Casualties of war

Chapter thirteen

In spite of his teammates' assurances that the Nistra generally left the second gate alone, Rodney planned to keep an eye out for suspicious activity throughout his stay on the planet. He was all for trying to head off a war, but he had no desire to be assaulted by a whip, arrow, bullet, or anything else in the process. Especially not another damned arrow. Besides, he had no guarantee that other members of this Cadre group wouldn't show up just to make life miserable.

Sheppard cloaked the jumper upon arrival and performed a low-altitude pass over the surrounding wreckage to gain some visual references. The contrast between the rocky slopes here and the thriving Falnori farmlands nearer the Hall was striking. Short of someone actually mentioning one group or the other by name, there would have been no way for Teyla and Ronon to recognize this place as PM-418.

Rodney had a more immediate concern, however. "Oh, no.

"You know, someday you're going to have your very own fable," Sheppard commented from the pilot's seat. "The Boy Who Cried `Oh, No.' Or, more accurately, The Boy Who Cried `We're So Screwed."'

"You're rarely as amusing as you think you are. And what makes you so sure I didn't just notice an urgent problem, like something about to blow up?"

"No abject terror in your voice. So what's the issue?"

"The sheer size of the debris field." Rodney waved at the long trail of wreckage beyond the jumper's windshield. "The station must have impacted the atmosphere at a fairly shallow angle and disintegrated, scattering fragments across miles of the planet's surface. Remember how long it took to recover even a majority of the pieces of the space shuttle that broke up over Texas? And that effort involved hundreds of people."

"So," the Colonel summed up with his usual eloquence, "needle in a haystack?"

"An entire field of haystacks," Rodney corrected unhappily. "We can't possibly find every last scrap of that station, let alone examine it all."

"We'll just have to make a few WAGs, then."

Although Rodney had worked for the U.S. military for years, there were elements of its acronym-laden lexicon that had escaped him. Such omissions weren't wholly accidental on his part. "I don't want to know how WAG translates into standard English, do I?"

"Wild-Ass Guess." With a grin so brief it barely blinked across his face, Sheppard attempted to access the head-up display, only to watch it flicker twice and then display wildly inaccurate data. "Huh. It was worth a try. I'm pretty sure we're not traveling at twice the speed of sound right now, though." Shutting off the HUD, he brought the jumper around in a lazy U-turn. "Looks like the most concentrated area of wreckage is around the gate.

"And that would be the most logical place to find a DHD, in any case." Rodney started to look for a suitable landing site when a warning flashed on the control panel.

Sheppard slapped at it. "Well, crap."

And he had the nerve to snark Rodney for saying `Oh, no.' Hypocrite. "What?" Rodney demanded. "Something dangerous? Some of us don't read voices as well as you claim to do."

"We just lost our cloak," Sheppard reported. "Guess the sensors aren't the only system affected by proximity to adarite. I'm gonna set us down under those trees, give the jumper whatever cover we can manage."

Rodney was under no illusions; any Nistra who stumbled on the ship would assuredly draw the conclusion that it belonged to a raiding group.

As it turned out, the drooping evergreen branches obscured the jumper rather nicely. Sheppard located camouflage netting in the storage compartment and dragged it over the hull, just to be on the safe side. Not for the first time-although he'd be damned if he'd admit it-Rodney appreciated the officer's instincts. A two-person mission might not be his idea of a fun outing, but in this case the other person was Sheppard, and he trusted Sheppard above anyone else to watch his back when it mattered.

And that, plain and simple, was the reason Sheppard needed to track down Elizabeth once all this blew over and ask for his stupid letter back.

"Got your gear?" the Colonel asked, fastening his vest. They'd brought stun weapons in place of P-90s, which seemed reasonable given the low probability of running into anyone to whom they might need to do permanent harm. All the same, it made Rodney feel a little exposed.

"Yes. Let's get this statistically improbable show on the road."

