THEIVES IN ATLANTIS
BY TIPPER
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CHAPTER TWO: THE DANGERS OF "BE CAREFUL"
A couple of days later, Teyla informed them in the weekly debriefing that one of her contacts had come through with yet another "cool Ancient artifact sighting" on M4M-167. This one didn't sound like a ZPM, but something akin to a personal shield device large enough to shield a small group of people at a thought of the wearer.
"Like opening an umbrella in a rainstorm and crowding a bunch of people under it," Sheppard said, eyes lighting up at the prospect. "Cool."
"And it would be particularly useful for a certain flagship team on missions," Beckett added, flexing an eyebrow at the four members of SGA-1.
"I agree," Elizabeth nodded. "You have a go, Colonel, but—"
"Be careful," Sheppard and McKay chorused, one with amusement, the other with an eye roll.
"Yes," she smiled at them both. "As always."
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"I sometimes think it jinxes us," McKay said quietly, his tone in deference to the state of M4M-167, "when Elizabeth tells us to be careful."
"Yeah," Sheppard agreed, his tone soft, his mind calculating the odds that anyone survived what they had found. "Probably."
"From now on," McKay continued, lowering his eyes from the view and turning to look towards the distant hills, where the smoke from the fires was less intense, "maybe she should just tell us to come back half dead and with refugees. That way, we'd probably find a ZPM and maybe a nice healthy Ancient who doesn't hate me."
Sheppard gave his friend a small, sad smile. "Yeah," he said again, still very softly. Lifting his binoculars to his eyes, the colonel moved forward to stand at the lip of the ridge they stood on, joining Teyla and Ronon already there.
They had emerged from the wormhole to a scene of total and complete destruction. Sitting atop a small hill, the Stargate overlooked a shallow, forest filled valley, at the bottom of which had once been a good sized town. It now overlooked collapsed ruins and smoldering foundations, some still generating tendrils of ash smoke drifting up almost lazily on the cool breeze. The forest itself was blackened and gnarled, the fire that had burned it down still perceptible in places on the far side of the valley—it was slowly dying out, having obviously run its course for several days. The whole scene was a study in black, grey and brown—except for the few reds, yellows and pinks visible in the clothing of people lying in the streets, unmoving.
The tinny scent of Wraith dart exhausts coated everything, even the smell of the dead. Black holes in the ground and in the former crop fields showed where the Darts had attacked—the Wraith did not like retaliation.
Sheppard lowered the binoculars from his eyes, his expression shadowed. He handed the binocs over to Teyla, who lifted them to her own eyes. She sighed heavily, scanning the sight below.
"They must have fought back hard," Teyla said softly. "The Wraith do not usually need to...destroy so much when they cull..."
"I hope they took out a few of those bastards," Ronon noted coldly, his own memories of Sateda clearly still very fresh in his mind.
"We should look for survivors," Sheppard said then, shifting his expression from restrained anger to an efficient sort of calm. "The mission prerogative has changed." He turned, glancing at Rodney who was still avoiding looking down at the valley. "Call Atlantis; see if you can get Beckett here and a rescue team. We'll see if there is anyone down there still alive who needs help."
"You think there will be?" McKay asked seriously, his own expression an exact counterpart to the military commander—where Sheppard had gone hard, McKay's face seemed to soften. At Sheppard's arched eyebrow at the question, McKay nodded sadly. "No problem." He glanced down at the city again, "Just...how recent do you think this is?"
"Not that recent. Maybe four, five days."
That made McKay frown slightly, and he glanced at Teyla, "But didn't you only hear from that contact a couple of days ago?"
She nodded, "But that doesn't mean the information isn't much older," she replied. Sighing, she shook her head, "I doubt my contact had any idea that this had occurred."
"Obviously not," McKay muttered, turning and walked over to the DHD.
Sheppard sighed heavily. "All right," he said tiredly, shifting his weapon up to firing position, and glancing at Teyla and Ronon, "let's go. Oh, and McKay..." Sheppard glanced over his shoulder at McKay. "Stay alert and keep your radio on." McKay's only reply was simply to unlatch his holster as he proceeded to dial.
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The familiar whoosh of the Stargate echoed behind them as Sheppard, Teyla and Ronon started cautiously down the hill along the dirt-packed road, keeping an eye out just in case anything still lurked. It seemed unlikely, given the way things looked, but you never knew. A dart had come back once before when they were exploring a culled planet, and had nearly succeeded in stealing both McKay and Lieutenant Cadman with it.
As they moved, none of the three spoke; there was no need to. In their ears, the radio came to life, and they vaguely listened as McKay explained the situation to Elizabeth and requested back-up and Beckett's help. They also heard Elizabeth's agreement, and reply that back-up would be there quickly. Typically, that meant about ten to fifteen minutes for the marines, a little longer for Beckett and the medical team.
She also requested they "be careful" again. Rodney's answering snort brought a smile to Sheppard's lips.
