The baby. They took the baby. A little boy. Colare was off down the path as the husband tried to console his bereaved wife, weeping himself. It seemed odd to her that no cry for help was raised to the village. No calls for a search party to be gathered. But she rushed on, careful of the fresh tracks and praying her novice eyes didn't loose them.
It was hard, slow work for Lennah and she berated herself. Ronon would have reached the caves by now. She doubled back twice when she lost the trail. The quarry was using the smallest of game trails and they branched often.
Somehow, she made it to the top of the ridge. Lennah spun as she looked in every direction. Rocks and shale hid any marks. Where the HELL?
And then she heard it. A soft mewling to her left. Lennah could make out the form of someone through the trees. She crouched closer and made her way through the sparse cover. There was an eerie feel to the place.
"What are you doing, grandma?" Lennah asked in a whisper as the old woman paced back and forth.
She was talking, in the loosest definition of the term, to the baby. She scolded the boy as he chatted away. Barely six months old and he's already trying to talk his way out of trouble. Lennah smiled.
Grandma reached a fever pitch in her hysterical rant and she laid the baby out on a flat stone out of Lennah's view. The woman was screaming now and she didn't hear Lennah step out behind her.
But Lennah saw the blade as the crone raised it to the sky and Lennah heard the baby cry.
And then, with a crack… it was over. Birds were silent and the wind moved gingerly through the trees. All the world was still from so high up. Nothing moved.
Then a bloodcurdling squeal cut loose from a healthy set of infant lungs.
"Aw, hell!" Lennah cursed. "What do I know about babies?"
It was hard enough tying up El Pollo Loco while listening to the baby squall. It was hard to bear when she realized he was tied to the rock. Lennah picked him up and realized she didn't have a spare diaper on her.
It had been four hours since he'd been kidnapped and he was sure to be hungry. All Lennah had was some MREs and she was fairly certain that the highly concentrated food would be murder to the kid's digestive system. He was probably still on the teat.
"Sorry, lil' man." Lennah shook her head. "That's not an option."
It occurred to Lennah that the old woman might not be alone in this little scheme so she got to work quieting him down. Cut up one shirt and, voila, a diaper! She twisted a bit of chocolate in her bandana and dipped it in water.
"Come on, come on. Take it." She rubbed it over his lips and he stopped bawling. "There we go. Good thing you don't have teeth yet." The child looked up at her, still teary-eyed, with a raised eyebrow and a furrowed brow. "Cavities are hell."
She left a locator beacon with Granny so she could find the place again and set out down the mountain, singing Disney songs to the fussy baby.
"Colare, come in?" Lennah's radio crackled to life. She scrambled for it before Sheppard could wake the baby. "Lennah do you copy?"
"Take it down a notch, Sheppard, I've got a baby on board!" Lennah hissed at him.
There was a pause. "Did you say 'baby'?"
"Yeah, boss man. Bravo- Alpha-Bravo-Yankee, copy? Chubby pink things in diapers."
"Colare, how in the—" There was a break as the guys on the other end conferred. "Never mind that, where are you?"
"I'm headed over to drop the kid off at home. Parents are kinda worried considering their toddler got kidnapped and all. I left a beacon with the culprit. Did you guys bring a Jumper?"
"We're calling for one now."
"Great! Because I'm about ready to pass out." But she still had two hours of hiking through dense cover to go.
* * * *
Laughter dying on her lips, Lennah shifted in her seat before the dull numbness of shock hit. She heard snippets of conversation before everything faded back into a baby's cry.
"This is Sheppard. We're going to need a team out here."
From the cockpit, the whole mountainside could be seen. Nothing could hide the little corpses that littered the south slope.