Hunt and run

Chapter Nineteen

“Nekai’s back!”

Adarr’s shout startled the rest into motion, Ronon included. It had been almost two months since Setien’s death, and over three weeks since their leader had taken a shuttle and disappeared. Ronon had thought at first that it was simply a reaction to Setien’s death, but the others had told him that Nekai had done this a few times before — and the last two times it had been to recruit first Adarr and then Ronon himself. So none of them were too surprised a few minutes later when they saw four people step in through the dome’s airlock: Frayne and Banje, who had gone to escort the new arrivals in once their systems had detected the approaching shuttle, Nekai, and one other.

Female, Ronon determined as he and Adarr and Turen joined the others. Average height, narrow build, the same loping gait he and Nekai and Banje possessed. Turen had an even more fluid walk, graceful and quick and quiet despite her shorter legs, and neither Frayne nor Adarr had ever fully mastered the hunter’s stride. But this woman clearly had.

“You’re back!’ As when he’d first arrived, Ronon noticed that Turen approached Nekai rapidly, fast enough and with enough enthusiasm that he thought the little Hiñati woman would throw herself on the stocky Retemite, but at the last minute she slowed down and gave him a quick, awkward embrace instead. Frayne caught Ronon’s gaze and rolled his eyes. As bunkmates, the two of them had plenty of time to sit and talk at night, and more than once the conversation had turned to Turen’s obvious obsession with Nekai. Ronon had judged it equal parts hero worship, physical desire, and genuine affection. Frayne, being less kind, had ignored the third possibility and insisted it was entirely because Nekai had saved her and so was now this magnificent but untouchable figure in her eyes. Certainly the “untouchable” part seemed true — the rest of them all knew about her interest but if Nekai ever noticed he never acknowledged it, and Turen had never once acted on it.

This time was proving to be no exception.

Except that the newcomer’s reaction was interesting. She’d stepped closer to Nekai when Turen had approached, almost but not quite putting herself in the shorter woman’s way. And the minute Turen disengaged and stepped back the new woman slid even closer, her arm brushing against Nekai’s side. Possessive, Ronon recognized. The woman was staking her claim. And Nekai didn’t react one way or another — he didn’t reciprocate but he didn’t move away either.

Judging by Turen’s scowl, she had seen it as well.

“Welcome back,” Ronon told Nekai, edging past Turen to offer Nekai his hand once the Retemite had pulled off his helmet. “Glad you’re okay.”

“I’m fine,” Nekai assured him and all of them, exchanging greetings with the others as well. “Everything here okay?”

“Fine,” Banje answered, having already shucked his suit as well, but the one-word answer was even more flat than usual for the terse Desedan. Of course none of them were fine. There was still a large, Setien-shaped hole in their midst. It was impossible not to notice it — when they were eating, when they were parceling out chores, when they were training, when they were sparring. Especially when they were sparring. Banje and Turen had taken to double-teaming Ronon, and the pair worked together extremely well, his skill and experience coupled with her speed and agility, but it wasn’t the same. So yes, they were fine: they were healthy, they’d kept up their practice and training, they were eating and exercising and even sleeping.

But they weren’t well. Not by a long shot.

The newcomer had removed her helmet now, revealing a narrow face with sharp, angular features, dark brown hair pulled back in a severe bun, and black eyes that flickered constantly across them all. “Everyone, meet Lanara,” Nekai introduced her, and Ronon saw Turen bristle at the obvious pride in his voice. “The newest member of the V’rdai.”

“I’m Adarr.” Of course the tall Fenabian was the first to welcome her. He offered a hand but pulled it back after she didn’t clasp it, accepting her curt nod instead.

“Ronon.” He got a similar nod. So she wasn’t a touchy-feely type. She was still standing awfully close to Nekai, though. Ronon had seen enough body language back in the Satedan military to be fairly sure the two had slept together, and more than once. That was going to make matters. complicated.

Frayne and Banje introduced themselves as well, and finally Turen gave the new woman a grudging nod. “Turen,” she muttered, shooting daggers at Nekai and barely sparing Lanara a glance. Oh yes, definitely complicated.

“Lanara is Kadrean,” Nekai told them. “Her people are some of the finest hunters in the galaxy, and Lanara is one of the best they’ve ever produced. That’s why I was able to return so quickly — she’s already a better hunter than I’ll ever be. We just needed to adapt her skills to hunting Wraith.”

