Chapter 10

Rodney had to admit: working with Sitnalta was comfortable. Well, comfortable in the sense that she never tried to chat while he was busy, never asked for explanations or tried to question what he was doing. Instead she just calmly accepted his proposal and followed his lead in solving the problem. And though it bothered him that she had simply strolled in and started working in the science lab, she really was a great asset. He had also learned that her questions and observations – whenever she made them – were worth noting.

But that was it for being comfortable around her. While she was a great scientist – and heaven only knew from whom she had been cloned – she was also a really beautiful woman. He would sometimes feel her eyes on him while they were working. This really unsettled him, and he was not sure why. There were a number of pretty scientists around, but none of them ever had that effect on him. As he had told John earlier: she always seemed to be where he was.

The part he had not told his friend was that she haunted him, even when she was somewhere else. It was almost as if her presence was so overpowering it followed him wherever he went.

And that was definitely not comfortable.

Right now they were both bent over the crystal tray in the transporter, trying to adjust the matrix to accept the energy patterns of John Sheppard, Ronon Dex and Teyla Emmagan as human and then to materialise them. Ideally this would have taken the two of them a few hours. They had minutes.

Of course, he could have had more time if he had just left Sitnalta in the desert. Yet he knew he never had any choice. No matter who she was, he could not have left her there for the Merikki to take. Perhaps that could have been possible three years ago, before Atlantis; not anymore. Never before had he been part of a group that really would do everything they could to save just one: including him. Those on Atlantis would never leave him behind, and not just because they really needed his scientific expertise. They would do it because he was one of them. That was all they needed to know. And to Rodney this was, even after all this time, a new experience.

"See if you can find John and the rest, I can finish here," Sitnalta suddenly told him. She did not even look up to see if he would do as she said, but simply continued with the task at hand. For a moment he hesitated, about to protest. But she finally looked up at him, and there was naked pleading in her eyes. She, too, would sacrifice anything for the group. In fact, he knew she had been serious out there in the desert: he could have left her and she would not once blamed him for it.

So instead of protesting, he stepped outside the transporter and looked around, hoping to find any sing of his friends.

"John? Ronon? Teyla?" he asked, hoping they might respond. As far as they had been able to determine, the ring must be nearly over them right now, meaning his friends should be in the same time and place as him. But were they still able to communicate between the states of being? Could his friends hear him? And if they could, can they still respond?

Questions such as these served no purpose, he knew. But he had one of those minds that questioned everything; wondered about everything.

Fortunately this was one question that was easily answered. While he was still in a bind, wondering what to do, another of those small, deadly knives appeared in front of him. As it literally appeared in front of his nose, the knife clattered to the ground the moment gravity got its hold on it.

"Okay, you're there." He turned around once, feeling a bit unsettled at the thought of talking to thin air – even if he knew air was neither thin nor was it uninhabited. "Look, we might be able to bring you back, but we need to do it within," quickly he looked at his watch, "the next two minutes. So get into the transporter and wait there." And even though he could not hear them, he knew his friends well enough. "And no, John, there is no other way. Just get in the transporter and wait there."

He, too, turned to enter the transporter. Even if Sitnalta could match his own speed, it would take the rest of the time with their combined efforts. Yet when he entered the transporter Sitnalta was not working on the tray. Instead she was sitting next to it, her fingers resting on the crystals. Her eyes were closed.

"What's wrong?" he asked, already rushing to look at his tablet. It showed nothing amiss, only a slight energy spike. For a moment he stared at it, but just as he was about to try and analyse it, Sitnalta suddenly reached over and switched two crystals.

"There," she said, grinning at him. "That should do it." She stood up. "Are they nearly here?"

"What...but...how?" he started, unsure where to begin to explain something he was not sure he even wanted explained. Sitnalta had done something here that she should not have been able to do. Obviously she preferred he did not know, either, for her eyes were deep and anxious as she looked at him.

"Please, just trust me," she pleaded. For a moment he considered ignoring her plea, but not even he was as insensitive as that.

"Okay." He looked at his pad, seeing the adjustments looked acceptable. So together they exited the transporter and the moment he knew the ring would overlap the transporter he activated it remotely from his tablet.

The familiar blue-white light filled the transporter at the same time they heard the window break down the hall. The Merikki must have dug deep enough to reach it. They were coming.

It felt like an eternity as they waited for the doors to the transporter to slide open. So much can go wrong in there. Seconds later their patience were rewarded. As the doors slid open Ronon rushed out and picked Rodney and Sitnalta up in a huge bear hug – one in each arm. "Thank you. That was really creepy," the big Satedan told them.

"Not to break up this lovely hug," Rodney said, his mouth squashed against a big arm, "But there's a number of angry villagers just around the corner."

"How many?" John, who had joined them, asked as Ronon finally dropped them.

"At least a dozen," Sitnalta replied. She held out a hand and incredibly Ronon gave her one of his knives. The huge piece of metal obscured the delicate white fingers. She looked at Rodney and shrugged.

"Like I said, Specialist Ronon has been teaching me," she explained. Rodney now knew how Alice must have felt when she had plunged down that rabbit hole: though everything sounded credible, everything seemed confused. Unlike Alice, though, Rodney knew he was wide awake.

By now John, Ronon and Teyla had progressed down the hallway to where they could clearly hear the Merikki. In this life there was always something that had to be done. So Rodney simply shrugged, picked up his tablet, placed it on his back and followed his friends; getting his P-90 ready.

The villagers might have seemed simple, but at some time they had acquired firearms that closely resembled those of the Genii. It might even be Genii, Rodney thought as they exchanged a volley of shots. Both sides were firing from the cover of the corridors' turns.

"I don't understand this. The Merikki are friendly," Teyla said between shots. "I have traded with them on several occasions."

"Yeah, well, they think Sitnalta is one of the Merikkai," Rodney told her. John turned to look at the woman.

"No wonder they are pissed at us," he said. "The Merikkai only comes this way every generation or so, but they really exploit the Merikki when they do."

Another volley of fire was enough to convince them they were pinned down. But just as things seemed hopeless, they heard shots that were not from the Merikki.

"That's P-90's!" John exclaimed.

"Atlantis must have sent another team when we missed our regular check-in," Teyla said. Emboldened by the help, SGA-1 pushed forward. Less than a minute later it was finished. Many of the Merikki were dead, the rest had surrendered.

From the other end of the corridor stepped Major Lorne and his team, along with another group of marines. "Colonel, it's good to see you," he greeted them, grinning. "Are you about ready to go home?"

"Are we ever," John replied.