When he'd warned his team that Earth-built technology would be his only tool in this search, he hadn't been strictly truthful. `Earth-built' and `non-Ancient' were not fully interchangeable terms. The Asgard, for instance, had a portable device that acted as a more accurate version of an X-ray fluorescence scan, identifying a sample's component materials almost instantaneously. During a recent Daedalus visit, Rodney had badgered Hermiod into leaving one of the units on Atlantis, contending that the ship's inbuilt diagnostics made it redundant to keep such a unit onboard. The SGC hadn't been pleased-something about circumventing the requisition process. In any case, they hadn't tried to fire him, so he'd claimed victory.

The scanner could be programmed to search for particular materials or combinations thereof. He'd calibrated it with the constituents of the naquadah alloy that powered Atlantis's dialing computer, minus those substances which would have combusted under the heat of reentry through the atmosphere. Now he was faced with the rather daunting task of determining where to start.

"On the plus side, we've already got a grid laid out to keep us from losing track of where we've looked." Sheppard crouched to study one of the many branches stuck into the hard ground at relatively constant intervals.

Rodney made a mental note. He wasn't the type to heap praise on people for exhibiting common sense, but Teyla and/or Ronon deserved credit for devising the marking scheme.

The duo moved methodically over the debris field, disturbing as little as possible in the course of their search. On occasion a muted crunch under Rodney's boot would elicit a wince, and a few fragments crumbled into ash at the slightest touch. He told himself that anything truly critical to their cause would have been constructed more sturdily. Sometimes these situations called for a little judicious self-delusion.

He also tried valiantly to ignore the literal and figurative weight of the Stargate looming over them. The ring couldn't possibly be stable in its current cockeyed position, no matter what the physics said.

They'd been sweeping the scanner's beam over wide swaths of ground for the better part of an hour when the unit signaled a hit. "Hmm. Not exactly the right material makeup, but close enough to check out. Under here." Rodney beckoned Sheppard over to a heap of deformed metal. "Help me lift this piece."

The piece in question probably had been a structural support, long and unwieldy. After a couple of fruitless attempts, Sheppard got his shoulder under one end and managed to shift it far enough for Rodney to get one arm awkwardly into the piled wreckage and drag a briefcasesized chunk of something out.

Wiping away sweat with his sleeve, the Colonel plunked himself down next to the beam he'd displaced. "What've you got?"

"Chiefly, a strained back."

"Yeah, yeah." Sheppard peered at their find as Rodney brushed dirt and char off the casing. The surface was badly scratched and even gouged in a number of places-

Hold on. Those marks were too uniform to be accidental damage. Rodney scrubbed harder at the burn residue, eventually resorting to the use of his shirttail. When he'd at last gotten the casing as clean as it would ever be, he got out his flashlight and examined the indentations. Aha. Familiarity.

"Doesn't look like part of a DHD," observed Sheppard.

"It isn't. But it might do us some good anyway. See those three larger slots across the end?" Rodney played the light beam across the object's surface. "They match up with the connecting hardware of the download device we use to do maintenance on the jumpers. I think this might be some kind of flight data recorder."

"From the space station?"

"Of course from the space station. If we can get an idea from the records contained in here about what really happened to the station, it'll likely be more productive than fishing around in this junk."

With a shrug, Sheppard climbed to his feet. "All right. Guess we'll head back and plug this thing into Atlantis."

After her latest check-in, Elizabeth felt her first flicker of hope in quite some time. "Gentlemen," she called, stepping down from the stairwell. "I have some information that may help us make progress."

Neither Cestan nor Galven looked terribly impressed by the announcement. Still, they gave her their attention. "Recently, access to the Stargate has emerged as a point of contention," she began. "Minister Galven, there is an Ancient ruin in the foothills of your territory. It once was a station that orbited this planet, and it crashed to the ground hundreds of years ago. Are you familiar with it?"

"I have heard of such a thing," the minister answered, "though we were not aware it fell from the sky. It is little more than rubble, so it has not been of much interest to us.

"You may change your mind about that. The ruin contains another Stargate." Elizabeth had to smile at both leaders' evident surprise. "It doesn't have a dialing device, but my people are already working to rectify that. Once it's functional, there will be no need for the Nistra to share the Hall gate, since you'll have one of your own."

