Casualties of war

Chapter twelve

Omy a few seconds had passed since the gate had activated, and already John wondered if it might be possible to manually cut power to the system. This waiting game was going nowhere, and it only intensified his frustration over his teammates' uncertain status. If you d just sent the damned MALP right at the start…

"Receiving IDC," Rodney announced suddenly.

Without realizing it, John had drifted to the railing. Now he turned back toward the dialing console. "We don't have anyone off-world other than Elizabeth's group and the Jumper Three team." Except Teyla and Ronon- but that wasn't a thought he could voice.

Rodney's face went slack as he looked up from the screen. "It's a dummy code."

John was at the computer in three strides. He identified the number set instantly. "Everybody out of the control room now. Stand by for incoming unknowns!" he warned the security team pouring into the gate-room. Training alone must have driven his reaction, because instinct was shouting What the hell?

The control room cleared briskly. As soon as the Marines had taken up their defensive positions, John reached down to lower the shield.

He watched the energy field wink out and waited. Again.

Abruptly, two figures tumbled through the gate. When John recognized them, some small piece of his soul was renewed.

Ronon and Teyla rolled to the side, out of the security team's line of fire. The Satedan leaned up on one elbow. "Six behind us. Stun `em all!"

"Do it!" John yelled the order down to the Marines.

The next arrivals lost their footing as well, giving the Marines a prime opportunity to target them. His sidearm in his hand out of sheer habit, John made himself hang back and let his people work.

Stun blasts lit up the gate-room. By the time the wormhole finally shut down, six men lay in front of the gate, some sprawled on top of each other. "Secure, sir," Sergeant Young called, directing his team to restrain each intruder.

Ronon picked himself up from the floor and offered a hand to Teyla. John closed his eyes for a moment, the sight of his friends alive and whole almost too much to take in. He'd do whatever was required of him from here on out- gladly-but right now he justneeded half a second.

"Incredible," murmured Rodney.

Opening his eyes, John turned to see the chief science officer rising from a crouch behind a console. He shot Rodney a critical look. "Huh. I thought I heard someone say to clear the control room. In fact, I'm pretty sure that was me.

Rodney could go from zero to defensive faster than any human in existence. "What? Ducking is like clearing.,

Shaking his head, John hurried out of the control room and down the stairs as fast as he could manage without tripping over his boots.

Both Teyla and Ronon looked battered and a bit dazed, but there was no hiding their relief. John could relate. He opened his mouth before his brain could come up with anything to say, and so he stood there gawking like an idiot until rallying with "God, where were you guys?"

"Stranded on a planet with no dialing device," replied Teyla, mustering a weak smile. "You can imagine our thankfulness for arriving safely here."

"I think there's enough gratitude to go around." All of a sudden he found himself touching his forehead to hers in the customary Athosian manner. If her grip on his banged-up arm was a little too strong, he couldn't have cared less.

Ronon's priorities were still in order; he'd stepped over a couple of unconscious intruders in order to retrieve his gun from one of them.

Rodney joined the group then, having taken the stairs with more caution than John had, and peered down at the new prisoners. "Those are the raiders-"

"From PM-418. Yes." Teyla tossed the men a look of contempt. The effect was muted by the dark circles under her eyes.

"Okay. Interesting." Processing that, Rodney frowned. "Did you say planet? You weren't on the orbital station?"

"Station?" Re-holstering his weapon, Ronon stared blankly back at him.

"We, uh, thought you'd gotten bounced through 418's space gate." It felt silly now, with the two of them standing there relatively unscathed, but John's throat tightened all the same. "That's why we didn't send a MALP or anything after you. We thought…"

He was saved from finishing the sentence by Teyla's hand on his wrist. "The planet's gate was angled. That is why we stumbled on our arrival here. A MALP likely would have fallen on its side, broken or at least immobile."

Not even ten minutes home after a mission from hell, and already she was trying to reassure him. John appreciated the effort, but it didn't soften the recriminations in his mind.

"Can we stay on topic, please?" Rodney's hands seemed to fly in six different directions at once. "I saw the transit data-you were sent to the orbital gate, which we now know is enclosed in a structure. How did you not end up there?"

