Chapter 8 – Conspiracy

Dani met them in the gate room as John was securing his tactical vest and checking his weapon before clipping it to his vest. He would take both a handgun in a leg holster and his P90, going in blind, they had no idea what to expect or how many personnel from earth were involved. Ronan, Teyla, Major Lorne and six marines would be going in with them and were all in vests and weapons ready, awaiting his order to dial the gate and move out.

"A piece of the puzzle John - does it help the bigger picture yet." her quiet voice stilled his hands as he finished checking the extra ammunition for the P90.

He turned to face her, eyes drawn to her smokey gray ones, now flecked with silver as they stared at him quizzically. "We have a gate address Dani, and Ted may be there... if he's the one who did this to you, I want you to know, I won't go easy on him." She moved closer to him so that he could smell the scent of her freshly washed hair, and he closed his eyes briefly, to take in the scent. Feeling a light touch on his arm, he looked down at her hand where it rested and resisted the urge to pull her in close. She did not however, and reaching up on tiptoes she wrapped her good arm around his neck, her broken arm sitting awkwardly at her side and leaned in molding her body to his and he had no choice but to bring his own arms around her to secure her against him and then of course that necessitated rubbing his cheek against her silky hair. A sensation not unlike quicksand clawed at him, and he released her suddenly, too suddenly so that she teetered off balance and he had to quickly reach out to anchor her again. He needed to get away from her so he could breathe, so gave a hand signal to the gate technician to begin the dialling sequence.

They arrived on T8U297, a planet far beyond their exploratory missions to date and they had managed to retrieve limited intelligence from the ancient database as to the conditions they would find on the planet. The terrain appeared mountainous, eliciting a few groans from the marines, but the climate was at least temperate so any climbing that needed to be done could be done so in optimum climatic conditions. There were no unwelcome surprises for them at the gate. They had stepped though weapons ready after the MALP had shown a clear entry point for them, and John issued instructions to four of the marines to secure a perimetre around the gate to await the return of any personnel who would try to leave the planet before they did. John took the remainder of the team and would commence a foot search of the vicinity. It was unlikely that transportation was available either on the planet, or to the men who had come through previously and this led to the assumption that whatever they had come here to do, it would be done within a reasonable trek from the gate.

A half hour's trek from the gate found no sign of any men, but they did find what had been hidden. In a prefabricated building, earth design in origin, they located a large weapons cache, including C4, P90's, submachine weapons, rocket launchers and hand grenades, all neatly stacked and stored. John shook his head. "There's enough munitions here to start a small war - I'm getting a bad feeling about what these guys are up to."

Ronan was running his eye over the weapons. "Why would they leave it all the way out here? This is an unpopulated planet." He picked up some of the C4. "Should we take it back with us."

John made a quick decision. "We leave everything as it is - we need to lay a trap, and cover our tracks in,make it look as though no one has been here. I doubt they're still on the planet, they must have either gated back to earth, or elsewhere."

"So, what the hell are they up to then?" Major Lorne was also looking around the munitions store, noting that some of the weapons were high tech and not all military issue.

John was nodding thoughtfully. "The thought crossed my mind that these guys were working independently, contracting out to a deep cover government branch, sort of guns for hire. It's a possibility that this agency has put out some feelers in this galaxy that if anyone needs a little heavy assistance in the way of weapons to tilt the scales in their favour so to speak, then a deal can be made - these guys are providing the muscle. A good little side line for them, and if they were pulled off a mission in Afghanistan to do this, then it reaches pretty damn high up."

Lorne spoke up. "And Dani must have overheard something, or seen something she shouldn't have."

"So why send her to Atlantis? Why not just kill her?" Ronan shook his head, still not able to comprehend how someone could do that to a woman.

"Perhaps one of the group did not agree with the way she was disposed of... they might be in too deep and not able to get out, and if they were told to take responsibility for getting rid of the body, took the opportunity to send her through to Atlantis, in the hope that we would save her and dig into her story to try and stop things."

"Her boyfriend, Ted? Could be he was feeling like it had all gotten out of hand - he'd be the most likely one to crack, especially if his girlfriend had gotten involved and was about to get hurt." Lorne tried to follow his own reasoning.

John was thoughtful. "Possibly. But he's not getting near her again... he's done, I don't care how much guilt he carries or whether it was even him that carried out the beating. He was a part of it by association, and I want his blood on my hands."

"You can count me in Sheppard. The man's a coward, and in my world, a coward meets a certain fate." Ronan's face was angry as he thought of the broken ribs and the weapons in front of them, now possibly being made accessible to small nations where the balance of war and natural progression into technology would be tipped in their favour and could change the outcome of many disagreements that would normally have been solved by talk and words alone.

"Colonel - what's the plan?" Lorne had finished his perusal of the munitions room and was ready to leave.

"Hopefully General O'Neill will have found enough intel to substantiate what we are only just guessing at for now. My suggestion would be to send out a little SOS of our own, say from a small nation that needs help with solving the disagreement between us and a neighbouring country. See what comes out of the woodwork. O'Neill should be able to track down a contact for this group, or if he can't I'm sure Ronan can put ears to the ground amongst some of his people and see if there is a new group out there bragging about guns for hire. We'll catch these bastards one way or another. They're not welcome in this galaxy or any other, and we'll stop them before it goes any further."

Casting one more look around the room, John carefully shut and locked the door again, and began the process of backtracking carefully to attempt to remove all noticeable signs of the fact that strangers had been there. He thought of Dani and what she must have gone through when they had discovered their little secret was in danger of being made public and felt a red shield of anger come down over his mind. Involuntarily his fist clenched. He would bring her retribution.