Although Galven might have been caught off-guard, his expression quickly became unreadable. "If this is the case," he said, "and I will need to verify that it is, I am not fully prepared to concede the Hall gate. The Hall itself is to remain neutral, and that may be difficult to maintain with the Falnori controlling the nearby gate."

"We can discuss that," Elizabeth allowed. "There is a more important aspect of the second gate, however. Because it's somewhat hidden and mostly unknown to your people, it's open to use by others-like the raiders. That gate is what gave them the means to terrorize both the Falnori and the Nistra. My people have captured some of them. They're called the Cadre, and they come from off-world."

She waited to gauge their reactions. Cestan sat back in his chair, adjusting his cuffs. "So it is as I have said before. The Nistra declare themselves to be victims of these raiders, and by labeling us as the aggressors they have free rein to act against us without cause."

Galven opened his mouth to counter as one of his messengers appeared on the stairs. He motioned to the young man, who hurried over to deliver his report quietly and urgently.

"The leader of the Cadre told us that his group isn't allied with either of your peoples," said Elizabeth. "It's an independent-"

"Without cause, you claim, Governor?" Galven sprang to his feet, leveling a blazing glare on Cestan. "Word has just reached me that a Nistra hunting party was attacked this very day by your Cadre!"

"My Cadre?" Cestan echoed, casting an incredulous glance at Elizabeth. "Do you see how they persist in this delusion?"

"There were dozens of them, with weapons that burn," insisted the minister. "This time they came to do violence on my people without even the facade of stealing goods."

Elizabeth had a fairly good idea she knew what incident Galven was referring to, and she suspected that the tale had been embellished along the way. "Minister, two of my people were there. That's not exactly how they saw it.

She realized her miscalculation when Galven turned his frigid gaze on her. "Do not presume to tell me what happens on my land, Doctor."

"I apologize," she said immediately. "I overstepped my bounds. Please don't allow that to distract you from the issue at hand: the Cadre is an off-world threat taking advantage of the gate in your territory. We should focus on resolving that, and I'm telling you that we can resolve it.

"It does not matter what the raiders call themselves, only that more blood has been shed." The news of the latest attack had seemingly forged Galven's resolve in steel. "This will not stand. If the Stargate is being used to invade our land, we will defend it. But we also are prepared to finish what the Falnori have begun."

As he turned to his messenger, Cestan beckoned for one of his own. Feeling Carson and Lorne's eyes on her, Elizabeth reached for the bottle of water she'd brought and wished fleetingly that it held something stronger. Troops on both sides would soon receive marching orders, she was sure. Time was now a much more limited resource, and she was running out of ideas.

As it turned out, hooking up the download device in the Jumper Bay to the Ancient version of a `black box,' as the Colonel insisted on calling it, wasn't the complicated part of the task. The complicated part was sifting through the massive quantities of data the recorder promptly spat out. The system status reports alone, taken at eight-hour intervals over a span of decades, would have crashed Rodney's laptop in seconds. Eventually they resorted to rigging up a buffer program that would only allow the information Radek specified to pass from the maintenance terminal to the laptop.

"Can't we start at the last recorded data and work backward?"

The lieutenant in charge of jumper maintenance no doubt thought he was being helpful. For that reason alone, Rodney refrained from snapping at him. "We can, and in fact we have. Unfortunately, and some might say predictably, the last recorded data is a series of null sets broken up by the occasional gibberish. The unit obviously continued to function long after the station it was meant to monitor was destroyed."

"We're working on the first set of meaningful data now," supplied Radek, sitting cross-legged on the floor while the laptop cranked through the translation algorithm a few lines at a time. Every twenty seconds or so he leaned forward to tap a few keys. "This set appears to contain information on emergency procedures."

The doors slid open, and Sheppard joined them in the bay. "Hate to rush you guys," he began, "but Dr. Weir just checked in from 418. Things are falling apart over there. Nobody bought her description of the Cadre, for one thing. Galven got word that a Nistra hunting party had been attacked-probably the one the Cadre hit in order to get Ronon and Teyla-and he didn't take it too well."

