Jo Graham - Unascended

“Is that Ronon Dex?” Taka asked, his eyebrows going up in startlement. He actually sat up straighter, like someone who’d just been told they were being put on the phone with a celebrity. “The Ronon Dex?”

“Who’s this?” Ronon asked over the radio.

“Taka. Taka Hendrik.”

“This is Ronon Dex. What are you doing with Sora Tyrus? She’s bad news.”

“She said the Genii would have work for me as a pilot if I could fly the Ancestors’ ships,” Taka said. “I was a train engineer on Sateda. I make a piss-poor farmer.”

“I tried farming once,” Ronon said. “On New Athos. They were all pretty grateful when I left.”

“That is not true,” Teyla protested in the background, but she sounded amused.

“I’m not cut out to be a farmer,” Taka said. “Sora said the Genii homeworld has cities. Electric light. Hot baths that don’t involve carrying buckets of water after you fight the sheep for it.”

“So don’t sit on Manaria. Go back to Sateda. They could use people who are good with machinery.”

“You stole their ship and kidnapped one of their people,” Sora said. “Do you really think they’re going to just let you go?”

“We’re not the police,” Daniel said. “Give us the jumper back, walk away, and we’ll chalk this whole thing up to a misunderstanding.”

Sora gave him a black look. “Who’s supposed to have misunderstood what?”

“To start with, you misunderstood how easy it would be to steal our jumper.”

“You’re taking this whole thing really calmly,” Taka said.

“You don’t understand,” Daniel said. “This kind of thing happens to me all the time.”

Taka nodded in slow appreciation. “Army?”

“I’m a civilian contractor.”

“You ought to be in the army.”

“I’m a scientist,” Daniel said. “It’s just that people keep shooting at me.”

He pointed the gun at Sora and motioned her to her feet. “I imagine my team is on their way here right now,” he said. “Are you going to get out of here, or do you want us to drag you back to Atlantis and hand you over to the Genii?” The radio channel was still open, and he waited to see if Teyla would object, but apparently a side trip to drag a reluctant Sora Tyrus back to Atlantis didn’t sound any more attractive to her at this point than it did to him.

“I’m going,” Sora said.

“We are on our way,” Teyla said.

Sora turned, and then stumbled, apparently still unsteady on her feet. He was reaching out to steady her when she kicked his feet out from under him. She hit the ground herself and rolled with an ease that made it clear she’d shed her handcuffs.

She came up with her pistol in her hand, and Daniel cursed himself for not making sure it was out of her reach. She leveled it at Taka, who spread his hands slowly.

“Some ally you are,” he said.

“He won’t try to jump me while I have a hostage,” she said. “The Lanteans are softhearted that way. I’m not sure I can say the same thing about you.”

Daniel kept his own pistol leveled at Sora. “What, you want to find out who can shoot first?”

“I want some leverage when your team gets here.”

“I was going to let you go.”

“You would have shot me in the back.”

“I wouldn’t have,” Daniel said. “Besides, I thought you said we were softhearted.”

“When it comes to your allies you are.”

“There’s no reason you can’t be one of our allies.” No reason except the fact that she’d kidnapped him and nearly wrecked the jumper. But compared to some of the people they’d allied themselves with over the years, those were small considerations.

“I don’t want to be your ally. I just want to get out of here in one piece.”

“I would let you go.”

“Let Taka handcuff you to the chair again and I’ll go.”

“Leave me out of this,” Taka said. “And stop pointing that gun at me.”

“Sorry,” Sora said, although she didn’t sound it. “Well?”

“Given what you just said about shooting people in the back, I’m not inclined to do that. I’ll wait for the rest of my team to show up, thank you very much.”

“Fine,” Sora said, and leaned back against the side of the jumper. Daniel shook his head. It was going to be a long wait.

The jumper had dug a deep gouge through a pasture, and several sheep were investigating curiously as the team approached.

“Dr. Jackson, is the jumper secure?” Teyla asked over the radio.

“No, I’m afraid we still have company,” Daniel said. “We’re at a little bit of an impasse here.”

“Let me talk to Sora.”

“I don’t want to talk to you,” Sora said over the radio. “I just want to walk away from this without any tricks.”

“Then let Dr. Jackson go.”

The rear door of the jumper opened, and Teyla could see that Sora was holding her pistol not on Daniel but on a man she had never seen before, a man who sat in the pilot’s seat with an expression of resentment on his face.

“She’s holding her own confederate hostage,” Daniel said. “She and Taka here have had a little bit of a falling out.”

“I told you that you shouldn’t have gotten mixed up with the Genii,” Ronon said.

The man spread his hands. “You were right.”

“I’m going to walk out of here with Taka,” Sora said. “And you’re not going to stop me.”

“So that you can shoot him in the back once you’re out of the jumper?” Daniel shook his head. “Not acceptable.”

“You see, you are soft-hearted.”

“If by that you mean that I don’t want perfect strangers to get killed for no good reason, then, yes.”

“Put the weapon down and we will let you go,” Teyla said.

Sora lifted her chin. “Why should I believe that?”

“Because we do not have the time to return you to Ladon Radim for the punishment you probably deserve. And if I had wanted you dead, I would have let Radim kill you already.”

Sora looked at Teyla, her expression wavering, as if she wanted to believe her but wasn’t sure that she could. “I’m coming out of the jumper with Taka.”

“If you say so,” Taka said, and stood. He walked in front of her out of the jumper’s hatch.

“Now lower your weapon,” Teyla said.

“Ronon has a stun weapon,” Sora said. “Tell him to put it down.”

“Ronon?”

Ronon slowly set his pistol down on the ground in front of him, although Teyla knew just how fast he could have it back in his hand if necessary.

After a moment Sora lowered her own pistol, although she kept it in her hand. “You’d better not come after me.”

“We have better things to do,” Ronon said.

“Come show us what you found, and we might be able to help you get the Asgard device working better,” Daniel offered as Sora began backing away. “I expect we know a little bit more about the Asgard and their technology than you do.”

“I don’t need your help,” she said.

“Okay. Have fun.”

Sora turned on her heels and ran, sprinting for the nearest cover in zig-zag darts that let her look back over her shoulder at them until she was out of what she seemed to consider pistol range. Ronon had his pistol in his hand again, and didn’t appear to believe that she was out of range for him.

“Want me to stun her?”

“No,” Teyla said. “It is true that we do not have time to deliver her to Radim at the moment.” She shook her head regretfully as Sora reached the cover of a line of trees. “Nor to spend more time trying to persuade her that she is making unfortunate decisions.” Teyla turned back to Daniel, who was stretching, apparently painfully, as if testing each limb to see if it worked properly.