The green blob of hyperspace window spat the Ares out into realspace. I felt it in every nerve cell of my body as the ship's scanners and sensors came to life, probing the orbit for possible dangers.
Nothing.
No ships, no signals, no hint that anyone had ever used the planet's orbit for long-term purposes. Perfect, this suited us.
With an effort of will, I directed the ship into orbit. The Ares's algorithms calculated the optimal trajectory for orbital insertion. The ship, having received its instructions, began executing them, despite the fact that the pilot had disconnected from the network.
"Jump complete," Ihaar reported, stepping away from the control panel. "As far as I can tell — all systems are functioning perfectly."
"Well, well," Larrin said with a crooked smile, sitting in the seat to my right. "And no one even fell into a coma."
"I always knew you cared about me with all your heart," I grumbled, leaving the battleship commander's chair. "In ten minutes, we'll settle into orbit. Larrin, you're in charge. Be ready to cover us if Wraith show up. And also — scan the planet with maximum sensor sensitivity."
"Why?" Ronon asked, interested.
"If there are any traces of energy left on Sateda, we'll find them," I explained. Seeing that my words drew no reaction from Dex, I elaborated:
"Every significant device, like the Iron Horse, should emit energy traces in its operation. That way we can speed up the search for things that might be useful or dangerous. For example, traps left by the Wraith."
"I see," the Satedan headed for the exit from the bridge.
Teyla, already waiting in full combat readiness, caught my eye and followed him, while Ihaar configured the battleship's scanners. Any of the technicians in the control room could have done it, but the engineer preferred to handle important things himself.
Larrin silently handed me my load-bearing vest with gear and a weapon. Despite the Ermens having done good work on the ergonomics of their suits and equipment, it wasn't very comfortable to sit in the commander's chair while wearing them.
"We'll do everything in our power to learn more about this planet," the girl said when I finished checking the contents of my vest pockets. "But I'd also prefer to go down to the planet."
"I'm against it," Ronon said. As it turned out, the guy hadn't left the bridge yet and was waiting for me at the exit.
"It's not for you to decide," the battleship commander cut in, handing me the weapon.
No, I wasn't asking them to be one big happy family, fully understanding that Dex and Larrin had reasons to dislike each other. He was biased against the Nomads, considering them kidnappers and generally assholes. And, incidentally, based on the fact that the Nomads had stolen valuable technology from Sateda, his right to that viewpoint outweighed Larrin's opinion.
The girl, however, reduced her position to the fact that a specific group had stolen the Iron Horse, not her or her acquaintances currently living on Ermen. So the claims against her were unfounded.
However, Dex — who had been running from the Wraiths for seven years and developed his own rules for survival and assessing others' actions — had a very strong view of collective responsibility. And even if I were three times the leader of Atlantis, I wouldn't just snap my fingers and make people trust each other simply because we were on the same side.
The example of the Athosians was still fresh in my memory.
So let them talk it out. There was no point in interrupting the argument now — I needed to hear both sides' arguments. Just ordering them to shut up would be too simple.
And foolish. The problem needed to be solved, not pretend that an order would fix it. This wasn't an army, and I wasn't surrounded by ideologically drilled soldiers.
"And not for you either," Dex echoed. "As long as I live, the Nomads won't set foot on my world's surface again."
The girl got angry.
"You know perfectly well that whoever was behind that theft of your device — it wasn't my people."
"That's what you say."
"Do you have proof to the contrary?"
"You're all Nomads alike..."
"Enough, you two," I reined both in. Pity — I'd hoped to hear new arguments in their dispute. I'd have to separate them and work with what I had. "Rightly noted — it's not for you to decide who goes to the surface and who doesn't. Larrin, you heard the order. Ronon — we're already expected in the hangar."
The Nomad woman, throwing an angry glance at Dex, confirmed that she understood her task. After all, what use was a battleship commander if they joined the landing group in every uncertain situation? This wasn't 'Star Trek' here.
The Satedan — before whom the miniature Teyla stood like an insurmountable wall, looking at him from under her brow — just gave a meaningful smirk, spun his 'stunner' on his finger, and together with the Athosian woman headed down the ship's corridors.