The maintenance lieutenant must have been a newcomer, because he'd leapt to his feet at his commander's approach. When Sheppard noticed, a few seconds later, he waved distractedly at the young man to relax and leaned back against the extended engine pod of Jumper Three. "Sounds like he's getting a lot of rumors and static from his people. Regardless, he doesn't like the idea of a gate in his territory that he can't control, and he still seems convinced that the raiders are in league with the Falnori. And Elizabeth's not sure what Cestan's up to, except that his posturing is starting to get more serious. So anything you can give us would be useful sooner rather than later."

Of course. Because they'd been on such a loose schedule thus far, and he'd missed the pressure. "We're digging into the recorded emergency procedures right now." Rodney left the black box and scooted over to look at Radek's screen. The schematic that appeared took him a few seconds to parse. Once the scale of the diagram became clear, he gave a low whistle. "Okay, I need to rethink my estimation of the wreckage on 418. This station must have been quite a bit larger than I anticipated."

"How large?" Sheppard wanted to know. "Are we talk ing `That's no moon, it's a space station' large?"

Rodney grimaced; he'd really left the door wide open for that one. "Not hardly. Orbital mechanics alone would preclude that. Larger than the Daedalus, though."

"Sure didn't get that sense from the area around the gate." Sheppard frowned. "There was a lot of debris, but not that much. And I didn't see any huge craters or anything."

"What you saw may have been only one segment of the station." Radek pointed to the lines of text scrolling rapidly across the screen of the maintenance terminal.

After half a decade on the Stargate program, Rodney was no longer impressed by much in the way of technology. When something did impress him, he gave credit where due. "Huh."

"Well said." Sheppard craned his neck to look, his eyes nearly crossing at the frantic pace of the text.

In the interest of expediency, Rodney described it to him instead. "The station consisted of three segments, each with its own dedicated operations and life support systems. In a contingency situation, for instance an attack, the segments could be detached and maneuvered into different orbits."

"Split up to present multiple smaller targets, or even send noncombatants out of harm's way. Makes sense."

"Especially if you're trying to protect the gate." Rodney traced a line on the schematic with his finger. "See where the structure closes off and disengages? The gate's in one segment, and the control console for the dialer and shield are in another. That's why the database labeled the station gate as inoperative. The dialer simply wasn't available to be connected to the gate for use."

"Wait a minute. The dialer's on a different segment?" The Colonel cautiously glanced back and forth between the two scientists, as if he doubted he'd gotten the message right. "And we think only the gate segment crashed on the surface?"

"Only the gate segment crashed in the area we investigated," Rodney corrected. No reason to get carried away with unwarranted optimism. "If the station's geosynchronous orbit was destabilized, the other segments could have crashed centuries later on the other side of the planet."

"Or they could have been part of the space junk we spotted in orbit on our first trip to 418," countered Sheppard. "Question is, how can we find out?"

Radek lifted his head. "Miko's database project. We can search the battle records for specific references to the station."

"Now we're talking. Get Miko on itASAP. Lieutenant, prep Jumper One with three spacesuits and whatever tools these two want." At Rodney and Radek's twin stares, Sheppard offered a wry smile. "I can dodge floating junk to get you there, but finding and removing the dialing computer is all up to you."

Although Rodney wasn't terribly enthused about repeating his one and only experience in a space suit, he understood. No matter what Miko found in the database, nothing could guarantee that the required station segment would have a stable, breathable environment after ten thousand years of drifting. If they even managed to locate it.

Sheppard, though, seemed to be taking a favorable search result for granted, striding toward the stairway to the control room. Rodney called after him. "What makes you so sure we'll be able to find the segment we need intact, let alone the dialing computer?"

"Sometimes what looks like confidence is actually a lack of options." The Colonel's pace slowed as he spoke, but he didn't turn back. "If we don't give Elizabeth something, Galven and Cestan are going to order their people to start killing each other. Certain or not, I'm going to go tell her to promise the Nistra a gate shield."