"How should we know?" Ronon's gaze kept darting from the raiders to the gate and back, as if still trying to put some pieces together in his head. "The gate was stuck between two rock faces, with wreckage all around." Dragging out that recollection seemed to be difficult for him. "Maybe it was damaged."

The pinched expression Rodney tended to get while solving the mysteries of the universe swiftly cleared. "The battle," he realized. "The records said the orbital gate was damaged in the battle. The station was knocked around so badly that its orbit destabilized, and the whole thing plummeted through the planet's atmosphere!"

"Most things get pretty well toasted when that happens," John contributed.

"Not naquadah. It's about as heat-resistant as a material gets. The Stargate would remain intact wherever it fell, while everything around it would have disintegrated on reentry." Rodney's voice warmed in utter amazement.

"It never occurred to me to have the recovery team scan the surface when they went orbital to search for your bod-ah, transmitters. You two were on 418 all along."

Teyla looked like she didn't quite comprehend how that could be true. "The hunters who befriended us," she said to Ronon, uncertain.

"Hunters?" John got a flash of memory from the negotiations-something Galven had said. "Could they have been Nistra?"

Rodney sobered quickly at that. "Were you in the mountains?"

It should have been a simple question, but Teyla seemed to have trouble forming an answer. "Mostly the foothills," she said finally.

"Ah. That would explain why you're both a little…" Rodney fluttered his fingers in a vague gesture that might have implied a mental disorder. Ronon sent him a withering glare.

A moment later, John caught up to Rodney's reasoning, and everything clicked. "Take our guests down to the holding cells," he instructed Sergeant Young before turning to the rest of his team. "Let's pay a visit to the infirmary."

Amazing how fast the mood of the city could change. Word of Ronon and Teyla's near-miraculous return had spread so efficiently and elatedly that making an announcement would have been redundant. Nevertheless, John had taken great pleasure in dialing 418-the original 418 gate-and informing Elizabeth that their people were home. From the tone of her response, he got the feeling that only diplomatic etiquette had prevented her from hugging the hell out of the nearest person.

She did, however, report that the treaty talks were starting to collapse. Minister Galven hadn't warmed up to the idea of relinquishing control of the mines, and so far they'd failed to convince him that adarite was in fact harmful. Governor Cestan, in turn, seemed to be interpreting Galven's unyielding resistance as a provocation. Both had threatened to post guards around the Hall, and access to the gate had somehow sprung up as an additional point of contention. Elizabeth expressed a belief that she could keep the two leaders at the negotiating table for another day or so. The more John and Rodney could learn about the second gate and the raiders, she told them, the better chance she'd have of staving off a war.

John was more than willing to oblige.

He found Ronon in the mess hall, the first place the Satedan had gone after leaving the infirmary. The medical scans had shown evidence of exposure to a high concentration of adarite, confirming that Teyla and Ronon had indeed been in the mining region of P7L-418. Within an hour, both had displayed marked improvement on basic memory tests and had been turned loose.

When Teyla had requested a brief trip over to the mainland to reunite with her people, she'd looked surprised that John had assigned someone else to fly her there. He hadn't explained that it would be a while before he could look any of the Athosians in the eye after having written off their leader's life. Instead, he'd told her that he was needed for another task. It hadn't even been a lie.

Grabbing a sandwich off the lunch line, John spotted Ronon at a corner table. He ambled over, not surprised to see a stack of emptied plates on the tray. "Hey," he greeted, spinning the nearest chair a half-turn and straddling it backward. "How's your head?"

"Better." Ronon swallowed a bite of some kind of mystery meat before continuing. "Still not too clear on a lot of what happened on the planet."

"The does said some of those memories won't ever show up, because they're not really anywhere in your head to find." John draped his arms over the back of the chair, his posture far more casual than his next question. "Want to go chat with our guests and maybe fill in a few blanks?"

The fork stopped midway to Ronon's mouth as an expression of malevolent interest came into his eyes. Without a word he rose from the table and picked up his tray. John shoved his still-wrapped sandwich into a jacket pocket, and the pair headed for the detention area.