"Perhaps I should go to the 'jumper' too," Ihaar muttered. "Otherwise they'll blow something up without me."
The chief engineer was a bit afraid of the new member of our team. And I didn't blame him. Ronon had joined the 'security' training program on Atlantis alongside Kirik and Alvar. But not in stasis pods. "No one will force me to voluntarily lie in those coffins," he explained his decision.
And so he trained in hand-to-hand combat with our security forces in a room specially equipped for such activities. Unsurprisingly, he threw the Ancients around like bowling pins. The security guys didn't particularly complain, so they'd wipe the blood from their broken faces and get up again and again for another round of slaps and blows.
Where Kirik trained soldiers in movement speed, striking speed, tracking skills, and Alvar taught ambush tactics, sabotage, and other Ermen Commando tricks, Ronon demonstrated something that had been dubbed the 'wild Satedan style'. All those dodges, jumps, and so on might seem strange from the outside, but in reality...
We needed that. Technology was technology, weapons were weapons, but body and fighting spirit had to be kept in order. And Sergeant Ronon Dex, to a certain degree, combined everything that Kirik, Alvar, and even Saya could do.
The latter was not invited to the trainings — she simply didn't know how to teach. Kill — easy. But we were short on volunteers as targets, so the cyborg girl remained idle. Though, admittedly, there were about a dozen volunteers who still fought with her and learned from experience.
Of course, for that they use stasis pods. Otherwise she would have killed everyone by now.
For now, everything was calm.
Sateda had been part of the feeding grounds of the hive to which the Demon and his starship belonged. Their hive was destroyed, with no one to guard its borders. I didn't think it would take long for other hives to figure this out and come to divide the inheritance.
The agreement with Alabaster could hardly be called a Solomonic decision.
The Queen intended to return to the larger galaxy, but for that she needed strength. Which potentially existed — among our trophies from the fight with the Scavenger, we had two whole hive ships and a Wraith cruiser.
She knew nothing about the one buried at the bottom of the sea. And I wasn't about to give her a briefing.
Alabaster intended to be the first to take control of the orphaned planets, and therefore was trying every way to strike a deal. Understandably, with me, since Chaya had acted wisely — she had promised only the minimum.
But Alabaster also no longer particularly wanted to return to the planet where the ZPM and the Hyperion weapon were hidden. Well, no wonder, considering that territory of at least four or five hives had become free in the galaxy. That's how many hives the Scavenger's fleet had consisted of — and we were still processing information about where they had been, what they had possessed, and whether we could find anything interesting for ourselves on their feeding grounds.
It was logical that the territory of four or five hives at once was extremely tasty prey for any Wraith. Alabaster had her head on straight and understood what this could mean for her new battered hive.
And she could take all of it for herself.
But she understood perfectly well that at present, although she might represent a force, it wouldn't be for long. Three ships, each with a crew barely exceeding two hundred Wraiths, no commanders — no blades, no smart ones, no 'darts', no base, no resources, no spare parts... No matter how much energy we gave to the Wraith ships, no matter how many minerals we delivered aboard for repairs, there were damages that couldn't be regrown.
She needed spare parts, which she didn't have.
I suspect (in fact, I'm almost certain) that Alabaster was being shady about the further deal.
Let her claim that her hive was betrayed when she ended up on that planet, that most likely they were all destroyed and so on — I would be completely unsurprised by the opposite. And as soon as the lady was outside our zone of control, when Saya stopped breathing down her neck, the queen would inevitably remember old connections or make new ones.
At the very least, by claiming credit for the victory over the Scavenger, downplaying our involvement, she could gain considerable influence among other hives. After all, among them there were both large and strong ones, and small, weak ones.
I'm sure that at the expense of the latter, she could assemble a coalition that could become a potential problem for us.
Not to mention that she asks to give her Koschei. She explains this, of course, by saying that managing hive ships requires smart commanders. One she could take on herself, the other give to Koschei.
And all that strictly for the purpose of concluding our alliance, of course.
I hadn't made a final decision and was postponing it until we at least studied the data on the planets that had previously been part of the feeding grounds of the hives defeated by the Scavenger. And the slowly regenerating Wraith ships were also a kind of insurance — with just one ship, Alabaster wouldn't dare to fight for the freed territories.
