Fic: Under Fire (1/2)

[sgarb_mod]

Author: busaikko
Wordcount: 11,895
Rating: NC17
Pairing(s): Ronon Dex/Cameron Mitchell, Cameron Mitchell/John Sheppard, Ronon Dex/Cameron Mitchell/John Sheppard, Teyla Emmagan/Kanaan
Summary: Pegasus AU. When the expedition from an embattled Earth arrived in the City of the Ancestors, they found it already occupied by the Satedan military. But Specialist Ronon Dex tried to avoid politics, intrigue, and diplomacy as much as he could; he was having a hard enough time building a team that worked together under fire.
Warning(s) highlight to read: some violence (no worse than canon)
Notes: Much love to betas gaffsie and sherry57

Companion piece to Sleeping Under (the) Fire.



Under Fire

Behind Ronon, the ring closed, to stand dim and empty. The sun was bright overhead, the surrounding meadow alive with the hum of insects in the wildflowers. He took a deep breath of sweet warm air, wished that this day wasn't going to suck, and then jumped the steps down from the ring platform to where Cam and John were waiting.

"So," Cam said, making a show of checking his weapon because he was too polite to say he thought this whole thing was stupid, "what are the rules?"

Ronon shrugged. "If you find Teyla within two local days, you get to join exploratory teams the way Weir wants. You screw up, and we go through really basic training again." He hoped his tone conveyed that he'd be really pissed if they failed.

"And you're going to follow us around to make sure we don't cheat." Cam made a sour face.

"Nah," John said. He was looking around with interest, or at least Ronon thought so; he wore dark lenses that hid his eyes. He had his hands crossed over the projectile weapon that was standard issue for the Tau'ri people of Earth. Ronon had got permission from Master Specialist Ara for both of them to be issued energy pistols as well. John wore the holster naturally; Cam kept fiddling with the straps, like he couldn't get it comfortable. But Ronon knew he had scars there from when he'd been injured in battle. Cam didn't talk about his past much, but he'd said once he was lucky to be able to walk.

Earth was a dangerous place, as far as Ronon knew: cursed with continual plagues, body-stealing snakes, and the robot insects that had eaten Earth's defensive spaceships. Cam had told Ronon that he'd been the third commanding officer assigned to the expedition; the two before him had died horribly. Ronon figured Tau'ri attitude was a mental defense against despair, but it was still really annoying, like the way John smirked when he spoke. "He doesn't think we're good enough to be able to cheat. He's here making sure you don't die."

And that there was why Ronon wished Ara had let him hold these tests separately. Cam insisted there was no way John could know that he was sleeping with Ronon, but it was obvious to Ronon that John knew and was bitter, because there was a hidden history there. It made things awkward. Cam wouldn't be assigned to Ronon's team if he passed the testing, anyway; he'd be going offworld as Weir's guard on missions with Ara - high-level diplomatic and trade talks. Ronon felt sorry for Cam. There was no way that wasn't going to be boring. He preferred exploration himself, the rush of traveling through the ring to other worlds, with animals and people and ruins and landscapes that were nothing like Sateda. That was why he'd trained as a Specialist and volunteered to go to the City of the Ancestors. It was the adventure of a lifetime, and even if it killed him his death would be for Sateda's gain.

Ronon wanted John on his team, or at least John's genetics. Hemi, his team's Tech, kept telling him how useful that would be offworld. John could fly the Ancestor's ringships and work weapons systems. Weir liked to keep her people separate, working parallel operations instead of joint, which didn't show much trust, but apparently too much trust could be fatal on Earth.

In private, Ara told Ronon that if she'd known better, she'd have had all the people from Earth shot as soon as they'd walked through the ring. "They can never find out where Sateda is," she told him. "We don't know if they're all human, or where their allegiances lie." All the Tau'ri had been through the Ancestors' medical scanning array once the City had power, but they'd been the ones to initialize the city's systems in the first place, so there was no real telling. "The Travelers are also not to be mentioned."

Ronon had the reports from the techs who studied Ancestral relics. They were all pretty sure that John could probably turn on derelict Ancestral ships the way he had the City.

Of course, John had also ended up draining the last of the power in the City when he arrived - accidentally - and caused a catastrophic shield failure, and only by the mercy and foresight of the Ancestors had they risen instead of drowning. Cam said that John was just like that. Every good thing he tried to do ended in failure or disaster or both.