The six raiders had been given separate cells, not for their comfort but to preclude any of them from conspiring to escape. At the entry corridor, John nodded to the Marines on guard duty and asked Ronon, "Did these guys have a ringleader?"

In response, Ronon walked down the hall, looking into each doorway until he found who he was looking for. When he did, he stalked inside, prompting John to lengthen his stride to catch up.

It had been a while since the city's holding cells had gotten any use. Their current occupants didn't look like the physical type, so the force fields hadn't been turned on. Of course, that could change pretty rapidly if the need arose. The lead raider sat slouched against one side of his cell, greasy reddish hair falling into his eyes. He glanced up at Ronon with grudging admiration. "I have to admit, you played this well."

Ronon stood in front of the bars, arms folded, saying nothing.

"You want to be the good cop or the bad cop?" John asked his teammate. The look of skepticism he received in reply spoke volumes. He heaved a slightly exaggerated sigh. "Man, I'm always the good cop."

When it came to Earth references, Ronon had benefited greatly from Atlantis's movie nights. "Who says we need a good cop?"

"It's more for the entertainment factor than anything else." John strolled around the perimeter of the cell and addressed the raider. "We haven't met. I'm Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard. You folks have been causing me and my friends trouble on a bunch of different levels lately. You got a name?" The lack of response didn't faze him. "It's no problem if you don't-I've made something of a hobby out of hanging names on the residents of these cells. I'm thinking about going back to `Steve,' since the original Steve didn't last too long."

"Sekal," the man muttered, shooting a dark glance at Ronon. "As I'm sure your companion has told you."

"Oh, don't worry about him. Ronon's a big softie. Although you did kind of blow your shot at making a decent first or second impression on him." John dug the sandwich out of his pocket and took a bite, making Sekal wait and watch. Food hadn't been on the agenda for the prisoners just yet. "Sekal, you're obviously a businessman, so I'll offer you a business deal. Information in exchange for the release of yourself and your men. The deal is contingent on me liking what I hear. If I don't, you'll find a way to make amends, or Ronon will prob ably get cranky."

Looking from John to a glowering Ronon and back, Sekal lifted his chin. "Ask your questions."

"All right, first question. Who the hell are you jokers?"

Either Sekal was worried enough about his welfare to talk, or he just didn't care about hiding anything. Might have been a combination of the two. "We are of the Cadre."

"The Cadre? I was hoping for some kind of cool piratetype name. What's the Cadre?"

"We are part of a trade organization that operates in shadow on a number of worlds. We're salvagers, if you prefer. Artifacts of the Ancestors are usually the most lucrative items, but whatever is desired can be procured for the right price."

"Black market. Imagine my surprise. How many people are in this Cadre?"

"More than I personally know." The raider's eyebrow lifted. "Certainly more than you have locked up here."

John walked around to the front of the cell. He needed to see the man's face when he asked this next question. "Are you allied in any way with the Nistra or the Falnori?"

Sekal scoffed. "Those simpletons? We have free rein of their planet. What profit would there be in an alliance?"

The response seemed candid enough. A glance at Ronon told John that their thoughts ran along the same lines. Like they'd suspected, the Falnori and Nistra had built a major aspect of their conflict on baseless assumptions.

"How long have you been stealing from that planet?" John asked.

"Off and on for some years. The ruins near their main gate are a rich source of artifacts. Our first visit alone netted us enough to buy our ship."

"That reminds me." John cocked his head toward Ronon. "Nice work getting them to leave that behind."

Ronon smirked. Looking sullen, Sekal slouched further.

"You're not taking just artifacts, though," pressed John. "You've branched out into swiping adarite from the miners.

"The ore?" Sekal shrugged. "A market for it developed after we sold some devices that run on the stuff."

"Uh huh. Would it surprise you if I said that adarite has dangerous effects?" Watching for a reaction, John took another bite of his sandwich before continuing. "Exposure to it messes with minds in a big way. After a while you'd be pretty much incapacitated, and you wouldn't even know why."

The raider's reply was indifferent. "We never hold onto the ore for long. Once payment's been received, I don't know or care what anyone does with it."