Elizabeth sat alone, both literally and figuratively, at the negotiating table. The past few hours had seen progressively less debate, polite or otherwise. Instead, Cestan and Galven had retreated to opposite sides of the room and formed tight huddles with their advisor-bodyguards. Every so often one of the lackeys would leave or return to the Hall, evidently performing messenger duties.

It would have been the height of naivete to ignore the likelihood that troops were assembling in both territories. Still, Elizabeth wasn't packing it in just yet. Lieutenant Cadman had just come down the stairs and was reporting quietly to Lorne. The Major listened for a minute before dismissing the Marine and crossing the room to approach the table. From his place against the back wall, Carson leaned in to hear the latest update.

"Ma'am, Colonel Sheppard says Drs. McKay and Zelenka have a lead on the second gate's dialing computer and shield controls. They think it's still on a section of a station in orbit, and they're going up to retrieve it now. They plan to take it directly to the second gate for installation. The Colonel suggests you assure Minister Galven that they'll have the gate secured within a day and invite him to travel back to the gate to witness it."

"And if they aren't able to get the apparatus they need?" Carson asked quietly.

Lorne kept his voice low and his gaze on Elizabeth. "According to Lieutenant Cadman," he answered, his features utterly inscrutable, "Colonel Sheppard promised to come up with a Plan B and asked that we convey his limitless faith in your ability to bluff."

The situation wasn't amusing in any rational way, yet Elizabeth found herself smirking ruefully. Nobody could pull off a truly deadpan delivery like Lorne. "All right, if that's the extent of what we've got to work with, we might as well get started." She cleared her throat. "Excuse me, Minister."

Though the talks had all but disintegrated and trust was hardly the order of the day, the leaders continued to conduct themselves with the decorum befitting their positions. Small favors. Galven broke off his conversation when addressed and gave her his full attention. "Dr. Weir?"

"I've just received word from my people. They've located a device to dial and operate the shield on the Stargate within your territory." At that, Cestan started listening as well. Elizabeth went on. "It will take a few hours to deliver the device and get it working. As soon as that's completed, you'll have total control of the gate. We'll supply you with code devices to operate the shield so that only people you choose will be able to come through."

The older man looked interested, if unconvinced. "We appreciate the effort. However, closing off the gate will only prevent raids by off-worlders. It cannot stop the raids originating from this world."

"Minister, I assure you that the Cadre is very much an off-world threat, one that has nothing to do with the Falnori. All this will become clear when the adarite raids stop after the shield control is installed. I'm simply asking you to give us the time to demonstrate that."

"And in the meantime?"

Try not to start any battles. "If nothing else," Elizabeth replied, "you'll have a functional gate all to yourself. If you'd like, you can find more trading partners without needing to use the gate here."

She'd assumed that to be a reasonable concept. Apparently she'd assumed wrong. Galven's face darkened. "You propose that we surrender this land to the Falnori? What of the Hall?"

Before she could deny any such intent, Cestan edged in with a demand of his own. "Do the raids on my people mean nothing? Why should their gate be protected and not ours?"

"Your gate?" Galven spat. "I think not."

The Falnori governor allowed his manners to slip. "You hardly use this one. Now you want two?"

"We'll come up with a shield for the gate here as well," Elizabeth hurried to say. She had no idea whether or not it was possible to fashion a gate shield from scratch, but if it needed to be done Rodney and Radek would find a way to make it happen. "Until then we can continue to guard this gate. How long will we need to go without a raid before you're convinced that no one on this planet is involved?"

She never got an answer. Before either man could speak, Cadman appeared on the stairs again. Her stiff backed posture conveyed a warning more clearly than her words. "Ma'am, we've got some kind of standoff topside."

Only the combined experiences of two-plus years in the Pegasus Galaxy allowed her to take that statement in stride. Even so, the three seconds she took to process it gave Lorne enough of a head start to beat her to the stairwell and up to the Hall's entrance-where he thrust out a hand to halt her.

"Better stay back, Doctor."

"You're not armed either, Major," she pointed out.

"That's true, ma'am, but I think we both know what our respective roles are supposed to be here."

