, their deal will have to be restruck. A night with the headset in exchange for ten minutes' playback isn't fair. He wants more, a lot more. An hour of playback at least, possibly two.
Finishing his MRE—ravioli, a favorite—McKay notices Ronon sitting off away from them, irritably tossing pebbles out the shattered window next to him while Sheppard watches the huge Satedan out of the corner of his eye.
The place they are resting in has a workable fireplace made of cement blocks. Sheppard's pulled together some wood and lit a little fire for warmth and reassurance. The flames illuminate Teyla, who has already fallen asleep, no doubt drained by her own anger. McKay looks at her and feels weary with remorse.
Ronon offers to take second watch, the worst one, in the dead of night. Sheppard insists the Satedan take first.
"I'll take 'em all if you want," Ronon proposes.
"I don't want," Sheppard replies testily.
The soldiers stare at each other. Ronon holds a small object, a chunk of masonry he picked up somewhere. Now he throws it as hard as he can through the jagged window opening, so far that it takes many seconds to hit something. The sound echoes in the silent night.
OoOoOoO
Sheppard's no fool. He's noticed the fracture between McKay and Teyla, and the one between Ronon and everybody else. Unfortunately, officer training didn't include supervising antsy volunteers in other galaxies. Ronon has revealed very little of himself since joining the team. Whatever more there is to tell of his life on the run, he hasn't shared it with anyone yet, and maybe never will. If Ronon really wants to strike out on his own, Sheppard hopes it will not happen on this creepy, dead world.
Teyla gets along pretty well with McKay, due in large measure to the Athosian's legendarily long fuse. Whatever's eating them today may well be something they can work out for themselves.
He shifts uncomfortably, annoyed by other people's problems.
Second Watch is special. Everyone is so far down the well of sleep, a quiet desertion of post would surely go unnoticed.
The fire has died to cinders.
"Going somewhere?" Sheppard asks, when he sees his newest team member awake and creeping towards the back door of the cottage in which they are resting.
Ronon points to the crumbled city outside. "Water," he says, the Satedan term for urination.
Sheppard shifts on the piece of block he's using as a seat, then signals Ronon over.
"You gotta tell me these things, okay?"
Ronon gazes around impatiently.
"Look, I need to know where every member of my team is at all times. You go out and not come back, I might not know about it for hours. Got it?"
"Sure."
OoOoOoO
Ronon's up at first light, waking them all as he tears open his MRE and scuffles around inside and outside their campsite, pacing as he eats.
They break camp and walk to city's well-defined edge. Skirting the last fallen building and another painted sign ("Live devoted or not at all!"), they are suddenly out in the countryside.
Which is just as deserted as the city, but thankfully free of the damnable obstacles that slowed them to a crawl. On either side of the cracked roadway, at close intervals, stand thin, waist-high pipes. They have no faucets or caps at their tops, but are bent inward, so their openings point like unseeing eyes at the team as they pass.
Beyond the pipes lie mile after mile of barren fields, so lifeless not even weeds grow on them. Distant, striated cliffs sporting layers of colorful sedimentary rock break the monotony. At the base of one of these cliffs, barely discernable through a veil of dust kicked up by rampant winds, a small settlement can be seen.
Ronon's off in a flash. "I'll scout ahead!"
"Ronon, wait!" Sheppard knows that words won't work this time. "Damn it!" All those crappy sparring sessions. His disappearance when they encountered the campfire. Now this idiotic move. Ronon's become careless and given their position away.
"Where is he going?" Teyla moves to run as well, but Sheppard keeps her back. This is the Ruined Planet, a very dangerous place. He's taken the signs they've passed as warnings. "Live devoted or not at all!" Have they only two choices: devotion or death?
McKay retrieves the monitor from his pocket. "Energy readings."
"Where?" Sheppard sees nothing but the strange stanchions on either side of them and the vacant acreage beyond.
"All over the place." The scientist pokes at the monitor, pivoting on his heel to take in their surroundings.
Far up the road now, Ronon gambols over the fissures and gullies in the paved surface. Head high, he plows forward like a devotee spying Mecca after a long pilgrimage.
Then activity, rushing around in the far enclave, busyness at Ronon's approach. At this distance it is like watching a flea circus from across the room. Maybe there are shouts carried away in the wind. Maybe a warning, but Sheppard can't hear it.
"Oh, no…"
"McKay?"
"It's under the road…" He doesn't finish, and Sheppard and Teyla are still drawn to their teammate, who has reached the outskirts of the settlement.
A flash. The tiny moving thing that is Ronon pitches backwards hard to the ground and lies there unmoving. It takes a while: one one thousand, two one thousand…
They all expect it, but when the sound of the shot finally reaches them, they flinch.
TBC