"No one's dying, but I might need to kick your ass," Ronon said easily. It's the wrong thing to say to John, who just turned his blank expression to the low dark line where the forest began. Cam gave Ronon one of his told you so looks. For all Ronon liked him, well enough to be sleeping with him, sometimes Cam could be too certain he was right, to the point of being close-minded. "You should be able to pick up Teyla's trail before nightfall."

John didn't say anything, but turned and loped back up the steps to the ring platform. He took out a set of far-viewers and scanned the edges of the field.

"This planet have big animals?" he asked.

Ronon shrugged. "You tell me."

John's mouth went thin and tight; Ronon thought he probably expected him to make the test easier, out of some notion of friendship or team-feeling. Tough.

"Colonel," John said, absorbing the rebuke and moving on. "Come here and take a look."

Ronon snorted. It was going to be a long day if John was going to dig his heels in and be insultingly formal, the faint mocking smile daring Cam to call him on his insubordinate attitude.

Cam had already told Ronon that gene or no gene, no commanding officer wanted someone like John under them.

"Huh," Ronon had said. "So you didn't pick him for your mission."

"I'd have left him to rot underground in Antarctica," Cam had snapped, still steaming from some dumb thing John had done with the ringships that had Weir furious as well. Ronon knew Antarctica was a battlefield in the cold wastes of Cam's world, the place where Cam had been injured. Ronon had made the sign with the fingers of his left hand to avert ill wishes. He was a Specialist, and while he'd been trained to put his trust in facts, some superstitions got passed down from task-masters to recruits. You didn't wish someone dead unless you planned to kill them yourself, but maybe Cam thought differently; anyway, Ronon felt better turning the words away..

Fortunately for John, he'd found the path Ronon had spotted first thing, the broken branches and crushed grasses that led from the ring platform to the near edge of the woods. John pointed out how the path looked like it went into the woods, "but then ten meters to the northeast, there, look at the leaves. That's where she went."

Cam nodded sideways. "Lead on."

John was pretty good about not leaving much of a trail himself, with the exception of the heavy boots his military issued. Ronon followed eight paces behind Cam and John and wondered if Teyla had set any traps for them. She'd been a Runner for five years before Ronon's team had found her, and knew things even Master Specialists didn't.

Teyla had also been against John joining the team, but he'd won her over - not an easy thing to do - by joining her stick-fighting classes and introducing her to the ceremonial teas of his people.

John had a decent sense of when to go fast and when to go slow. Ronon realized he fell too easily into the habit of thinking of the Tau'ri as uncomfortable outside city walls or without their technology. He'd seen pictures of their home world. It looked a lot like the cool southern seacoast of Sateda's Naken Province.

"You're good at this," Cam said to John as he stopped, backed up, checked the ground, and then led them in a new direction. "Training school?"

John looked back at Cam. He'd taken his lenses off in the shade of the forest, and Ronon saw distrust in his eyes. "I suck at this. Teyla and Rakai gave me some lessons on the mainland. Any time you want to help out. . . ."

Cam shrugged. "What am I looking for?"

John made a face, but beckoned Cam over to look at something on the forest floor. Teyla's favorite backhand compliment for the soldiers Ronon sent to her was They are doing almost as well as a ten-year-old child of my people. One of the reasons Ronon kept up the active search for other Athosian survivors was the hope he'd find one of those well-trained kids. Maybe he'd learn something.

Whatever John was saying made sense; Cam was nodding, and then pointed away, to where the land rose steeply. John stood - apparently something had been decided - and then looked like he didn't know what to do with himself as Cam pushed himself up, stiff and graceless, holding his weight awkwardly off his bad leg. Ronon would have offered Cam a hand, but Ronon understood John's position. As Cam's subordinate officer, he didn't want to appear overly aware of Cam's weakness and create any suspicions about him wanting to seize command by force or subterfuge.

Ronon thought Cam didn't need to worry; John would rather fight Wraith single-handed than take over Cam's job. He felt much the same way about Ara's command of the City, and made a point of screwing up on purpose before the tri-annual performance reports if Ara suggested she'd List his name back home to Tyre. Ronon liked being in the City, and his team worked well. But Tyre favored him, and that combined with Tyre's political ambitions made Ronon worry his next posting would be boring diplomatic espionage on an ally world, Genii or Manara or - Ancestors-forbid - Olesia. Ronon still had a good four years left before mandatory Listing. Sticking around the City and exploring was his plan.

John started off at a good pace towards the slope. Cam turned around in a circle, maybe getting his bearings. He flashed Ronon a grin and an upraised thumb before following John. Ronon guessed that on Earth, that gesture didn't mean clitoris like it did to most people he knew.