The Falnori and Nistra representatives had followed her up the stairs to investigate. Elizabeth compromised by staying with Carson, a few steps behind Lorne and Cadman, as they climbed the hill toward the gate.

"I need a sit-rep, Lieutenant," the Major said quietly.

"About twenty people showed up out of the eastern edge of the forest," Cadman reported. "They must have come in covertly, split up into pairs, and circled around. They put at least two guys on each of ours before demanding our weapons and sending me off to get you. Nobody's made a move yet-everyone's waiting for someone else to be first."

"What about their weapons?"

"Mostly bows and arrows. We could take `em, sir, but it'd be ugly."

Hearing Galven and Cestan's footfalls behind her, Elizabeth wondered whose soldiers these were-and whether or not they were acting under orders.

The situation at the top of the hill appeared just as Cadman had described. Having spread out to cover the area around the gate, the Marines had been herded together by a ragged yet focused squad. The four Falnori who had taken part in the sentry duty now knelt on the ground, disarmed. That effectively answered her question.

Although one side wielded P-90s and the other bows, neither showed any sign of backing down.

One soldier glanced over at the newcomers and bobbed his head in acknowledgment. "We serve, Minister."

If Elizabeth had been asked to guess which group would take the first step toward escalating the conflict, she probably would have said the Nistra. Still, a surge of indignation propelled her toward Galven. "Do you really expect to solve anything like this?" she accused. "Through control of the gate?"

"Control of the talks," Galven corrected matter-of- factly. "It is in our interests to complete a new treaty. However, the long-held Falnori view of the Nistra as an inferior people must end. I will no longer negotiate from a position of weakness."

"Galven, you finally have defied all justifications," seethed Cestan. "Peace at the point of a spear is no peace at all."

"My hunters are here to guard the Stargate and this gathering, nothing more. We have no reason to bring bloodshed into an open and sincere proceeding." His emphasis made clear his doubt that the negotiations could truly be described as such.

"And we're meant to take your intent on faith? What will you ask next? Our full harvest?"

Elizabeth battled to maintain some shred of authority. "Minister, we had an agreement for my people to stand guard as an impartial force."

Galven's eyebrows lifted. "Please forgive me, Doctor, if your claims of neutrality no longer reassure me."

And then two of the bows were aimed at her and Carson, sending a ripple of renewed tension through the Marines. A corporal took aim at the hunter pair. "Ma'am, just say the word," the young man stated, his tone deadly earnest.

For a few seconds, the air was silent, and Elizabeth's heartbeat thudded in her ears. It wasn't fear, at least not directly; she knew that the hunters threatening her would be the first to fall if she told the Marines to open fire. Once that happened, however, they'd be set on an irreversible course. The Nistra would see enemies in the Falnori and Lanteans alike, and the casualties on this hill would be only the first.

"Lower your weapons," she said at last.

Bewildered, the Marines looked to Major Lorne for guidance. "You heard the order," Lorne barked, mostly concealing his skepticism. "Be advised that she said lower, not drop."

Cestan watched the Marines stand down and whirled on Elizabeth. "How can you appease him?" he demanded, betrayal written across his face. "My people…"

Time for some tough love. Mind racing to stay a step ahead, Elizabeth addressed both leaders in a cool voice. "If you're certain this dispute can't be resolved without force, that's your choice. I'm willing to continue mediating up to a point. What I am not willing to do is risk my people. With your permission, Minister, I'd like to send these Marines home."

No doubt Galven interpreted that as a victory. Sweeping out a magnanimous hand, he agreed. "You are free to do so."

Lorne leaned in and spoke urgently. "Ma'am, if you're suggesting that we stay here unarmed-"

"Not you, Major. You need to go get Sekal out of his cell, throw him in a jumper, and drag him down here. And bring every last bauble he and his gang had with them, in case any of it's recognizable to either the minister or the governor. If anybody can prove to these two models of intractability that neither group is deliberately antagonizing the other with the raids, it's him."