“They’re a lot slower than alca-beasts,” Lanara announced, her thin lips pulling back in a vicious smile. “And less dangerous close up.” Her voice matched the rest of her, clear and sharp. Ronon wondered if she’d always been like this, or if becoming a Runner had stripped away any calmer emotions she might have possessed. He’d probably been just as brusque when he’d first arrived, but he’d still had some sense of humor buried deep inside. Of course, for him it had been three months since his capture. For her, assuming Nekai had found her as quickly, it had been only a few weeks. He couldn’t fault her for still being raw. He just wondered if that would ease with time.

“Have you been out since I left?” Nekai was asking Banje, and frowned when the Desedan shook his head. “Well, we need to fix that. I know we’re all still upset about Setien’s death, but sitting here doesn’t do her memory any honor. We need to remember her the way she’d want most, by laughing in the face of danger and killing as many Wraith as possible.”

“And eating fresh fruit whenever we find it,” Frayne muttered, which brought a smile to everyone’s faces. Everyone except Lanara and Turen, who were now busy glaring at each other.

Nekai had smiled along with the rest of them, but now that glimpse of humor vanished. “It’s time we got serious,” he informed them gravely. “We’ve been taking the fight to the Wraith when we can, yes — and sometimes even when we probably shouldn’t.” That last had been accompanied by a quick glance at Ronon, but he only grinned in reply. “But now we have to do more. We need to manufacture situations to draw them in, set bigger traps, lure more Wraith to their death. Ronon’s scheme with the dead shuttle worked beautifully, and took out an entire cruiser! We have to set more snares like that. Maybe even find a way to trap the ancestral rings themselves, so we can take out a Dart as it passes through.”

He was pacing now, and the others watched him intently, knowing there was more their leader wished to say. Lanara had been forced to back away to give him room as he moved, and Ronon didn’t miss the victorious smirk Turen sent her way. If Nekai thought the two women were going to bunk together, someone would have to disabuse him of that notion, and quickly. Otherwise Lanara wouldn’t last a week — she might be an excellent hunter, but up close no one could match Turen with a blade.

But Nekai was speaking again. “We also need to accept the fact that sometimes, the Wraith may not be our only targets.” That pronouncement met with stunned silence, and he stopped moving and looked at each of them in turn before nodding. “Yes, you heard me right. There are people out there, despicable people, who not only do not stand against the Wraith but who actively help them.”

Beside him, Lanara’s face twisted into an ugly scowl of pure hate. “My people fell,” she declared, “because one of our elders struck a deal with the Wraith. She gave up our patrol patterns and shut down our security grid in exchange for a guarantee of personal safety.” Her words emerged like blows, each one expelled by bitterness. “My whole world gone, just so she could save her own skin.”

Nekai nodded. “It’s people like that we may run up against from time to time,” he warned. “Especially since we’ve been making a mark on the Wraith. There’s a reason they changed their hunting patterns, and that’s because they’re scared. Of us.” He gave them a few seconds to appreciate that fact. “But that means they’ve put the word out as well. They don’t know much about us, since we don’t leave any of them alive to talk, but they must know by now that we’re a band of Runners and that we’re hunting them in turn. They’ll have warned every planet under their control, and there will be standing orders to bring us in if we’re found.” He frowned. “Some people would do so only to protect their own people, and I can’t entirely fault them for that. But others would turn us in to save themselves alone, or to curry favor with the Wraith.” He scowled. “And those people are no better than the Wraith themselves. Which means we must treat them the same way.”

“You want us to hunt them?” Adarr asked. “How?”

“No, not hunt them,” Nekai corrected. “We’re still hunting Wraith and Wraith alone. But if we run across those who willingly help the Wraith, we must treat them as enemies. And deal with them accordingly.”

Ronon nodded. This was war, after all. Anyone who chose to side with the enemy became the enemy. He knew that, and knew he’d have no problem pulling the trigger on such a person. Neither would Banje or, judging from her expression, Lanara. He wasn’t sure how Frayne or Adarr or Turen would handle such a situation.

With any luck, they wouldn’t ever have to find out.

They spent the next two weeks together in the dome, the V’rdai now back up to seven. Ostensibly they were waiting for Nekai to regain his bearings and work out a new plan of attack against the more alert and organized Wraith hunting parties, but everyone knew the truth — they were taking the time to get used to their newest member.