After that, things got very quiet. It was unsettling. Even the wildlife was scarce. Sheppard's eyes lifted and his head turned, spotting an eagle-like bird winging its way overhead behind them, up towards the hills. It was the first creature he had seen, much less heard.
They made good time, heading downhill at a healthy clip. It was a well tended road—the people here must have used the Stargate often.
"Colonel," Ronon called quietly, distracting Sheppard away from his morbid study of the ruins they were fast approaching. The Satedan had his weapon raised and pointed towards what looked like a still intact stone mill off to the side, the structure hidden by the dregs of the blackened forest. Had the trees not all been burnt to a crisp, the mill would have been invisible behind leaf cover.
"What?" Sheppard asked, seeing nothing obvious about the structure, other than that the water wheel still turned on the tiny stream feeding it. "You see something?"
"No," Ronon's eyes were narrowed. "I heard something. Someone spoke."
There was no faulting Ronon's exceptional hearing, and Sheppard nodded as he glanced at Teyla, eyebrows lifted in question.
"Not Wraith," she assured him.
"Okay," he said, turning his attention back to the mill, "let's check it out."
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McKay sighed, settling in to wait as Sheppard, Teyla and Ronon disappeared from view down the road. After shutting down the gate to Atlantis, he had walked over to the ridge edge again, to watch them survey the land, but they were soon out of sight inside the trees. Quietly, he wished them luck and, just as silently, thanked Sheppard for not making him go down there with them.
Pulling out his scanner, he did a quick inventory of life signs and energy signatures, finding very little of both. The life signs he attributed to wildlife—he glanced up as one dot moved swiftly across the top of the screen and smiled to see an eagle-like bird gliding elegantly across the blue sky. The energy signatures were mostly residuals—nothing stood out as unusual or strong in nature. If there had been an Ancient device here protecting someone or a group of people, it didn't appear to be here now, and nothing in the residuals suggested one had been used recently.
Which didn't bode well for its existence. Not that that mattered now.
Still, he reasoned, the scanner was only a very basic device. If he really wanted to know what was here, he'd need something more sophisticated. Putting the scanner away in his pocket again, he knelt down on one knee and pulled off his backpack. Opening it, he soon had his data tablet out and was keying in a few search commands.
As he did so, he pulled out a powerbar from his vest and started to eat it, chewing on it distractedly as he worked on the tablet.
"Rodney?" Sheppard's voice called quietly over the radio.
"Yeah?" he answered, swallowing quickly and looking up from the tablet to gaze vaguely down the hill. He couldn't see the others anymore, but that didn't matter, he still looked in their direction as if he could. He had heard their chatter over the radio, but hadn't been paying attention.
"Tell whomever comes through that we're checking out a mill located about halfway down the road, on the left hand side," Sheppard told him.
Rodney shrugged. Easy enough. "Okay."
He returned his attention to the tablet.
Fairly quickly, he was performing a much clearer search of the area for energy signatures…but the results were just as disappointing as the scanner. Focusing on some of the more pronounced residuals, he played with the search parameters, seeking to broaden the range and specify the frequencies, but he already knew it was a waste of time. There was no Ancient device here.
Sighing slightly, he shifted to change the knee he was leaning on to the other one, and glanced at his watch. The reinforcements should be here soon. Putting the now empty powerbar wrapper into his pack, he went back to his scans, his mind already thinking about dinner, how much he'd like a chair, and the possibility of going to bed a littler earlier than normal….
And then something rustled loudly in the woods off to his left.
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After telling Rodney where they were going, Sheppard had followed Ronon's lead through the scrub trees towards the mill. Teyla had taken their six, watching the road behind.
The mill was perhaps only a few hundred yards from the road, but the terrain to approach it from this direction was uneven and muddy—making the going slow.
Ronon stepped quietly, despite his size. His head was cocked slightly, almost like a dog's, and he kept his gaze vague, trusting in his other senses. In contrast, Sheppard's eyes shifted quickly around, focused on the most likely spots for an ambush. Behind them, Teyla was truly silent. She made the two men sound absurdly clumsy.
They reached the edge of the woods and entered the clearing around the mill, the wet, grassy ground squishing beneath their boots.
Suddenly, Ronon's arms lifted, his weapon pointed at the structure.
"Come out!" he shouted, "Now! We know you're there!"
Teyla and Sheppard fanned, watching both where Ronon pointed and elsewhere around the clearing, in case there were more.
The distinct sound of a pair of rifle hammers being pulled back stopped them all in their tracks.
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McKay had stopped moving, fingers poised over the tiny electronic keypad on the screen, frozen.
The rustling had stopped.
Relying completely on his hearing, he waited, trying not to move too much, his whole body rigid with tension.
He caught a flash of tan in the leaves out of the corner of his eyes, shifting in the sunlight through the thick forest.
