Aaron Rosenberg - Hunt and run

“Okay, I got us in,” Rodney told him, unable to resist a surge of pride at how easily he’d bypassed the shuttle’s security. Was that the best they could do? Ha! “You do the rest.”

It didn’t take long for Ronon to get everything set up. “Now we wait,” he said afterward, clapping Rodney on the back with his free hand. “Shouldn’t be too long — they’d stay close enough to keep their ship somewhere they could reach it in a hurry.”

Rodney nodded, eyes flickering to take in every inch of the desolate planet around them. Great, more waiting. He hated waiting. He especially hated waiting for crazed killers to show up and attack them.

But right now he didn’t really have a whole hell of a lot of choice. So he stayed close to Ronon as they crouched behind the shuttle, and found himself in the ironic position of hoping their foes would hurry up.

It was at least ten minutes, though it felt like hours, before Ronon tapped Rodney on the arm. The Satedan gestured his head off to one side. Rodney stared in that direction until his eyes ached. Just as he was about to blink, he saw a shadow shift, then a second one. Finally!

The two of them waited, completely silent, and utterly motionless, as those same shadows shifted again. And then again. They were growing longer, but far too quickly for it to simply be from the sun sliding by overhead. No, this was something else.

After a few more minutes, one of the shadows detached itself from a large boulder and darted across the short space to the shuttle. Its companion joined it an instant later. As they reached the shuttle they gained solidity, mass, until they were two figures dressed in dark mottled clothing designed to blend in with their current surroundings. Both were armed and had weapons drawn. Facemasks and goggles completely concealed their features, but the second one’s head swiveled about, taking in their surroundings. The first one’s attention remained focused upon the shuttle itself.

Without a word, the first figure advanced to the airlock. It hesitated briefly, then peered inside. Rodney held his breath as the figure entered the shuttle. Almost.

The figure outside was checking all around them, covering the shuttle while its partner looked within. It spun about, however, when a gasp and a thud emerged through the open airlock, and then darted inside as well, a pistol in one hand and a knife in the other as it hurried to aid its partner.

The second its back was turned, Ronon ducked back around the shuttle and fired. His shot hit the stranger square in the back, and the masked figure collapsed, weapons falling from its hands to hit the ground right beside it. Ronon was already moving, gliding back over to the airlock and through it to take out the V’rdai within as well. He’d rigged a simple snare just past the airlock, trusting the gloom and their foes’ haste to prevent it from being noticed until too late. Clearly he’d been right.

Ronon reemerged a moment later, a bound figure slung over his shoulder. He stalked off toward the hills they’d descended from, and returned after a minute without his burden. Next he bound and gagged the one he’d dropped just outside the shuttle — revealing a square-jawed woman with dark skin and jet-black hair as he pulled off her mask — and carried her off to place her beside her partner.

While he was doing that, Rodney ducked into the shuttle. He hadn’t entered it before, waiting behind it while Ronon deliberately left tracks through the airlock and then erased any others, so this was his first glimpse of the small spaceship’s interior. It was very utilitarian, even more so than the Jumper, which wasn’t exactly designed for opulence. But this shuttle had that particular look and feel that screamed military, with bare surfaces and sharp angles and gray metal. Even the seats looked uncomfortable, little more than hard benches. The good news was, military ships tended to have straightforward designs as well, and so it took him no time to find the panel he needed and make the appropriate adjustments. He did notice a DHD panel up front — probably the same one Ronon had told him about them taking from the Dart’s debris, only now they’d apparently attached it to the ship instead of carrying it around separately — but left that alone. That wasn’t his concern right now.

“All set?” Ronon asked as he returned from his second body drop.

“Just about,” Rodney answered from within. A moment later he closed the panel again, wiped his hands on the bench and then on his pants legs, and rejoined his companion outside the shuttle. “Good to go.”

“How much time did you give it?” Ronon asked.

“One hour, just like you said,” Rodney assured him. “Trust me — this I’m good at.”

The Satedan’s simple nod was high praise indeed, coming from him. “I found their tracks,” he said instead. “They were in too much of a rush to conceal them completely. It’s this way.”

Rodney followed behind, hoping wherever the V’rdai had been holed up wasn’t more than an hour away. If it was, things could get a bit tricky.

Still, it felt good to be taking the fight to their attackers for a change. He was starting to see why Ronon and Sheppard enjoyed being so aggressive. There might even be something to this whole hunting thing.

Though he’d still prefer to relax with a good book.

Boom.

“What the hell was that?” Sheppard started, glancing around. The ground was shaking slightly beneath him, and he fell back against Teyla — she leaned into him as well, so that they were propping each other up.

“Seismic activity?” she asked quietly. She pressed her bound hands flat to the ground, trying to get a better feel for the vibrations that were already fading.

“I don’t think so.” Sheppard tilted his head a little so he could watch their captors. Two of the four who had left earlier had returned, and now they were all clustered in a group. Even without being able to hear them clearly he could tell they were upset about something — the tall thin guy and the woman and one of the others were gesturing wildly, and the leader was trying to calm them down.

“Something’s wrong,” he told Teyla softly.

“Wrong for them, or wrong for us?” she asked.

“Wrong for them.” He continued to watch them. The tall guy was pointing off in one direction, and practically shouting. Sheppard strained to listen.

“. our ship!” the man was saying. “What if I can’t fix it? We could be stranded here on this rock!”

The leader replied, raising his hands to calm the others, but the tall man wasn’t having any of that.

“And what if they were caught in the blast?” he demanded. “They could be dead already! And we’ve still got at least one of them unaccounted for!” An accusing finger waved in Sheppard and Teyla’s direction had accompanied that last statement, and Sheppard tried hard to hide his smile as he turned back to Teyla.

“Sounds like they had a ship hidden somewhere nearby,” he reported in a whisper, though right now it wasn’t likely their captors would overhear them. Still, better to be safe. “That may have been the sound we heard.”

“An explosion?” Teyla looked at him, and they both nodded. Ronon and Rodney.

“What’s more,” Sheppard continued, “two of their friends are missing. I’m guessing they went to check on the ship and haven’t been heard from since.” That smile was creeping up again. “Which means we’re down from six to four. And they’re off-balance.”

“We are still tightly bound,” she pointed out, raising her wrists to demonstrate. “Even with the odds improving, there is little we can do.”