The hillside was rocky and covered with a thick red-clay mud. Ronon didn't think Teyla had actually come this way; it was too much work to go up, and there were too many ways to screw up and leave accidental marks and traces. It was pretty funny to watch Cam and John climb, weighed down by all their gear and by doubts that grew the higher they went. Ronon waited until he figured they wouldn't knock him down if they fell and then took the slope at a run, which was the easiest way to do it.

"Now I feel old," John said, bending over with his hands braced on his knees and breathing hard. The air was cool but wet and heavy, and he was going to chill faster with his clothes sweat-damp. He took out his far-viewers and scanned their surroundings, even though they weren't high enough to be above the trees.

"I don't think she came this way," Cam said, pulling off his cloth cap and putting it on backwards so it didn't shade his face. "Nothing up here but more trees."

"Okay," John said, dragging the word out. Ronon had heard Cam's words as a complaint, but it sounded like John thought he'd been insulted. John held out the far-viewers. "Your turn. Colonel."

Cam shrugged and took a look, spending more time on the horizon and the sky. "Looks like there's a river about a mile down south from here."

John bit his lip, but made himself reply anyway. "You think she'll follow the river?"

Cam made a quarter turn and pointed. "Looks like if we go halfway down the other side this ridge there's a creek. Good way for Teyla to cut across to the river and get us lost, two-for-one special."

John nodded, and Cam handed the far-viewers back. John sealed them in his vest pocket, watching Cam carefully. "What's wrong?"

Cam turned and waved a hand to a narrow break in the eastern foliage. "I don't like that sky."

John squinted. "Storm coming?" He glanced at Ronon, who was all set to not give him an answer, but John said instead, "Colonel Mitchell's from Kansas, where the sky tries to kill everyone pretty much all the time."

"Hey," Cam said, grinning. "You don't get to slander my state."

"It's a great place," John returned immediately. "Really. . . flat."

"Kansas is God's ironing board," Cam said, like it was a proclamation. John almost laughed, and Cam clapped a hand on his shoulder quickly. "I say we head to the river, have a quick look up and down-stream, and then make camp. If that is a storm building, we're going to want the tent up before it hits."

"Better get a move on, then," John said, and started down with more speed than Ronon would have used, considering how wet the ground was. Ronon was behind Cam when John's feet flew out from under him and John went down hard, rolling until he twisted sideways and halted his fall with his arms outspread.

"Hell," Cam said, and then raised his voice. "You dead, Sheppard?"

"Think I broke my dignity," John shouted back. He twisted on his side, then pushed up on all fours. He was head to toe mud, but Ronon didn't see any blood seeping through.

"And that," Cam said, sidling as close to John as he dared and holding out a hand, "is how we do camouflage in the Air Force."

John waved Cam's hand away and pushed to his feet, but he wasn't too proud to grab a tree for support. He was lucky he hadn't bashed his head up against it. "Teyla knew one of us would do that."

Cam stepped back out of the way as John sloughed mud off his face and vest and trousers. "I'd bet good money she knew it would be you."

John gave him a look. "Yeah," he said. "Who else?"

Cam opened his mouth and Ronon wondered if he'd apologize or say something worse - with John and Cam, it could go either way. But then Cam swallowed down his words and started back down. After a moment, John followed him.

The creek was easy to find, and John washed as much mud off his skin as he could. They didn't talk much. The sky in the east was darker every time they reached a place with a clear view, and they didn't find any footprints or other marks along the creekbed. John seemed to take their absence personally, but Ronon figured seeing as John got blamed for everything that went wrong, he probably assumed getting lost would be his fault, too.

Cam was the opposite. He just came out on top naturally, and Ronon bet that drove John nuts.

By the time they walked out of the scrubby edge of the woods, the light had taken on a thick syrupy quality, making everything look surreal. The riverbed was wide and rocky; probably the spring floods here were bad, with the snowmelt off the mountains. The water moved fast, slick and serpentine until it encountered an obstacle, and then erupting in white foam.

John looked pleased, tugging his mud-stiffened pockets out so he could stick his hands in and rock a little on his feet. "So we can assume Teyla didn't cross this," he said. "Not on foot." He glanced at Ronon.

"She would have mentioned if she had a boat in her carry-all," Ronon said, keeping his face straight. "She doesn't need to cheat."

Cam asked for John's far-viewers and climbed up on a boulder. "Looks like all rock outcrops to the south," he reported, and then looked downriver. "And mostly trees the other side."