Nice. "That's a beautiful sentiment. Really. I'm all choked up." John did another slow lap around the outside of the cell, forcing Sekal to twist around to keep him in view. "How did you find the second gate on the planet?"

"We stumbled upon it some time ago during a visit but found that it had no dialing device. Fortunately, some of our business associates in another system were able to aid us in procuring something suitable for the purpose." Sekal smiled, clearly trying to hold onto a semblance of leverage through attitude alone. "Once we confirmed the manner in which two gates operate under the same address, we could use our device to override the planet's main dialer. The additional gate became a great asset. The miners certainly haven't figured out our methods. I don't think many of them have even recognized the fact that there's a large ring under all the plant growth in those ruins.

"They're pretty aware of being robbed blind," John pointed out, dropping the wry humor from his tone. His patience had limits, and Ronon's posture suggested that this was getting old even faster for him. "Do you have any idea what kind of rift you've opened up on that planet? The Falnori are convinced that it's the Nistra who've been raiding them, and vice versa. They're about to go to war over your actions."

Seeing that his captors were getting rattled, Sekal seemed to gain confidence. "We're not responsible," he replied airily, "for the misconceptions of the foolish."

With a growl, Ronon slammed both hands into the bars separating him from the prisoner. When he reached for the cell's locking mechanism, John had to intercede, hurrying over to grab his teammate's shoulder. "Hey! No beat-downs. Even if he is scum."

"They're not foolish," Ronon snarled at Sekal, who'd managed to fold himself into a compact package in a corner of the cell. "They're kind and honorable people. Unlike yours-loyal to nothing except your own fortunes."

If nothing else, John had to give the raider credit for guts. Recovering somewhat, Sekal remarked, "We've found it to be the most beneficial ideology around."

"Where are you based?" Ronon demanded. "What planet?"

Sekal stretched his legs out in front of him and regarded them coolly. In place of an answer, he said, "I could be persuaded to convince the rest of the Cadre to leave your friends the Nistra and Falnori alone. I have little doubt that this city of yours contains enough wealth to pay the fee."

John had seen The Godfather plenty of times and recognized a protection racket when he saw one. After pretending to consider the offer for approximately half a second, he turned to Ronon. "I changed my mind. Have fun.

The gasp from inside as he unlocked the cell shouldn't have been satisfying, but it was.

Before Ronon could advance, a voice from the corridor halted them. "Ronon, Colonel." Teyla entered the room, taking in the cowering Sekal and her teammates with raised eyebrows.

"You're back," John greeted her. "Ronon was in the process of scaring the crap out of this guy. Right, buddy?"

Ronon paused, stepped back from the cell's entrance, and relocked the door. "Right."

"I approve. He deserves that and more." Teyla's gaze remained steady. "Since he may still prove useful later, though, I wanted to make sure that someone was here to fill the role of the `good cop."'

John thought about objecting to her implication. He decided against it when he couldn't be sure at what point he would have stopped Ronon from attacking this time around. "All right, we've got things to discuss. Let's go up to the briefing room." Facing the raider, who was now officially intimidated, he said, "Remember, your deal depends on me liking what you have to say. So far, I don't. We'll try again later. Enjoy your day."

On the way to the briefing room, he called Rodney, who managed to get there before the rest of them. The scientist was scribbling restlessly on a datapad when they entered. "So we need a plan regarding 418," John stated without preamble, sitting down in his usual chair. "The raiders are an independent third party, but somehow I don't think either Cestan or Galven will suddenly decide to believe us if we tell them that. They've spent far too long building up a hatred for each other to let it go so easily."

"Since the adarite influence is so widespread among the Nistra, their collective knowledge may be as weak as their individual memories," Teyla said. "And the Stargate within their territory was very obscured by foliage overgrowth. We should find out if Minister Galven is even aware of its existence."

"More than that." Ronon paced along one wall of the room. "We need to find a way to keep the Cadre from using that gate."

At the comment, Rodney glanced up from his datapad with a wary expression. "This is starting to feel suspiciously like one of those moments wherein I'm asked to do something that treads the fine line of sanity. For instance, manufacturing a gate shield out of thin air."

