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The previous chapter has been re-uploaded to fix a few typos. Spell check is my friend.

Chapter Five: Teyla's Bright Idea

"... militaristic son of a bitch. Got a problem? Great! Just blow it up! Oh, let's kill something too, that'll make things better! Everything has a military solution for Lieutenant Colonel Dickhead, so I guess we should all count our blessings in this particular case that there wasn't anything to kill directly in front of him, because otherwise he --"

Ronon let McKay's rambling roll off him. He was paying enough attention to notice if anything important was said, and the rest of it was of no more consequence than the buzzing of flies on some alien world. This world, he noted, had no flies, or insects of any kind. Interesting.

McKay had been talking nonstop for the last ten minutes. This wasn't particularly unusual, although he didn't usually go at it with this amount of vitriol. He'd even apparently picked up some Czechoslovakian insults from Zelenka, and had used them all on Sheppard, several times.

He was still working, though -- the whole time, he'd kept his eyes on his scanner, and occasionally would correct his course or go off in a different direction, tracking the elusive energy signature while calling John Sheppard every dirty word in the book, and some that probably weren't in any book.

"...and while we're on the subject of treachery, you thug, you can tell me what Teyla and Zelenka's master plan is. Hm?"

Ronon didn't break stride, but McKay had his attention now. "Plan?"

"Oh, please," McKay scoffed. "I know they've cooked up some kind of ridiculous conspiracy between them. It involves me and this planet and that military asshole back there. Somehow Teyla came up with the stupid idea that she can get us talking again--"

He broke off; Ronon, glancing sideways, caught a glimpse of a startling depth of pain flickering across the man's expressive face. "Anyway," McKay resumed after a moment in his usual manic tone, the mask back in place, "the problem is him, not me, and I know she put you up to something, so ..." His fingers clicked rapidly in front of Ronon's face ... or as close to Ronon's face as he could safely get, anyway. "Spill!"

"Don't know what you're talking about." Their ramblings had taken them outside the village proper, which was good -- Ronon recognized their surroundings from Teyla's descriptions, and he pointed up at a small temple framed against the sky, presenting a striking contrast to the shifting static behind it. If Teyla's childhood recollections were accurate, this was one of three access points that she knew of to reach the catacombs under the city. "That looks like one of those temples she was talking about. Go see what's in there, why don't we."

McKay stopped in his tracks and folded his arms. "Oh, I don't think so."

Ronon looked down at him. "Thought you wanted to look for that energy source."

"It's clearly a trap, Igor," McKay said sarcastically. "Teyla and Zelenka set this all up somehow, I have no idea how, but I do know that their plan is to separate me from Sheppard, and then ... do ... something. That's their plan, isn't it?"

"Don't know about any plan."

"Oh yeah, right. You people seem to be forgetting, I am a genius. I have figured out alien technology that nobody else can understand. I singlehandedly ... well, almost singlehandedly saved Atlantis from alien invasion. I have fixed everything from crashed spaceships to toaster ovens. And if two fr -- two people I work with are conspiring about me behind my back, I sure as hell am going to find out about it."

Ronon was well aware that he owed Teyla a favor, as she had pointed out repeatedly back on Atlantis when she talked him this. And he would have been happy to repay her by helping with this plan as she had asked of him. But it was starting to look like things weren't going to go the way she'd planned anyhow, and now he was curious. "How'd you find out?" he inquired.

McKay snapped his fingers, positively bouncing in place with glee. "I knew it! I knew it! There is a plan. How do you think? Pure chance," he admitted in a somewhat lower voice. "I walked in on Radek and Teyla late at night in the lab. They didn't see me. Thought at first that there was something, you know, that it was a little late-night tryst, not that I wouldn't be okay with that, just fine in fact," he added quickly. "Radek's a great guy and Teyla's a fantastic woman and ... anyway, like I was saying, they didn't see me, and I was just going to duck out when I realized what they were talking about. Me! And, incidentally, the Colonel. I only caught about one word in four, but between that and a little snooping around on Radek's latest database searches, I do know that Zelenka was helping her look for a deserted world where communications equipment doesn't work. And why might that be, do you suppose?"