"I'll take the rocks," John said.

Cam gave him a hard look, but John was watching birds circling over the far side of the river. The oncoming storm was driving the insects down, making the air a feasting ground.

"Fine," Cam said, not sounding happy about it. "Stay off the cliffs. Teyla may have set you up to fall on your ass, but she'd miss you and your Celestial Seasonings if you died." Cam turned his radio on. "Turn back in an hour." After a moment, reluctantly, Cam said, "Watch for bears and T. Rex."

"Don't get kidnapped by aliens," John shot back, and gave Ronon a short wave before heading out.

"I do not know what to do with that boy," Cam said, sagging a little as John scrambled down to near the water's edge, his back to them as he walked away.

"Thought he was older than you," Ronon said. "You sound like a toothless village elder."

"Oh, that's nice," Cam said. He made a quick grab for Ronon. He was getting better; his fingers nearly closed on the edge of Ronon's coat as he spun back.

"Move your ass, Gramps," Ronon said. He was never quite sure whether the Tau'ri heard the same words he spoke; his people all tended to talk to the Tau'ri slowly and in little words when they wanted to make sure they'd be understood. But Cam glared and said he had better insurance, so he could afford to push Ronon in the river, which sounded like he got the joke to some degree, so Ronon let it go.

Cam was walking as he threatened, so Ronon figured they'd be okay for time. John probably thought he was giving them a chance for privacy, blowjobs or a quick fuck. Ronon preferred not to get bitten on the ass by whatever insects or small animals were local; he also didn't cross the line between professional and personal when he was on a mission, especially offworld. Back in the City, Cam had to abide by his military's weird sex taboos, but in their off-time the beds were soft and the doors locked.

He was thinking about John and about sex, so Ronon thought it made sense to ask Cam if John was angry that they were sleeping together.

Cam jerked, distracted into nearly falling over a rock, and then gave Ronon an irritated glare. "John shouldn't have any reason to know that."

Sometimes the Tau'ri were funny about sex. Other times their uptightness and embarrassment were just plain annoying. "He watches you all the time. I thought maybe you and he used to be together."

Cam snorted and gave Ronon his full scornful attention. "You can just ask without beating around the bush. And no. Not so much."

"Okay," Ronon said, challenging. "So what is it between you?"

Cam sighed. "Hell if I know. He wasn't even part of the Stargate program until we found out he had the gene a couple weeks before we left. He was taken out of combat for screwing up. Disobeying orders."

"So you don't want him in your command."

Cam probably didn't realize how much sighing he did when he talked about John. "Would you?" Then he remembered why they were on this planet, tracking Teyla. "I feel like it's just a matter of time before he puts us at risk. I'm sorry, but I don't think a leopard can change its spots that easy."

Ronon thought Cam was wrong, or at least he wasn't looking for the roots of his own feelings. "I like him," he said, slow and easy. "I like the way he talks to Teyla, even though he knows she was a Wraith-bringer."

"A victim," Cam said.

Ronon snorted. "Do you have a word for the victims of victims?" He'd already debated this frontwards and back with Cam, though, and wasn't interested in going through it again. Only a high-tech culture could have removed Teyla's tracking device, and none of them wanted to broadcast their location to the Wraith any more than the primitive worlds which drove her back through the ring. Hard to blame people for wanting to protect their own, when they had no other choice. He changed the subject. "So when you track someone through the ring, what important thing did you and John not do?"

Cam scowled. He looked like a kid chastised for playing instead of doing chores. "Keep an eye on the gate," he said. "Normally I'd put a guard on the gate or disable the DHD. Just how real is this training thing? I kind of thought it was a Pegasus snipe hunt, some hoops we had to get through."

The Tau'ri didn't speak in small clear words; Ronon had thought it was ignorance, but Hemi worked with the Earth techs and mechs and said it was mostly arrogance. They did it to their own people, expecting them to use and understand the dominant clan language, occasionally mocking them for mistakes. So Ronon didn't ask what a snipe was, or what the hoop-jumping ritual was. . . or about Kansas and iron boards, either. He wasn't the first Satedan to start sleeping with an Tau'ri - the City base had been too small to offer many choices outside of chain-of-command - but Ronon had still heard But what do you talk about? too often by now to give any answer but Fuck off.

"Teyla has her energy weapon and knives and she's probably made a set of sticks by now," Ronon said. "She can't kill you, but I said she can break small bones."

"Awesome," Cam said, obviously not pleased. After a pause, he added, "If she made sticks we'd have seen where she cut the branches and whittled them down, right?"