Now that he mentioned it, a gate shield sounded like a pretty good idea. John looked at him at the same time the others did, and Rodney recoiled under their scrutiny. "Did everyone miss the derision attached to that statement?"

Teyla didn't hesitate before speaking. "Ronon and I are indebted to the Nistra. The hunting circle did not have to take us in, yet they did."

"We could have been raiders, for all they knew. They trusted us when we said we weren't." Ronon stopped his aimless walking and leaned forward over a chair. "I don't remember much, but I remember that."

"Then let's take care of their problem by removing the gate entirely." Rodney waggled the datapad in his hand. "I did the distance calculation. Once the Daedalus returns, it could get to 418 in a couple of days. We can remove the second gate to use as part of our bridge back to the Milky Way."

"Elizabeth said that Galven and Cestan were arguing about gate access, though," John reminded him. "If we can make the second gate functional, they'd have two gates for two societies, and that'd solve that problem."

"While that's a laudable goal, it's not something we can achieve in a reasonable time frame." Rodney blew out a frustrated breath. "None of the gates we've harvested so far for the galactic bridge project have had operational DHDs; that's one of the reasons why they were good candidates for harvesting. If I could scrounge up enough spare parts to put together a DHD and a shield control for the the Nistra-and by no means should you take that as a promise that such a thing is possible-it would take weeks. From what we're hearing about the negotiations, the Falnori and Nistra are going to be killing each other long before that."

John realized he was drumming restless fingers on the tabletop and stilled his hand. Looking at Teyla and Ronon, he asked, "Are you sure there was absolutely nothing in that wreckage that could have been the remains of a DHD?"

"I am sure of very little from our visit," Teyla replied honestly. "We searched the area, but we did not have specialized equipment."

"We could take a jumper through that gate, scan the area with its sensors, and use the onboard dialer to get back." John turned toward Rodney. "Couldn't we?"

"Yes, no, and yes." Rodney rolled his eyes. "The energy emitted from adarite disrupts Ancient sensors, remember? Based on our limited testing, it doesn't affect the power sources used by other Ancient technology, such as the jumper's propulsion system. If you gave me a couple of hours to bend Jumper One's dialing computer to my will, I could force a DHD override and make sure we can arrive via the Nistra gate the way the Cadre did, but we'd have to land and use Earth-built equipment to perform any kind of search."

"Assuming we find something down there, repairing a broken DHD or shield control would be easier than building new ones, right?"

"Wouldn't you expect that to depend largely on the condition of the pieces we find?" Abruptly, Rodney stood up, giving them his real answer. "If we're going to investigate the possibility, we'd better get moving."

"I'll go with you for backup. Since we might be hanging around some adarite deposits, we need to keep this an ATA-only crew." John rose as well. "Teyla, dial 418's main gate while we're prepping the jumper and tell Elizabeth what we're up to. With any luck she can stall Cestan and Galven for a little while. We'll be back in a couple of hours."

He had Jumper One preflighted and all set to go by the time Rodney lugged his scanners aboard. The scientist plopped down in the copilot's seat with a grunt. "Although I complain about Ancient equipment on a regular basis, let me state here and now that their designs are nearly always lighter and more compact than ours."

"Noted." John closed the hatch and powered up the craft. "Control, Jumper One is ready to depart."

"Acknowledged," came the gate tech's response. "Safe trip, Colonel."

As the jumper descended into the gate-room, John got the unnerving sense that Rodney was watching him a little too closely. He glanced over at his friend and immediately deduced the reason. "Don't start," he warned.

As expected, Rodney ignored him. "So how does that brilliant resignation of yours look now?"

Just what he wanted to talk about; he didn't even want to think about it. Sure, Ronon and Teyla were safe, and that meant a hell of a lot, but… "Nothing that's happened today changes the lousy decisions I've made lately." Which now had to include the decision to leave his teammates for dead-probably the worst choice of them all.

"In my experience," Rodney blandly observed, "the military in general, and the SGC in particular, is often willing to accept a focus on results over methods. Sometimes I think it's even encouraged."

John sighed. "Let's just get through this, all right?"

The jumper slid through the event horizon, and the wormhole gave him the last word.