"No idea," Ronon said.

"Oh, come on!"

Ronon shrugged.

"Look, I know what they're planning, in general anyway." McKay looked around, as if he expected Sheppard to pop out from behind a rock. "They're trying to fake my disappearance and have the Colonel show up to save my ass, aren't they?"

Ronon shrugged again. "Something like that."

McKay's face changed, darkened. "Well, Teyla must be about to flip her lid right now, then," he said. "At the moment, I doubt if the Colonel would spit on me to put me out if I was on fire." He wiped a hand across his face, dragging away the anger, leaving a sort of resigned weariness behind. "So they're expecting to play me for a fool and have a show," he said. "Well, let's give them a show. What's supposed to happen in the temple, big guy?" When Ronon merely considered this, he added, "Sometime this week, perhaps ..."

Ronon gestured at the temple. "There's some kind of maze under the city. The people who used to live here showed it to her when she was a kid. The temple's one of the places you can get in."

"And ...?" McKay prompted impatiently when he stopped talking again.

"You disappear in the maze. Sheppard comes and finds you, gets you out."

McKay stared, and finally said, "That is their plan? Are you SERIOUS?"

Shrug.

"And what if we get lost for real? Starve to death? Freeze to death? Die of thirst? Fall down a hole?" McKay stared up at Ronon, still incredulous. "Zelenka helped come up with this? I knew the man was pissed at me; I didn't know he was that vindictive, though."

After a long pause, Ronon decided that if he was going to spill the plan, he may as well go for broke. "Dr. Zelenka made a tracker that works in spite of the signal noise on this world. Teyla's got one; so do I. The two of us can find our way out of the maze anytime we want."

"While Colonel Asshole and myself starve to death in the catacombs. That's a wonderful plan, Chewie, with only one rather glaring flaw." McKay glowered at him. "Now guess what that flaw might be!"

"You wouldn't die," Ronon said, impassive. "Neither of you would be left alone; Teyla or myself would accompany you. Therefore, we would always have an emergency way out."

"It's still the stupidest plan I've ever heard in my life, and basically hinges upon the assumption that Sheppard and I have the collective I.Q. of an eggplant. This may be true of him, but I'm far too intelligent to be taken in so easily, as you can see."

Ronon just grunted.

McKay's soft-edged features set into lines of determination. "Fine. Let's give them a show and teach the conspirators a little lesson while they're at it. Come on, Lurch, move it. I have a job for you."

Ronon followed him up the steep path to the temple, wondering how he'd managed to get co-opted by the other side. If the goal of this trip (for him at least) was to get Teyla to stop being mad at him, it might not succeed when she found out about this...

The inside of the temple was no warmer than the outside, being open to the air on all sides, but it was somewhat sheltered from the wind. Rodney strode around the interior. Didn't look like much, just a roof and a ring of white columns, with free-standing pillars inside the columns -- about two dozen or so, squat and about waist-high, covered with carvings -- and a large altar at the center. The temple was located on one of the highest points of the amphitheater's lip, so it commanded a breathtaking view in all directions. Would've been a great sightseeing trip, McKay thought, if he hadn't been cold and out of breath from the climb, not to mention mad as hell.

How dare they do this to him, his so-called teammates. As if it wasn't enough that Sheppard had suddenly turned into a raging bastard (not without reason, whispered a small inner voice) but the rest of them had turned on him too! Well, if their goal was a humiliated and humbled Rodney McKay, he'd just show them.

"How do you get into the catacombs?"

Ronon swung around, his dreadlocks almost brushing the ceiling -- good grief, the man was big -- and then pointed at one of the pillars. "That one. Secret catch in the carvings. Gotta run your fingers over it to feel it."

Rodney crossed to the pillar in question. It was about as tall as his waist and covered with carvings -- Ancient writing mixed with much cruder pictographs, similar to the ones outside the town. Ronon indicated one area of the carvings. "Somewhere in there."

