Aaron Rosenberg - Hunt and run

“It’s me,” Ronon called softly, coming to a breathless halt just shy of the cave. He didn’t know how deeply his mentor was dug in, whether the Retemite could see him, but he did know better than to approach unannounced. “It’s over.”

After a few seconds, Nekai emerged, stun-pistol in hand. He studied Ronon, taking in his battered, mud-spattered appearance. “What happened?”

Ronon held up the leather coat. “They died. I didn’t.” He glanced up at the sky. “We should go.”

“Absolutely,” Nekai agreed. He disappeared again, but reemerged a few seconds later, his pack slung over his shoulder. “Congratulations,” he said, offering his hand once he was close enough. “How does it feel?”

Ronon returned the handclasp and grinned. “Like a good start.”

“Excellent!” Nekai clapped him on the back. “Now you’re ready.”

“Ready?” Ronon frowned as they disengaged. “Ready for what?”

But his mentor only smiled. “You’ll see.”

Nekai turned and led the way out of the foothills without another word. Ronon had no choice but to follow. No, that wasn’t true — he did have a choice. Nekai had given him that. He could turn away, make his own course, and hunt the Wraith on his own. He had the skills now. But they’d be after him soon, and without Nekai to cancel out his tracking device he’d be an easy target. So perhaps it wasn’t much of a choice at all.

Besides, Ronon admitted to himself as they walked, he was curious. All this time, Nekai had only concentrated on his training. But now, the way he’d said “you’re ready,” made it sound as if he had something bigger in mind.

Ronon had learned to trust the other man. Nekai had saved him from the Wraith, and in a way from himself. He was willing to see where the man would lead him next.

“Okay, so you learned hunting from Ranger Rick, the crazy version,” Rodney commented, stretching and then biting back a curse as he bumped an elbow against the low ceiling. “That’s swell, and very touching. What does that have to do with our current predicament?” He was being testy and he knew it, but he was tired and sore and he hated being stuck here in this little tiny alcove of a cave!

“I’m getting to that,” Ronon assured him, taking a swig from his canteen. He offered it to Rodney, who accepted it and drank, though not before wiping the lip with his shirt cuff. He could hear his companion’s smirk even in the near darkness.

The water was warm, and flat, and had that particular tang that came from being stored in a canteen too long. But it eased the dryness in his throat, and Rodney swallowed gratefully before handing it back. “So this guy who trained you,” he continued after a few seconds, “this Nekai, he’s the one we’re dealing with?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?” Rodney groaned. “If you’re not even sure it’s him, why are we doing Happy Story Hour?”

“If it’s not him, it’s one of the others.” Rodney heard the growl in Ronon’s voice and knew the big Satedan was just shy of losing his temper. As usual.

“Okay, okay.” Rodney shifted and tried to make himself more comfortable, which of course just meant exposing other parts of his body to unfamiliar aches and pains. “Please continue.”

Ronon glared at him for a minute, and it seemed like he might decide not to, just out of spite. But finally he picked up the tale again. “He led me out of the foothills,” he explained, eyes and voice looking back into the distant past once more, “and straight to the planet’s ancestral ring. I’d more or less expected that. It was what happened next that took me by surprise. ”

Ronon studied the ancestral ring as they approached it, every sense on high alert. He kept expecting the massive circular arch to activate and a Wraith Dart to emerge from its depths, weapons firing down upon them before they could scramble to safety. And this ring, like all the others he’d seen, was set in a small clearing, so if danger did pour from it they would be easy targets.

“You learned how to activate the ring entirely on your own?” he asked Nekai as the other man made his way to the altar-like console and began tapping the broad square panels in some sort of sequence. Back on Sateda only a handful of elders and military commanders had mastered the secrets of the ring, and the techniques for opening and closing gateways to other worlds was carefully guarded — Ronon had been through rings several times, but a high-ranking officer had always been on hand to open the connection. Nekai had claimed he’d figured out the process himself, but what he was doing now seemed too careful and planned for Ronon to completely believe that.

“Not entirely,” Nekai admitted over his shoulder, his hands still moving. “There were people on my world who knew how to operate it, and I had seen them at work enough times to have some sense of the procedure.” He finished and glanced up. “When I went on the run I had no choice but to experiment firsthand.” Then he grinned. “I’m still not entirely sure what I’m doing.”

“So we could walk into the middle of a sun?” Ronon asked as the air within the ring began to shimmer and thicken. It rippled like water, then a plume burst forth from its center, quickly subsiding back and leaving a glistening surface stretched between the ring’s edges.

“I doubt it,” his mentor assured him. “They didn’t put rings in suns, as far as we know.” Not that anyone really knew much about the Ancestors or their activities — who was to say they hadn’t been able to walk the surface of a star as easily as a man might stroll through a grassy plain? “But don’t worry — this time we’re going someplace specific.”

Ronon was intrigued. Up until now he was sure they had selected locations entirely at random — that way if any Wraith were tracking them they wouldn’t leave a discernible pattern. But now Nekai had a destination in mind?

“Lead the way,” Ronon instructed, gesturing toward the ring. His companion chuckled but took the lead, walking confidently toward the ring and then stepped into it. The shimmering field parted around him, and he disappeared within its glowing surface.

With a sigh, Ronon followed, but he kept his hand on his pistol. He hated this part.

There was that second of disorientation, that sensation of being stretched and pulled and condensed, combined with the sudden rush of rapid motion. Everything blurred around him, his eyes only registering streaks of light and color, his ears filled with a dull rush as if they were trapped within a waterfall. He couldn’t tell which way was up, what was forward, but his foot was still half-raised and so he set it down in front of him and then raised the other foot, trusting his body to complete the familiar motion.

Then he was through to the other side. The rushing faded, the colors resolved into a small, stark clearing surrounded by rocks and cliffs, his sense of balance returned. Ronon wasted no time shifting to one side of the ring and scanning the area. Nekai was doing the same.

There was no one else here, no sign that anyone else had been here, and after a second they both straightened. The air within the ring swirled in on itself, the shimmer vanishing into a tiny central vortex, and then with a faint popping sound that disappeared, leaving nothing but empty air behind. The ring had closed. Then Nekai made his way to the console nearby, a twin for the one they had left behind, attached a small dark square he’d pulled from a jacket pocket, and pushed a sequence of panels. There was a spark from the other object, which leaped to the console and produced an answering arc of electricity.