"A good tracker would have," Ronon agreed. Then, because he did kind of like Cam despite everything, "I didn't, if that's what you're asking."

Cam nodded. "So you think we're completely and utterly lost." He stopped walking to pick up one of the river stones about the size of a paeni egg. He tossed it back and forth between his hands, and then scrambled to catch up with Ronon. "Hey. Those birds Sheppard was watching. How come there aren't any birds in this part of the woods?"

Ronon shrugged. "The ring?"

Cam flipped the stone into the air; Ronon flicked his hand out so it disappeared into his hand, and then slid it into his pocket.

"The ring scare birds off where you're from?" Cam asked.

Ronon took a breath, and suddenly a lot of little things that he'd been attributing to the building storm suddenly seemed more sinister. He reached up and tapped the radio clipped to his coat lapel three times.

Cam watched him, arms crossed and expression opaque. When John tapped back twice and twice again, Cam relaxed his stance just a bit.

"Fall back," Ronon said. "We may have a situation."

"I found Teyla," John said, and Ronon knew this was going to be bad. "Bad news is, there's a couple guys after her. Not Satedan uniforms. She's staying ahead but barely. I can cut around - "

"Sheppard," Cam said, over his radio, and Ronon could have smacked him. Giving John more orders wasn't going to help.

There wasn't a reply. Ronon tried hailing again, but got the silence he expected.

"Think the signal's being jammed?" Cam asked. He looked equally furious and embarrassed and worried. He knew as well as Ronon that where there were two people you could see, there were probably twice that number out of sight.

"Maybe," Ronon said. "You were sloppy, but I put an alerter on the ring. It hasn't gone off."

Cam nodded sharply, checking his weapons to make sure they were charged and loaded. "So these guys were already here. Lying in wait for us?"

"Or they didn't come through the ring," Ronon said. He grimaced. "I'm not allowed to tell you that."

Cam stared a moment. He was a quick thinker; he said it was what made him a good pilot. "We'll talk about these spacecraft later," and that was going to suck; Ronon glared back because Cam knew damn well that Ronon wasn't going to fuck up his job just because they were sex-partners. "What's the plan?"

They'd walked down-river for nearly a quarter ring-ninth, and assuming John moved at the same pace - given the crappy terrain, a reasonable guess - that meant John was a half-ninth away from any help. If he was dead, injured, or captured, they were too far away and too late already. Still. "How fast can you run on these rocks?"

Cam grimaced, and then jerked his head up towards the forest. "More cover if we stick to the trees anyway."

"You make too much noise," Ronon said, and took off, picking up the pace easy and slow, matching his strides to the land the way he'd been taught as a child, trying to keep alert watchfulness of the surroundings. There weren't any birds this side of the river, even though he had to keep his mouth shut to keep the low-flying insects out. The quiet of the woods should have signaled that something was wrong, and Ronon asked himself the hard question of whether he had allowed his relationships with Cam and John to impair his judgment. He'd been so worried about whether they could work together, all that team-building shit Ara kept making him attend seminars on, that he'd let all of them walk into a bad situation.

And now he had John, who didn't respect or obey him, about to engage or antagonize unknown hostiles to back Teyla up.

It was entirely possible that the people hunting Teyla were her enemies but Sateda's allies. The training mission schedule had been posted openly like any other; the information that Teyla would be offworld and alone could have been passed on, much as Ronon hated to think about what a headache that would be. At the least, it would mean he couldn't shoot people without thinking of all the political ramifications. Or maybe they'd just stumbled onto someone's secret operation. Ronon liked using this planet for running programs because it was uninhabited, temperate, and challenging without being deadly. He couldn't be the only person in the galaxy who felt that way.

A sharp sudden wind cut down through the leaves overhead and brought a spatter of heavy fat raindrops. Sundown shouldn't be for another ninth, but with the way the shadows were crawling down from the sky, Ronon worried that the darkness would slow their pursuit.

They passed the place where they'd separated from John, making good time, but the forest fell back away from the exposed stone of the cliff.

"What do you think?" Ronon asked, waving Cam to a stop.

Cam was breathing hard and his collar was dark with sweat, but action suited him. He finally looked engaged and not bored. He took a sloppy gulp of water from his canteen and looked around. "You've been here before, right?"

Ronon frowned. "I've seen maps. Last couple times I was here we just went up into the mountains. Good hunting. Not so many damn bugs."