Rodney started to reach for it, then pulled his hand back. "What happens when we activate it?"

"Door opens."

"So I assumed, but where? We're pretty high up here. I don't want to fall down a twelve-story shaft, you get my drift?"

Ronon shrugged. "Didn't ask."

McKay gave him a very long, quizzical look. "She actually got you to go along with this. I don't get it. Is she blackmailing you, or what?"

Strangely, he almost thought he saw a reaction in the man's impassive face. "Teyla wouldn't do that," Ronon said.

Hm. Hit a nerve? He wondered at the runner's quick defense of their teammate. Wondered if Ronon could possibly have a little bit of a thing for Teyla. Wondered if he should press further. Decided it was not a good idea to tease or antagonize a man who probably knew 4,000 different ways to kill somebody. So he just said, "Fine," and backed away from the pillar, tapping the floor all over with his toes in search of a hollow sound, and then using his scanner. His eyebrows raised as soon as he got a good look at it, and for a moment his anger at Teyla and Sheppard was forgotten. "The energy source ... it's right under us," he said thoughtfully. "I mean, not necessarily close, but definitely beneath us somewhere. It's so faint, I can't tell how close it is..." He laughed. "Yeah, good old avacado-for-brains Rodney is going to get lost in the tunnels and come out with a ZedPM ... that should just show them!"

His readings indicated that there was a space under the temple, but were too uncertain to identify any features of it. Rodney sighed, completing a third circuit of the temple without coming any closer to understanding its subterranean layout.

"Ready?" Ronon asked, reaching for the pillar with the control switch.

"No!" Rodney barked at him. "Quit it!"

Ronon looked slightly confused. "Are we going down?"

"No, we're not going down, you moron. Teyla wants me to go down. As far as I'm concerned, that's a perfectly good reason not to go down."

Now the runner looked even more confused. "You said there's an energy source down there. Thought you'd want to--"

"AHA!" Rodney's stabbing finger brought him up short.

Ronon gave him a quizzical look.

"I'm onto her now, that little ... wench!" Rodney paced rapidly back and forth across the temple floor, rubbing his hands together. "Oh yeah, I've got her number. They planted that energy signature down there, Teyla and Zelenka. Knowing I'd go down to investigate! Ha ha ha, you sneaky Czechoslovakian number cruncher -- you're getting the graveyard shift from now until 2012! Very sneaky! But not nearly sneaky enough!"

Ronon leaned, rather cautiously, against the pillar and folded his arms. "When?" he said.

Rodney was brought up short in mid-rant. "Er, when what?"

"When did they plant it?"

"I don't know! I don't pay attention every time anybody comes and goes through the Stargate! Though I may have to start keeping track now that I know they're -- Oh, God, if they used the Stargate, that means Weir's in on it too. This is simply unfair. Completely unfair. I always used to think people were conspiring against me, but I never realized it was true!"

"Teyla never said anything to me about--"

"Oh, and I'm supposed to believe you now? The confessed conspirator? Isn't that like hiring a Wraith for a school crossing guard? Oh, hell!" Rodney smacked himself in the forehead. "Why didn't I see it before? You're a plant! I was supposed to figure out that you were in on it. Now I'm supposed to think that you're on my side so I'll believe every word that you tell me and you can feed me a steady stream of misinformation and lies. Lies! Well, I've got you now. I won't believe a single thing you say to me. In fact, I won't listen to a single thing you say to me. La la la la, not listening. Are you getting this, Mister Double Agent Man?"

Ronon watched him pace, impassive, arms folded. "You're over-thinking this a little bit," he said.

"Not listening!"

The runner heaved a sigh and decided that this was going to be a very long day indeed. "What now, then?"

"Not. Listening." Rodney bent over the top of the alter, using it as a work surface to pry the back off the Ancient scanner with one of the many small tools he kept tucked into various pockets of his flak vest. He tweaked some of the scanner's wires, switched two crystals, flipped it over and grinned. "Ah, much better. Boosting the power is helping a lot with the interference. Bet I can filter out some of the -- hey!" He pointed the scanner at Ronon. "You said you have an emergency beacon or something to get out of the maze. Lemme see it!"

