James Swallow - Nightfall

Laaro entered the small anteroom where they were sitting with a wooden food tray. “Your leader… He speaks like he mocks you,” observed the boy.

Rodney gave a weak chuckle. “He’s such a kidder.”

“We’re just anxious,” admitted Jennifer, breaking a small ball of baked bread that Laaro placed before her between her fingers. “Teyla and Ronon are very important to us.” She ate a little; the bread was tangy and flavorful.

Laaro sat and chewed on something leafy. Behind him, a dual sunrise painted the whole interior a warm golden hue. “Your friends… You are worried that they will return with the sickness.”

“We’re worried that they’ll ever return, period,” admitted Rodney. “Trust me, this kind of thing never ends well.”

Jennifer chewed her lip. “There could be another explanation. This might be nothing to do with the… The Aegis.”

Laaro shook his head. “No, it was the Giants who took Ronon and Teyla, and they serve the Aegis.”

“You know that for sure?” said Rodney.

The boy nodded. “I talked with Yuulo, who lives in the tall branches. It was he who saw the chariot come to the western farmstead. He told Elder Aaren.”

“Chariot? What is that, some kind of ship?”

“The Giants come and go in it. It is like a great shadow that moves over the ground.” Laaro held his hand flat and moved it in a slow, circular motion. “It is silent as a cloud, and dark like an ink-stone. Sometimes it rides in on rods of lightning, even though no rain falls.” He brought up another hand and crossed the thumbs, bringing the index fingers point-to-point, making a triangle. “This is its shape.”

“And these giant men?” Keller leaned closer. “What do they look like?”

Laaro shrugged. “I have never seen them. My father spoke of them…” He trailed off, his gaze turning inward. “He sometimes dreams poorly, and they haunt him in his sleep.”

Jennifer and Rodney exchanged looks. Laaro and his family were the closest thing to friends the Atlanteans had inside the settlement, but both of them were well aware that pushing the boy to say too much could make him clam up altogether.

“Do you know why the Aegis takes people?” said McKay. “Does your father ever speak about that?”

Laaro shook his head. “When the Taken become the Returned, they sleep a long sleep and remember nothing. Elder Takkol says this is for the best. He says that we are not ready to know all the secrets of the Aegis yet.”

“Do you agree with him?” Keller said gently.

Laaro stood abruptly, gripping the tray so hard his knuckles drew tight. “I think the Aegis should leave my father be. Take me instead, not him. He is not well.”

“Laaro…” began Jennifer, not sure what to say to make the youth feel better.

Jaaya’s voice called out from another room, and he followed it to the doorway. “I have to go. I will be back later.”

When they were alone, McKay turned to her. “Did you get all that? Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Probably not,” she admitted. Keller found McKay’s thought processes pretty hard to keep up with, truth be told. He had this tendency to bounce from idea to idea, concept to concept, with no apparent train of logic between them. Her grandmother had called that having a ‘mind like a grasshopper’.

“That stuff he described, the ‘chariot’ and the ‘giants’? Black triangles, weird lightning, people being kidnapped, missing time experiences?” He gestured with his hands. “What, you’ve never watched an episode of The X Files ?”

“We didn’t really watch the Fox Network —”

McKay kept talking. “This is a classic alien abduction scenario!”

“Take a look around, Agent Scully,” she retorted. “ We are the aliens on this planet.”

Rodney shook his head. “No, no. You’d be Scully, I’d be Mulder. Anyway. That’s not important.” He tapped a finger on his lips, warming to the subject. “We should check the abductees for implants or unexplained markings on their skin…”

“You want me to look for evidence of probing, too?” Keller asked; then she chuckled without humor. “And strangely enough, that wouldn’t be the oddest thing I’ve done since coming to Atlantis.”

McKay nodded in agreement. “It’s not science fiction if you’re living in it every day —”

There was a rattle and crash from elsewhere in the house, and Jennifer heard Errian’s voice, gruff and angry. Heavy footsteps came closers, and Laaro called out her name in a warning.

McKay dove at the rattan floor where he had laid down his P90. “Jennifer, get behind me, quick!”

Her heart thudding in her chest, Keller’s eyes darted left and right, searching for an exit route and finding none. The window slats, maybe? But then she remembered they were in a mammoth tree house hundreds of feet off the ground. Maybe not.

Rodney had the gun up as the sliding door was roughly forced open on its tracks. Two locals, who had all the thuggish bearing of Takkol’s guards but none of the uniform robes or bangles, entered with a wiry man following on behind. The skinnier guy was clearly the one in charge. He had a tight cut to his hair and it had been deliberately stained yellow with some kind of earth dye.

“Where’s Laaro?” McKay demanded. “Who are you people?”

“The boy isn’t hurt,” came the reply. The man had a clear, frosty voice. “And Errian knows better than to stand in my way.” He nodded toward one of the bigger men, making the warning against such foolishness clear. None of the men seemed to be concerned that Rodney was pointing a submachine gun at them. “My name is Soonir. I want to talk.”

“About what?” said Keller.

“The Aegis. The things that Takkol refused to speak of.” He said the elder’s name like a curse word. Soonir beckoned them. “Come with me. I know you seek information, I know about your friends among the Taken. There are things you need to see.” He paused. “You may bring the weapons you carry if you feel better protected with them.”

Keller shot McKay a quick look, both of them remembering Sheppard’s clear and unequivocal order to sit tight .

“We’re not going anywhere with you,” Jennifer told him.

Soonir let out a slow, measured breath. “Ah. Now, that’s not the best reply to give me.” He stepped back, giving his men room to work. “You see, voyagers, I will not take no for an answer.”

He didn’t awaken slowly; instead Ronon Dex jerked from his induced slumber as if he had been seared by fire, hissing through his teeth. He rolled from where he lay and his feet hit the metallic floor with a dull ring.

The first thing he saw was Teyla, sitting opposite him on a pallet made of spongy white material. She frowned. “Are you all right?”

Ignoring the question, he got up, taking stock of where he found himself. A small room with a low ceiling and curving walls, all arches and smooth lines. Two sleeping pallets seamlessly extruded from the floor, no windows. Diffuse, directionless light seeping in from panels in the ceiling; and an oval doorway sealed shut by a striated metal panel. A prison cell.

“How long have we been here?” he said, moving to the rear of the chamber. The Satedan’s hands ran down his tunic, his trousers, searching his pockets.

“It is difficult to be certain,” said Teyla. “I came to shortly before you did.”

He shot her a look. “You should have woken me.”

The Athosian woman gave him a wan look. “I saw little point in doing so.”

Ronon chewed his lip, his fury burning cold and slow. All his weapons and tools were gone. The gun belt hung empty at his hip, as did the numerous blade scabbards in his leggings and boots. The secret pockets in his tunic were vacant; even the needle darts in his wrist guards and the chain concealed behind his belt had been taken. At another time, he might have been impressed by the thoroughness of his captors in so completely disarming him, but instead his face set in a grimace as he weighed the thought in his mind, asking himself what it revealed. His hands contracted into fists; if they were all he had to fight with, it would have to be enough.