"Well, you're useless," Cam said easily, no sting in his voice. "So we stick to the woods a bit further., but check the riverside every ten minutes." He rolled his shoulders and twisted his neck loose. "Better get a move on before it starts pouring."

"Yeah," Ronon said, and took off fast without warning. Cam swore and laughed under his breath, trying catch up. It was exhilarating; Ronon thought that if the Chieftan ever lifted the ban on telling the Tau'ri where Sateda was, he'd like to bring Cam to the seacoast where he'd spent most of his childhood. A place like that, long sun-baked beaches, no people - it felt like you could run forever, run all the way around the world.

He knew Cam came from farmland and hadn't seen the ocean until after he'd left second-school. Ronon figured Cam had been attracted to flight because that had been the only way he'd been able to conceive of escape from the endless fields. John was as at home in the water as most of the Satedans, even though the ocean around Atlantis was so cold it made you look plucked after swimming a few ring-lengths. He wasn't sure what made John want to fly, but he suspected that it wasn't to get away from a place but from who he was. John threw himself into training, weapons work, piloting the ringships, swimming, running, and he seemed happy enough while he was in motion. Make him be still, though, or try to hold him down or back, and he became the person nobody liked very much.

Ronon realized he was doing it again, comparing Cam and John, and thought it must suck to be John.

The rain started coming down harder, and Ronon told Cam to stay back and try to hail John on the radio while he went to check the cliff for signs that John or Teyla - or anyone else - had been there. A little longer and searching would be futile, too wet and too dark. There were no tracks at the top of the cliff, and the cliff face itself didn't tell Ronon anything except that a person would have to be pretty desperate to climb down, when there was nothing below but dangerous water.

Ronon felt a prickling sense of wrongness at the back of his neck, which might have been the change in air pressure from the storm, but he heard noises coming from the woods that couldn't be blamed on the wind. He lowered into a crouching run, watchful, worrying about Cam. He knew if there was trouble, trying to make radio contact could put them both in danger. Ronon reached the edge of the woods and slipped into the cover of brush and trees with annoyance and frustration close under his skin. He pushed all that down, checking carefully to get his bearings, and circled around to where he'd left Cam.

Cam was gone, leaving nothing but a circle of destruction that showed there'd been a fight. Ronon could smell recent weapons fire, projectile and energy, and saw pale raw wounds to tree trunks where bark had been blasted away. The ground was churned; a quick survey suggested three to five people who'd descended on Cam from the west and north. But Cam wasn't lying dead on the ground, he'd been taken, and that made Ronon's concentration sharpen like a blade on the whetstone.

There was a crunch of old leaves and the sound of branches brushing against fabric, and John said, "I'll get him back," as he stalked out of the darkness between trees. Ronon's reflexes being faster than thought, he nearly took John's head off. His weapon hung there, an armspan from John's face, perfectly steady and set to kill, while Ronon breathed hard until his anger abated enough for him lower his arm.

John didn't even blink, but from behind him Teyla said, "Ronon," low and chastising. "We need to follow them now."

"Who?" Ronon demanded, jerking his chin at her to make her start moving. He wasn't feeling nice.

Teyla slid past him like oil on water, her eyes sweeping over Ronon like a judgment and making him feel like he'd just been reprimanded by a village elder. "Travelers," Teyla said. "I warned Ara. The City does not and should not belong to Sateda alone."

Behind Ronon, John fell into step, moving quieter now. Maybe Teyla had berated him with one of her looks, or perhaps he was only sloppy when the threat wasn't real.

"They think he's Ancient?" John asked, very quietly. He sounded furious. Ronon shrugged. "They know about the gene?"

Ronon thought about all the salvaged Ancestral warships that the Travelers possessed, often barely functional, crippled by the lack of access to even the most basic systems. He thought about the Ancestral weapons systems the Tau'ri techs claimed could bring down hive ships, and imagined taking the fight to the Wraith, killing them while they slept. Satedan espionage suggested Cowen of the Genii was trying to develop similar technologies, but he was decades away from a solution. All the Travelers needed in order to become the dominant power in the galaxy was someone with the right blood. "I know your Beckett gave Cam the medicine that lets him fly the ringships," he told John. "Your people suck at keeping secrets."

"We don't know yet if that's fatal or has side effects," John said shortly. "Weir worried if it did turn out bad you'd line us up and shoot us. Or send us to Olesia," he added. Ronon could hear scorn in the fast low words.

A lot of information from the Genii came from disillusioned scientists; Cowen's experiments caused cancers and birth defects and made pariahs of the afflicted. Ronon knew from things Tyre let slip that Sateda wasn't sure if it should support a coup or a mass defection of the Genii intellectual elite. He hated politics.