Ronon raised an eyebrow. "You trust me now?"

"No farther than I can throw you, which is ... not very far, but I want to see what Zelenka built. If that ten-thumbed loon could build it, I can reverse engineer it in ten seconds flat."

Curious despite himself, Ronon handed over what appeared to be another small Ancient scanner. McKay turned it over in his hands, recognizing the type. There were a million of these in the labs on Atlantis. Similar to the life signs detectors, they were very specific but could be modified to scan for almost anything. This one was picking up a strong signal off to his left ... the direction of the Stargate, he confirmed, glancing out of the temple and down the hill -- he couldn't see the gate from here, but he remembered that it had been behind that distinctive tall rock formation. Holding the scanner up to the light, he saw scratches on the back indicating that the cover had been pried off. It was the work of a moment to follow suit.

"Planted a tracker next to the gate when we came through," Ronon volunteered. "Scanner points to it."

"Yes, yes, yes. A compass that always points to the Stargate. I get it, I get it. Shut up, I'm busy." Tinkering around in the guts of the machine, Rodney muttered, "Oh, very clever, very clever. Actually ... not bad at all. He's just found a frequency that isn't too badly affected by all the interference on this planet and is filtering out everything else. It's far too weak and restrictive to use for radio communication, but works great for picking up a beacon that's only sending out one ping every ... let's see ... fifteen seconds, from the look of things." Leaving the back cover off the modified scanner, Rodney detached some wires from the other one and hooked them together, then flipped the bigger scanner over to inspect its readings. "Ha, now we're filtering out the interference. Most of it, anyway. Of course, we're also filtering out almost everything else, including, ah, ZedPM signals I see, but we are getting ..." He snapped his fingers to check. "Sound waves! Perfect! Hey, Caveman Jim, stomp around a little."

"You talking to me?" Ronon said.

"No, I'm talking to my invisible friend. He's standing over there by the pillar to your left. Of course I'm talking to you. Make some noise. I need vibrations."

Ronon made no move, so Rodney groaned and did it himself -- stomping on the stone floor, checking his readings, stomping somewhere else. After a few minutes of this, he was grinning.

"And ladies and gentleman, we have a rather poor-quality image of what's under the floor! Looks like ... hm, a chamber nearly the size of the temple itself. Some sort of structure directly under the altar. Presumably that's our stairs. Couple of tunnels leading off from it. There's more underneath ... I think there is a shaft that goes farther down, directly below us, but I can't tell how far."

"Are you going down?"

Rodney gave him one of his "are you an idiot?" stares. "I'm sorry, I must have been talking to myself for the last ten minutes. I believe we have firmly established that I am far too intelligent to walk into a trap set by the likes of you."

"I didn't--"

"Plant an energy source in the catacombs, yes, you've said that. I don't believe you. Or, rather, I think it's possible that you may be telling the truth and Teyla is far, far sneakier than we ever gave her credit for." He was going to have to remember that about Teyla. Never trust a woman who could undoubtedly break both your legs with one hand tied behind her back. "In any case, I have no need to go below, at least not yet. I have time and equipment enough to establish the location of the energy source and, using my keen intellect, which luckily none of y--"

"Shh!" Ronon held up a hand.

"Oh, now wh--"

The runner was big, but he could move astonishingly fast when he wanted to. Before Rodney had completed the sentence, Ronon had crossed the temple floor and clapped a hand over his mouth. Rodney made an indignant, muffled squeak, but shut up when Ronon stooped over to whisper near his ear, "I believe we are being watched."

"You're just trying to shut me up," Rodney snapped, crossing his arms.

"No. I am quite sure someone is watching us."

Cold prickles scampered down Rodney's arms and legs. He felt suddenly exposed, standing under the temple roof with nothing around him for protection but a handful of slender columns. Sitting on top of the hill as it did, the temple was probably visible for miles around. "How do you know?"

"You been running as long as I have, you just know. Little things. Hard to describe. Mostly just a feeling."