And Lanara definitely took some getting used to.

She was fine at sparring, fast and wiry with sharp reflexes and excellent balance. Her melee skills were solid, though Turen delighted in trouncing her new rival several times in a row, until Lanara acknowledged that she’d never be as good with blades. What she lacked in close-in fighting, however, she made up for at distance. It turned out that Lanara was phenomenal at ranged combat — she had the best aim Ronon had ever seen, and could place bullet, arrow, or knife perfectly on target time after time from a hundred paces, whether standing, running, or dodging and rolling. After watching her shoot and throw and after sparring with her several times in the ring, Ronon knew he wouldn’t have to worry about whether she could handle herself on a hunt.

The problem wasn’t with her skills. It was with her personality. Lanara, the rest of the V’rdai discovered, was not an easy woman to get along with. She was short-tempered and sharp-tongued, had a vicious sense of humor, thought very highly of herself, and expected people to jump every time she issued an order. Her possessive attitude toward Nekai had instantly earned her Turen’s dislike, and the two had survived as bunkmates less than a night before Turen kicked Lanara out and threatened to gut her if she ever returned. The fact that Lanara then stalked off to Nekai’s tent and spent the night there didn’t help matters. He and Banje cleared out one of the supply tents the next day, and gave the new space to Lanara, but the damage had already been done. Ronon knew Turen well enough by now to know that she would do what she was told, and that she would hunt and fight alongside Lanara when necessary. But the two women would never be friends, and if it ever came down to going the extra distance for the prickly Kadrean, Ronon suspected Turen would find an excuse to come up short.

Frayne didn’t like her much better. The short Yadonite didn’t take well to arrogance, and had tolerated Setien’s overconfidence only because her boasts were so amusing and so shameless. Lanara was just a little more conniving, a little more manipulative, a little more aware of her own behavior, and that put Frayne on edge.

Adarr was the most easy-going of the V’rdai, and he did his best to be friendly with Lanara. But she wasn’t much interested in friends, and all his attempts to entertain her or engage her in conversation fell flat. Eventually he just left her alone.

Ronon didn’t care for the newcomer much either. She was a poor substitute for Setien in every way except hunting, and they already had hunters. He was civil with her, but didn’t even bother trying to be her friend. That actually seemed to suit Lanara fine, and Ronon was surprised when Banje pointed out one night that he probably got along with her better than anyone else outside Nekai himself.

Banje, for his part, recognized Lanara as a potential rebel and was quick to squash that. On her second day he made it very clear to her, in his quiet way, that he was Nekai’s second-in-command and that she would follow his orders or leave at once. To her credit, Lanara agreed and abided by it. She never once refused a direct order, and never directly challenged Banje’s authority, though her arch comments and barbed remarks made it clear she thought she could do a better job.

If Nekai noticed any of this, he didn’t try to intervene. Which was probably for the best. Every good commander knew you had to let the troops sort themselves out, and that’s exactly what Nekai was doing.

As it was, when he declared two weeks later that they were going hunting, the V’rdai were ready. They were just as dangerous as they had been with Setien — in some ways more so, because Lanara was less of a loose cannon and more of a hunter. If the team wasn’t as relaxed together, and didn’t joke and laugh as much on the way to the mission, no one was about to let that get in the way of killing Wraith.

But as they left the dome and made their way to the shuttle, Ronon realized that for the first time in over a year he felt as if the V’rdai were a team and only a team. They no longer felt like a family.

“So you just got up and left?”

Rodney could just see Ronon shaking his head, and felt the breeze caused by his braids. “Not quite.”

“Well, you said it didn’t feel like a family anymore.”

“It didn’t. It wasn’t. But it was still a team. A good team. And we still had a job to do, a purpose. I wasn’t going to walk away from that.” Rodney thought he caught a glimpse of a smile, but if so it was a small, sad one. “Besides, I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

“Okay, what happened?” Rodney was eager to find out. “Was it the new girl, Lanara? Did she do something that made it impossible to stay.”

“No.” Ronon sighed. “I wish she had. That would have been easier to handle. But it wasn’t her. It was Nekai.”

“What’d he do?”

“We were on another mission,” Ronon explained. “some planet I’ve never seen before, all sun and sand… ”