In general, the deal she was offering seemed profitable — considering that the agreement also included what she had previously told Chaya. But until Sar studied the Hyperion weapon and gave a full assessment of what it could do and what it couldn't, we needed to stall.
I didn't particularly like the 'Yeah, this Wraith is a son of a bitch. But he's our son of a bitch' approach. Especially the part where Alabaster and Koschei had learned quite a bit about us in light of the forced cooperation. And without the latter, our situation would clearly have been much worse.
Therefore, while the Nomads' starships were being repaired using materials we supplied, while the Hippaforalkus was undergoing repairs, while Chaya and other technicians were figuring out how to use the power buses freed from powering many empty laboratories to connect weapons from the damaged battleship and were developing weapons to modernize the battleship, we needed to do what we could without attracting the attention of the local sanitation workers.
"Ihaar," when we approached the 'jumper', I called the engineer. "Get ready for flight. Teyla," the Athosian woman raised her eyes to me, and understanding of the situation flickered in them. "Check our supplies."
"Of course," she nodded.
"Mission, commander?" the nearby cyborg girl inquired.
The second group, consisting of Saya and almost a dozen support fighters, moved out behind us. While we were repairing the gate and looking around, they would secure the perimeter and help sweep the destroyed city.
"Everything as planned," I said. "You follow us, and so on."
"Roger," the girl flashed her blue eyes and turned to the fighters waiting for her. "On the ship. Pilot, take your place."
The second squad quickly began boarding.
"Ronon, a word," the Satedan silently stepped away from the ship. "About you and the Nomads."
"Yeah?" If I hadn't known this guy was human, the poverty of his intonation would have made me suspect a close connection with Saya. A cybernetic one, of course. Although, judging by the long look he kept throwing at the shapely cyborg in the jumpsuit, one could imagine plenty.
"I'm not asking or ordering you to be friendly to everyone around," Dex looked at me without a hint of embarrassment or irony. "But at least you shouldn't be the first to show hostility to everyone. Caution and observation — yes."
"What's the point of hiding your intentions if they're obvious anyway?" the Satedan wondered.
"Ah, so if there's a fight, you'll be taken out first, right?" I continued developing my thought.
"Let them try," Ronon replied without a hint of boasting.
A straightforward, guileless guy.
"I'm saying that if we suddenly encounter danger from our allies, to whom you've demonstrated your readiness to kill them, it would be better if they didn't know about it and didn't kill you first just for the safety of their plans."
"Then why need such allies?" the Satedan smirked. "We should kill them first and not waste time on worries."
"I see your point," I assured. "But that would mean we'd have to kill everyone who comes to us with an offer of cooperation. Because each of them has certain plans for us that they don't hurry to share. Or they don't reveal their intentions right away because they don't trust us any more than we trust them."
The Satedan continued staring at me silently.
"Is the analogy clear?" I clarified.
The hint at himself, who had not yet given an answer whether he would serve Atlantis or not, I think Dex understood. And he was at least at a crossroads.
Until recently, he had believed that none of the Satedans remained. And the problem of choice — who to cooperate with and who to fight — didn't face him. From what I knew, the Satedans honored laws of honor and openness. Who is not a friend is an enemy. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. And such things in the same vein.
About people, of course.
If I hadn't told him that there were survivors from Sateda in the galaxy, he most likely would have joined us. At least because he had nowhere to go. Any inhabited worlds that the 'runner' had ever visited — any of them — had been attacked by Wraiths who tracked their 'pets'.
Even if he found another world where they wouldn't know him as a 'runner', sooner or later 'fame' would catch up. But if he returned to Sateda, to his kin... There his past would mean little.
If Ronon swore loyalty to Atlantis, or even just gave his word, I wouldn't doubt that the guy would keep it and be faithful to us.
But he was silent. Probably because he wanted to get a look at us and verify if any other Satedans were alive, as I had said before.
I could have not told him, but then when it came to light (and I was damn sure it would), Dex might think that I had deliberately lied to him. I had already deliberately omitted the fact that some of his Satedan friends were working for the Wraiths. But if I told him that, he wouldn't believe it.