"Shut up," Ronon said. Talking only led to arguing, and he understood on one level that most of his anger with John was displaced. He still knew he'd end up punching John if John kept talking.

"Both of you," Teyla added. "They did not hide their tracks. And I smell smoke."

"They have a base," John said, a question in his voice, and then with more urgency, "Or they landed a ship. No need to waste time hiding if they're just going to leave."

"Yes," Teyla said, moving faster. "I agree." She moved with a knowledge of the land that Ronon would have been impressed with in daylight; in the rain and the dark it was preternatural. He'd been told stories as a child of the greiba, spirits whose faces could be seen in the first gush of energy from the ring. The greiba were profligate tricksters, but they were enemies of the Wraith; if you were fortunate enough to become friends with one, or have one in your debt, they would willingly die to save you. He'd spent days and days of his childhood trying to find one. Now he wondered if the legend had a pragmatic origin, a Wraith-hunting people encountered back when stories were being born. Perhaps a people like the Athosians. He'd ask Teyla, but she might have heard a similar story as a child; she might be insulted by the idea.

"There," Teyla said, and threw one bent arm back. Ronon stopped short, and felt John ghost past him to go stand at Teyla's other side.

There was a fire guttering under a smoke-cover in a clearing that was obviously recent, littered with trees blasted down and splintered. Judging by the state of the ground and the dampness of the fallen trees, Ronon thought the clearing and the camp in it must have been made in the past nineday. Three tents were set around the fire, which probably served as a cooksite. In the center of the clearing, the ground was dry and crushed down in a rectangular shape which was clearly outlined in puddles, about the size of an Olesian ringship. Ronon wondered why the Travelers were wasting their power on a cloak, when the signs were this obvious.

The Travelers worked silently in teams of two and three, breaking down the tents and carrying boxes into their ringship. Ronon counted eight of them; the ground was too scuffed and muddy to tell if anyone had left camp recently. One simple three-pole was still standing, slanted as if propped against the ship, and Cam was on the sodden groundcloth in an unconscious sprawl, missing his weapons, supplies, and vest and with his hat jammed sideways on his head as if by rough uncaring hands.

"There are too many of them," Teyla said.

"I can distract," John said, and handed Teyla his weapons and his gear-pack. Ronon could only see flashes of his eyes briefly when they caught the firelight, but he looked like a warrior, using his anger to fuel his will. "Are these guys friends of yours?"

"Yes," Teyla said firmly. Ronon snorted, and had his chin lifted hard by one of Teyla's sticks. "Sateda cannot afford to break their alliance, even if this group is at fault," she said. "There cannot be a war."

"I'll negotiate, then," John said, sounding like he was persuading himself that negotiation was something he was good at. "Get them to split up."

He moved back into the woods, circling east until Ronon lost sight.

"Find a good vantage point," Teyla said. "Make sure to watch your back."

"You watch yours," Ronon returned, and Teyla gave him a quick mocking smile as she ducked into the denser underbrush. She moved so lightly that even Ronon would have assumed she was a breeze kicked up by the storm.

Ronon found himself a good place, close but out of the light, and wondered how many people he could shoot before someone got a weapon to Cam's head. He counted seven people, but thought there might be an eighth inside the ringship, perhaps the group's leader, pulling rank to stay dry. Ronon thought he could eliminate enough of them - if he took them by surprise - that he and Teyla might have a fighting chance, but he suspected he was thinking with his anger, a dangerous thing to do.

Ronon caught sight of John at the same time as the people in the camp did. John walked out of the woods slow and easy, hands at the back of his neck in a pose of surrender. He was smiling. Ronon counted six weapons trained on him within seconds, and concentrated on breathing mindfully and feeling nothing.

"Excuse me," John said, as casually as if he'd just walked up to a market stall and planned on bargaining for greens and not his unit leader's life. "You've made mistakes, and you're about to make a bigger one." The Travelers stopped John where he stood, exposed in the clearing and looking like a lost child. They surrounded him, and John let them sweep his uniform to make sure he was unarmed, pulling off his vest and holster, and then his belt and watch. Ronon recognized the older one in charge from news-briefs: Lipsa Tal, who had headed a clan back on Sateda before returning to life on board a Traveler spaceship.

"You made a mistake showing your face here," Lipsa said, and the others laughed. Ronon assumed Lipsa knew John wasn't alone and was putting on a show, but with two hostages in their camp now, the Travelers must be assuming they had little to fear. Ronon used their confidence and noise, and moved in closer, keeping low to the ground.