And for some bizarre reason, his mind asked, was this what wildebeest felt like when it sensed a lion nearby? Flashbacks of old National Geographic specials passed through his lightning quick mind, and he imagined the surreally calm announcer in his head. Watch as the human prey senses danger, sniffing the air and tilting his head. He halts, hesitates, trusting his ears and eyes to warn him of the danger he knows is nearby. Meanwhile, in the undergrowth, the beast waits its chance to pounce…
The rustling happened again, sounding closer to his position in the clearing. Slowly, he typed in a few commands for the tablet to show life signs instead of energy signatures. If it was a squirrel or a bunny, it wouldn't register very brightly, but if it was bigger than that….
It was bigger than that.
"Oh, God," he whispered, swallowing thickly. Two very strong life signs were blinking away on the screen, right on the edge of the forest cover off to his right, one significantly closer than the other.
Still moving slowly, he put the tablet on the ground next to his backpack and drew his gun. Pushing back up onto his feet, he gave up all pretense of not knowing something was there (Bear? Tiger? Wraith? Yeah, right, since when does a Wraith hide from a human? Which brings us back to…man-eating mountain lions or rabid hyenas or rampaging grizzlies…Oh yeah, that's so much better than a Wraith, McKay, nice way to talk yourself down….) and turned to face the woods, gun raised and pointed at where he had last seen something shift.
The rustling stopped abruptly.
Swallowing, he tapped his radio with his left hand.
"Colonel?" he called softly, his voice quavering slightly as the left hand moved to join the right holding the pistol. "I might have a, uh, a small problem up here."
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"We don't want trouble," Ronon called again to the hidden people inside the mill. The big man didn't lower his weapon, but he had also stopped advancing, trying to pinpoint the rifles they had heard with his eyes. "We're not here to hurt you."
"We're just here to help!" Sheppard added, sidling a little closer to Ronon's side, his most earnest look on his face. "Just...come out and let's talk, okay? There's no need for any shooting to happen. We—"
He was cut off when his radio came to life in a burst of scared sounding McKay.
"Colonel?" The quaver in McKay's voice was strong. "I may have a, uh, a small problem up here."
Sheppard grimaced. Not the best timing, but the man's voice told him not to take the call lightly.
"McKay," he replied curtly. "What's wrong?"
"I've got two very strong life signs up here on the edge of the woods." McKay's voice shook over the airwaves.
"Strong? Define Strong."
"Large, scary, carnivorous, astrophysicist-eating animal strong."
Sheppard gave a dark grimace, then turned and glanced at Teyla behind him, the woman still partially hidden by the woods. She was looking at him expectantly. He gave her a nod, and watched as she took off back towards the road without a backwards glance, already running.
Sheppard gave a soft sigh, turning his attention back to Ronon. "Okay, McKay. Teyla's on her way," he said quietly over the radio.
"Just…just Teyla?"
"We've got our own problems, McKay. Just hang on. Atlantis should be sending help through any second, remember? If it attacks, shoot first and get to the DHD and through the Gate before it recovers, you understand?"
McKay didn't answer for a moment, then, shakily, he muttered a soft, "Yeah."
"Okay. Keep your radio on."
McKay just snorted, then muttered an "uh huh," sounding very distracted now.
Sheppard gave a wry grimace, knowing there wasn't much else they could do. If McKay got in trouble, they'd hear it.
With that thought, he returned his full attention to where Ronon was now standing mid-field, about twenty yards from the mill and its slow moving water wheel.
"I said, come out," Ronon repeated, his voice suddenly soft. "We won't hurt you."
The abrupt change in tone confused Sheppard temporarily, until he followed Ronon's gaze and caught sight of a pair of terrified faces peeking out from a cellar window under the mill, near the wheel.
They were just a couple of boys...
Aiming two very effective looking rifles.
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The rustling McKay heard was growing louder, and more color was visible inside the trees. It was definitely tan. Like a lion's pelt. Oh, Christ, why did he keep thinking about lions? Does this place look like Africa? Tigers are far more likely to inhabit forested places like this. Tigers…who are larger, louder and more deadly than lions….
Oh, he really needed to stop thinking now. He really did.
Somehow, the gun was remaining steady in his hands. He wasn't really sure how.
Shoot first. Shoot first. Shoot….
His finger twitched on the trigger.
And then a completely different thought entered his mind.
Suddenly, he switched his aim to point at the tree closest to where the sound was emanating from, and fired.
The shot blasted loudly through the woods, echoing across the valley, and the side of the tree he'd aimed for exploded out in a rain of splinters and wood dust.
"McKay! What's happening? You okay?" Sheppard's shout was loud over the link, but it wasn't nearly as loud as the high pitched childlike scream from the woods, or the furious yell that overpowered the screaming.
"Don't shoot!" A woman's voice shouted, terror filled and panting from somewhere further back in the woods. "Please! She's just a little girl!"
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TBC...
For all you nit-pickers, yes, I know, would he have actually left McKay alone, even though it was only for a short time? My answer to that is, he sort of did in Coup d'Etat when he, Ronon and Teyla went in to check out the burnt building. Makes me think Sheppard's got more faith in McKay than McKay has in himself...