The Major's eyes narrowed. "All due respect, but if the rest of the team is heading home, you're going to need backup now more than ever. Dr. Beckett can go round up the prisoner instead of me. Right, Doc?"

Carson looked as though he wanted to protest her plan to stay behind. He must have thought better of it, because he blinked rapidly and nodded. "Aye, suppose I can. But I think a few of these Marines had better take the return trip with Sekal."

"I'd recommend it. As quickly as possible." Elizabeth gripped his hands for a brief moment, attempting to convey some kind of reassurance.

She may not have entirely succeeded. Carson's gaze pierced her and he murmured, "I do hope you know what you're doing."

As much as I ever do in this galaxy. She alone had made the choice to press on with this Sisyphean task, and she'd be the one to live with the consequences. Stepping back, she told Cadman, "Dial the gate."

The lieutenant marched past a half-dozen hunters, seemingly taking the most direct route to the DHD on purpose so as to prove that the Nistra hadn't won anything. When the gate activated, Elizabeth watched Carson and the Marines troop through and tried not to feel desperately isolated.

Donning her confidence like a cloak, she faced the governor and minister as the wormhole shut down. "This changes nothing about the talks," she informed them. "Control of the gate is not to be used as leverage in any discussion. Keep in mind that my people hold the key to shielding either gate. The first time an ultimatum is issued here-about adarite or raids or anything at all-I'm gone, and no one gets a gate shield."

The presence of the Nistra hunters allowed Galven the freedom to be more accommodating. "Your position is reasonable and understood," he said. "Shall we-"

A sharp crack, like the sound of lightning, tore through the air, followed shortly by a cry-and then chaos.

Elizabeth hit the ground on her side, pain blossoming where her hip struck the hard-packed dirt. It took a half-second for her to realize that Lorne had yanked her down, and another half-second to realize that she should be grateful for his instinctive action. Scattered, random flashes illuminated the area around them, and arrows hissed past overhead.

"I think Cestan's team just showed up to play," Lorne said into her ear, struggling to be heard over the shouts of the hunters. "We need to get out of here."

She raised her head to look for the gate. Between it and them lay forty yards and far too many combatants. Each leader had been swallowed up by a protective cluster of fighters almost immediately. Adarite whips sizzled all around, creating a light show that would have been breathtaking if it hadn't been grisly at the same time. "The Hall," she told him. "We can wait this out in there."

The Major's eyes scanned the newly christened battlefield for the safest route down the hill. No doubt he'd noticed, as she had, that both sides fought in relatively small numbers so far. This wasn't the start of a carefully planned campaign by either group. Rather, it seemed more like a first skirmish between scouting parties. They would have to hope that an opportunity to reach the gate would present itself later, before Atlantis was forced to send a rescue team into the fray.

"Stay as low to the ground as you can until we open up a safe distance," Lorne directed, pointing toward the clearest path. "I'll be right behind you."

Sucking in a breath, Elizabeth began to crawl forward on her forearms, the way she'd seen the Marines do in training. Before long she had to shut her eyes against the long grasses that scratched her face. She wasn't covering ground as fast as she would have liked; Lorne surely could have outdistanced her in seconds. He didn't, of course, instead keeping his body between her and the majority of the fighters.

As the ground started to slope away under her, hope crept into her thoughts. Once they were partway down the hill, the odds of being followed or struck by a stray weapon would diminish.

She'd just gotten brave enough to get up on all fours when she heard a soft moan nearby. One of the Falnori whip-warriors lay in a heap a few feet away, an arrow driven through her thigh. Elizabeth paused, glancing back at Lorne and the first-aid supplies she knew were stored in his vest.

"Helping her might be interpreted as taking sides," he warned under his breath. "Which would be a dangerous thing for us to do."

The warrior looked near to Elizabeth's age, and had she not been wounded she might have carried herself in a similar manner. Her gaze displayed acceptance; she looked as if she knew that the off-worlders would be taking a risk to aid her, and she would understand if they chose not to do so.

It was the most rational viewpoint Elizabeth had seen from anyone on this world in days. She shuffled awkwardly on her hands and knees toward the woman. "Grab her other arm," she told the Major, who moved to comply. Together they dragged the warrior down the hill until they felt safe to stand and pull her arms across their shoulders.