"That man," John tipped his chin at Cam with casual disrespect, "doesn't have the gene, the Ancestral. . . power to make things work."

Lipsa smiled and patted the laced-up front of her leather and skin jacket. "I guess I look like a fool to you."

John shrugged. "Everyone's lying to protect their own interests. That makes things confusing."

"And your interest is in him." Lipsa smiled and must have made some kind of signal, because two of her people dragged Cam upright and slapped at his chest until he lifted his head and blinked around, stunner-dazed.

"He's my commanding officer." John studied Cam intently, checking him over for injuries and impairment. "He's important to a lot of people." He looked right at Lipsa. "If you'd just asked, he'd have given me to you. I have the gene, I'm a pilot, and he doesn't want me in his command. Win-win."

"You are allied with the City-stealers."

"We are fighting," John said tightly, "against a common enemy. Everyone wants more Wraith dead."

Lipsa grinned. "Take him inside and test him," she said to the guard on John's right. As John was being hauled away, spitting like a fang-beast in a trap, she called after him, "We already tested your friend, we know he has the blood."

From the other side of the clearing, Ronon saw Teyla slide out from the shadows and raise her sticks to signal that now was a good time to attack. Ronon got off two shots before he had to break cover, but each one hit a mark. The clearing swarmed like an insects' nest tipped over, but he saw Teyla standing over Cam, keeping him safe while he pulled to his feet and armed himself, so all Ronon needed to worry about was taking down the rest of the Travelers. Energy weapons were too awkward to use in a close skirmish, but he knocked one person in the head with Cam's rock and got another to lunge right across his back and knife one of his own, which was deeply satisfying.

He didn't notice when John appeared, carrying weapons taken from the guards who'd dragged him off. John aimed into the woods with a pistol and fired off a quick succession of warning shots before swinging around and leveling the weapon at Lipsa, using both hands to keep it perfectly level.

"For fuck's sake," John said, as if he had no patience with either side in the fight. "Every person here wants the Wraith dead. Just our damn politicians' ideas of how to do it that get in the way." He looked over at Ronon, who was covering his back, and jerked his head sideways. "Put your gun away. Make nice to the people who're going to let us play with their spaceships."

Ronon was seriously considering shooting John instead when John coughed and grabbed his side. Cam sucked in a sharp breath.

"Are you bleeding?"

As soon as Cam said the words Ronon could smell blood, sharp in the rain-clean air, and see that John's uniform was cut at the side.

"It's a scratch," John said. "We had. . . a kerfuffle."

"Sorry about that," said a short dark Traveler who looked like he'd embraced the mud during the fight. He slapped his shoulder three times, a weirdly ritual gesture, probably a Traveler thing that Ronon was just unfamiliar with. "Took me by surprise."

"Likewise," John said. He looked like he wanted to say something else, and every eye was on him, which was giving him an attack of speakers' nerves. He took a breath, and then another, and then folded stiffly to his knees in the mud.

Teyla had the muddy Traveler's knives off him by the time Cam had taken the few paces necessary to reach John's side, and she tossed Ronon the bloodstained one. It was curved, razor-sharp, and came to a wicked point, like a blade for cutting meat from bone and cartilage. Teyla had her rope out and was all set to lash the man's arms back painfully over her sticks when Cam knelt to put an arm around John, who was still swaying, trying to get upright. Ronon wanted to watch, feeling like something important was happening, but he needed to get Teyla to back off and he needed to talk to Lipsa and possibly arrange an airlift back to the ring.

"Whoa," Ronon heard John say, sounding confused. "Embarrassing."

Whatever Cam muttered back, holding John while he unbuttoned his shirt and his jacket to get a look at the wound, Ronon didn't catch, but he felt something twist in his chest.

"I want my own team after this," Teyla said. She was still bristling with knives and looked like she'd terrify even the Wraith. "You owe me, you know."

"Great," Ronon said, sour. "Come here for team building, go home with no team."

Teyla put her hand on his arm, right above the tattoo that he'd earned for completing his training under Tyre. "I enjoy the Tau'ri mech who makes explosives," she said thoughtfully. "She and I work well together. And my team needs a pilot of its own."

"This day sucks," Ronon said through his teeth, and turned when Lipsa called him by the rank on his epaulettes, gesturing towards the ringship, which flickered into view with a crackle of energy that danced over the hull.

Continued in part 2.