Rodney's eyes narrowed. "Runner's intuition? Is that what you're basing this upon?"

The runner had drawn his gun and his eyes were in constant motion across the seemingly deserted rocks around them. "My people say that 'intuition' is the unconscious mind picking up signs too subtle for the conscious mind to notice."

"Your people," Rodney said, "are all dead. I don't think their no doubt highly developed intuition did them much good."

Ronon swung his head around to face the scientist, and Rodney realized that once again, his brain-mouth disconnect had gotten him in trouble; but the words were said, and while he was still trying to find a way to somehow backpedal and make up for it, he realized that Ronon was not looking at him, but at something behind him.

"Down!" the runner bellowed, and Rodney didn't have to be told twice; he hit the deck as the roar of Ronon's gun went off somewhere deafeningly close to his ear. While his ears were still ringing from the blast, something skittered across his cheek, leaving traces of dampness. He reached up his hand, took it away to see blood. But ... he hadn't felt a bullet hit him ... was deafness a symptom of being shot? He looked up just in time to see the small puff of dust and scattering of more rock fragments (one of which had grazed his cheek) as more bullets scattered across the altar above him -- and these bullets were most definitely not coming from Ronon's gun.

Someone ... shooting at them? Ronon's gun barked again, right next to his head; he flinched and scrabbled for his 9mm. His fingers had gone horribly clumsy. He couldn't get the strap unfastened.

Ronon said one word, the low harsh voice breaking through his near-deafness and growing panic: "Tunnels." He looked around to see the runner making a break for the pillar with the secret catch that supposedly opened the door to the catacombs. Gunfire followed him, the bullets striking sparks from the tiles around his feet. Their assailants appeared to be quite lousy shots, and from what Rodney could tell, they didn't possess automatic weapons -- the gunshots were single. Sheppard's training must be paying off. He didn't dare raise his head from the floor to figure out where the shots were coming from, though.

Ronon threw himself behind the pillar, then reached around it to fumble for the mechanism. Finally it sank into Rodney's head just what, exactly, his companion was doing.

"Ronon!" he hissed. "Don't be stupid! We don't know what's down there!"

"Beats getting shot," the runner retorted. "I trust Teyla." There was a soft click from the pillar.

Nothing else happened, for a moment. Another bullet pinged off the altar, much closer to Rodney's head than the last one. Just as he was thinking that there must be something wrong -- the mechanism had, after all, been sitting out in the weather for many years -- he heard a low rumbling ... felt it, too, through the floor that he lay upon. The ground was trembling slightly.

The rumbling was accompanied by a much closer grinding sound. It took him a moment to pinpoint it, and he had to crane his head back to see -- the top of the altar had begun to slide back. It moved a few inches, paused, shuddered a few inches more -- and stopped, leaving a crack no wider than a man's hand. Rodney wanted desperately to get up and take a peek inside ... but he had no intention of making a human bullseye out of himself. However, that was before the tiles under him began to crack and buckle in a most unsafe way. The rumbling had not stopped when the top of the altar stopped moving. In fact, it was getting louder.

"CRAP!" Death by gunshot, or death by mysteriously disintegrating temple -- it was a lousy choice, but the gunshots were, just at the moment, a slightly less pressing threat, considering that they seemed to have stopped. Rodney's hindbrain kicked in and he found himself scrabbling backward across the crumbling floor like a crab. "Ronon, get out of here!" he yelled, not even sure at the moment where Ronon was. He fell backwards off the temple floor onto the natural rock surrounding it, just in time to see the temple fold inward on itself with a great plume of dust and a tremendous, deafening cracking of stone. And it was taking the surrounding countryside with it. The ground under him began to dissolve, sand and rocks and boulders cascading into the hole. He had time to scream before he vanished into the growing avalanche.

After the last parts of the temple fell into the hole, the ground began to stabilize, leaving a yawning black gap about forty feet across. Dust sifted up from it, drifted on the cold air, and eventually dissipated into the shifting sky.

------

tbc...

Ah, the best-laid plans...