For a minute, nobody moved. Rodney stared in horror at the weapon Kolya was pointing at Elizabeth. Thoughts raced through his mind, foremost among them the firm belief that the expedition would not survive the death of Elizabeth Weir. On the surface, they would be able to carry on. All the components of the body would remain intact -- with himself as the brain, of course! -- but the force animating it would be gone.

He absolutely could not let that happen.

The tableau was broken when John's voice screamed from the radio. "Kolya! Kolya, don't do this!" Kolya gave no indication he'd even heard. He just raised the gun, with no more expression on his face than a machine.

"How is this going to help you get what you want?" Elizabeth asked, her voice betraying only a hint of the terror she must be feeling.

"Sheppard put you in this position, not me," Kolya said calmly. His finger began to tighten on the trigger.

For once in his life, Rodney acted completely on instinct. "You can't do this! This is crazy, you need her!" He stepped between Elizabeth and the gun, body tensed for the impact of a bullet. Encouraged by Sora's agreement and the fact that he was still alive, he continued his attempt at persuasion. Rodney screamed anything that came into his mind, including a bluff about codes for the shields. "You can't do it without her!"

Kolya's pistol shifted minutely, the barrel now aimed at Rodney.

Rodney gulped. This was bad. He raised his hand in a gesture of placation and continued to yell in a somewhat lower voice. "Well, you can't do this without me, either. I mean, we're a package deal. You take us out of the equations and... and... you don't have an endgame!" He stopped when he realized all the Genii were staring at him perplexedly. "Um, granted, that's a chess term." Then Rodney mentally kicked himself. Of course they wouldn't know what chess was. "My point is... we're the only ones who can fix the grounding station, we're the only ones who can activate the shields, we're the only ones who can solve problems I can't even think of yet! You kill either one of us, and you don't get what you want."

Kolya slowly lowered his gun as he apparently realized the truth of Rodney's words, and an expression of frustration passed over his features. Not noticing, Rodney plowed ahead. "That's how important we are!"

Elizabeth gently interrupted his frantic tirade. "Rodney, he gets it."

Rodney exhaled slowly and turned towards their unexpected benefactor. "I appreciate..."

Sora didn't want to hear it. "You're an asset we need to complete this mission," she said crisply. Then she turned on her heel and walked away.

Elizabeth's eyes searched Rodney's face for a long minute. "You stood in front of a gun for me," she said softly and disbelievingly.

Rodney winced as an ill-timed movement jarred his injured arm. "Don't thank me just yet. We have two and a half hours before the storm hits, and unless our luck changes drastically, this city is going to be obliterated."

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Pete huddled in the scant shelter that one of the overhangs provided and watched as the spiky-haired guy changed from easygoing to lethal predator. Where there was previously a perpetual glint of humor in his eyes, there was now only ice and steel. His smirk was gone, replaced by thin-lipped determination. Whatever he was before, this one was now pure wolf.

Crackling noises emerged from the black box the spiky-haired warrior was carrying. Then the menacing voice came through again. "Major Sheppard. How's this for credibility? Weir is dead."

Pete wanted to howl and the spiky-haired guy turned to stone. Neither of them moved a muscle as they stood in the rain and wind. The spiky-haired guy projected grief and rage, and he said into the black box with a snarl, "I. Am. Going. To. Kill. You."

The menacing guy's next words were drowned out by the crashing of the waves, but the spiky-haired warrior looked like he wanted to smash the black box. Instead, he stared out into the storm, clenching and unclenching his jaw. Finally he ran away from the ruins of the sparking panels and almost ran straight into Pete.

Man and dog both expressed surprise, the man with a curse and the dog with a yelp. "What the hell are you doing here?" hissed the spiky-haired guy. "I could have killed you!" Pete looked at him mournfully, sad at the death of the alpha female and scared for his other friends.

"Go on, get out of here! It isn't safe." The spiky-haired guy made shooing motions with his hands, but Pete made no move to leave. "I don't have time for this!" he snapped. When the dog still didn't budge, the spiky-haired guy bent down until his eyes were almost level with Pete's. "Listen, buddy, I need your help. I need to get rid of the bad guys, but someone needs to keep an eye on McKay so that he can save the city. Can you do that for me?"

The spiky-haired guy thought Pete was a fellow warrior! He definitely wanted to help. He barked once and took off at a run. But he was still able to hear the spiky-haired guy say, "Try not to get hurt. Then everyone will try to kill me, not just Kolya."

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Pete wasn't sure where he would find his other friend. There were multiple scent trails, some new and some old. Because Intense Guy said he could fix anything, Pete thought that he might come to the platform with the broken panels. Therefore if he waited in the area, the intense guy might come to him.

While he was waiting, Pete saw and heard things that would haunt his puppy nightmares. He saw some of the gray-clad people wandering around carrying the stick weapons. As he watched one of them suddenly clutched his throat as a large spot of red blossomed there. Then the man fell to the ground and didn't get up again. A second later, Pete heard a loud noise and saw things flashing down from the ceiling. The other two men dropped, and Pete kept as far away from the bodies as he could.

Finally he heard the familiar footsteps of intense guy and menacing guy. But he also heard something else that he couldn't believe: the alpha female. Could she still be alive? Yes, she was! She looked tired and upset, but she was alive. Menacing guy had lied.

Now Pete was really angry. Both he and the spiky-haired guy seriously believed that the alpha female had been killed, and they had both been determined to hunt down her killer. Pete was extremely glad to see her alive, but he hated the menacing guy even more for manipulating him. So he waited until the footsteps were almost on top of him, then jumped into the menacing guy's path, intent on hurting him.

But the first thing that Pete became aware of after confronting the menacing guy was that the man was huge. The second thing that he realized was that he was very very small in comparison. He arched his back and raised his hackles again, then let loose with the scariest-sounding snarl he had ever voiced.

Menacing guy looked at Pete for a minute, then smirked. He drew his pistol and fired at Pete in a single movement. The bullet missed the dog and struck the wall next to him, but Pete yelped loudly and retreated down the hall. Menacing guy turned to his prisoners and said, "This is an Athosian nighthound?"

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This one's for all of you who wanted to see more of "action Pete, the Athosian nighthound" and his sidekicks, Rodney and John. :-)

A short chapter, but necessary to move things forward.