By the time they reached the Hall, Elizabeth's lungs burned with exertion, the sun was inching toward the horizon, and the battle sounded distant. The trio stumbled only a few steps inside the entrance before stopping, unable to negotiate over the rubble on the floor. Trained in basic field medicine, Lorne did his best to make the warrior comfortable and slow the bleeding, although he elected not to remove the arrow from her leg.

"It'll just bleed more if I do. Somebody who knows a lot more than me will have to stitch you up," he told her apologetically, handing over a couple of pills and his canteen. "Take these. They're painkillers." She accepted them with a strained smile.

Exhausted though she was, Elizabeth couldn't resist remarking to Lorne, "Bet you're rethinking your choice to stay here and send Beckett home."

"No, ma'am. I'll take this little paradise any day over the ass-kicking the Colonel would deliver if I left civilians alone and unarmed off-world."

"Thank you." The soft comment came from the woman they'd propped against an overturned bench. "I would not have lasted long had I remained on the battlefield."

"Don't thank us yet. We may not be able to get out of here for some time." Elizabeth sat with her back to the wall and drew her knees up to her chest. "I'm Dr. Weir, by the way, and this is Major Lorne."

"I am Merise. I was one of the first to encounter your people near the gate, days ago."

The name struck a familiar chord. "Teyla mentioned you. She admired your fighting abilities."

"We owe you much for being willing to help us reach for peace." Merise cast her gaze down at the rough projectile embedded in her leg. "Even if it is beyond our grasp. We remain honored by the attempt."

In other words, thanks for playing, and we have some lovely parting gifts for you. Just `trying' had never been good enough for Elizabeth. Still, she had to wonder if she'd been foolish to keep pushing when all signs had pointed to failure. Had she been hopelessly arrogant to believe she could halt a tide that had been building for centuries? Or had it been a blind, desperate play to regain some shred of the rigidly moral life she'd left behind on Earth?

Forcing herself to focus on the immediate situation, she looked at the Falnori woman. "I'm assuming, based on your quick reaction to the Nistra seizing the gate, that your own army isn't far away."

"It is near," admitted Merise. "My group rode ahead. We did not come to provoke a battle, however. We merely planned to patrol the western woods, as we often do. When we saw that the gate had been overrun, we were in place to act."

"Can't really fault you for that," Lorne said. "But now that the fighting's started, we're going to have to treat this like a war, because that's what it's turned into."

On that cheerful thought, Elizabeth leaned her head back on the wall and closed her eyes.

She must have dozed for a while, since the daylight was all but gone when she opened her eyes again. The Major seemed to be exploring the ruined outer building of the Hall. Across the room, the beam of his flashlight played over broken equipment. "Looking for anything that might be useful as a weapon," he explained quietly, glancing at Merise, who also had fallen asleep. "Just in case.

"That will not be necessary."

Elizabeth pushed herself to her feet as Cestan entered the building. His only damage appeared to be to his robes, which were rumpled and smudged with dirt. Two of his warriors immediately went to assist Merise. "The battle's over?" Elizabeth asked.

The governor's nod was grave. "The first of many, I fear. We suffered few losses, but the gate remains under Nistra control."

"How did you…?"

Intuiting her question, Cestan gave a tired smile. "There are not many places you could have fled. Especially since Kellec witnessed you taking Merise with you. We are thankful for that."

"I'm relieved you didn't assume malicious intent on our part." Elizabeth let her focus drift toward a splintered window frame and the area beyond it. "The gate's inaccessible, you said?"

"I'm afraid so. I'd like to offer you a place in my army's command post, just on the other side of the woods. You will need protection for the night."

So much for not taking sides. They had no other viable options, though. Grateful for the invitation, Elizabeth nonetheless needed to hear the inevitable confirmed. "And when morning comes?"

There was a bleak, resigned ache in the governor's voice. "Then the conflict which has been expected for generations will finally arrive, and may the Ancestors help us all."