People, no matter what galaxy they were born in, are not inclined to trust news that goes beyond their own boundary of the acceptable. And for someone like Dex, hearing that his friends served the Wraiths, even due to the narcotic effect of the enzyme, was unacceptable. Simply because, based on his experience, he couldn't know that such a thing could happen.
But that part of his people had survived — yes, he believed that.
Wants to believe.
"I understand you, Mikhail," Dex said. "Do you have anything else, or can we head to Sateda?"
"That's all for now."
Without another word, Ronon headed for the 'jumper's hatch.
He would be more difficult than I had assumed.
* * *
"It's beautiful here," Teyla declared, watching the white-blue-green riot of colors we were observing from orbit.
Dex's home planet really didn't give the impression of a world where the Wraiths had decided to exterminate every drop of life. Oceans full of water, atmosphere more than breathable, plenty of greenery, forests, mountains...
One could say it was a paradise, if not for the fact that seven years ago everyone who decided to resist the Wraith invasion was destroyed here. And that, according to Ronon's story, was practically every inhabitant of Sateda capable of bearing arms.
"We managed to shoot down two 'darts' when they came through the gate," Ronon was saying. "Even then the Chieftain, the leader of Sateda, understood that they were just scouts. Not even the vanguard of the invasion. We had squads on other planets, and they were tasked with finding allies. But no one responded, so most of the forces were brought back to Sateda."
"Why didn't you evacuate?" Teyla asked. "You knew how to use the Stargate."
"And would you run from your home when it's in danger?" the Satedan countered. "If we left without a fight, they would have pursued us to other worlds. Where we would be without weapons, without industry, without shelter. No, my people don't run from a fight; they meet it with heads held high and weapons in hand. No matter how hard it gets — you must fight for your home to the last drop of blood."
Actually, he was right... Our ancestors didn't get scared when Nazi Germany and its allies attacked. Yes, it was hard, there were defeats, many shortages. But there was no desire to run far away so the enemy could satisfy its ambitions. They stood to the last.
But with the Wraiths, that wouldn't work. They didn't need technology, planets, farmland, and cows so much as they needed the people themselves. Every invader has its own appetites. Besides, as far as I understood, before the 'darts' were shot down, they had managed to scan a significant part of Sateda.
And learned how well developed they were. According to Dex, trains used to run on Sateda — not steam locomotives, but diesel/electric locomotives. They had conveyor belts, factories, self-sufficiency in everything needed. Buildings of brick and construction panels. They even had a couple of skyscrapers, indicating an extremely high level of civilization development.
Radio, television, advanced medicine.
They were not as developed as the Ermens, didn't think about spaceflight or orbit — even in the atmosphere. But they also didn't have the knowledge of previous generations or the Sekkari. The Satedans created themselves. The only thing they took from other people they met on other planets was tactics for fighting the Wraiths.
They studied, analyzed, and applied what they considered successful. That's why combat groups existed outside the planet. Without endangering Sateda, these soldiers practiced tactics for resisting the Wraiths, knowing from preserved information sources that the Wraiths would sooner or later come for Sateda.
"But you could have at least saved the civilians," Teyla said.
"Every Satedan considers it their duty to protect Sateda," Dex retorted. "If anyone wanted to leave for other worlds before it was too late, I don't know of any such cases."
Sateda.
I listened to the conversations behind me without joining in. Actually, learning more about other people in this galaxy was very interesting.
At least in the sense that it would allow us to avoid their mistakes. Probably avoid.
"Rather strange," Ihaar muttered. "Wraiths usually don't kill their victims, they prefer to capture them to feed."
"Tell that to Alvar," I advised. "The Wraiths exterminated Ermen with the same thoroughness as Sateda."
"True too," Ihaar agreed. "But I'm interested in something else. Ronon says the Wraith infantry used their standard weapons, and they killed. But we know that Wraith rifles and pistols are essentially stunners. They stun, they don't kill."
"Are you saying I'm lying?" There was a threat in Dex's voice.
"Easy, Chewie," I advised, comparing the Satedan to the famous Wookiee. No, seriously, his dreadlocks made him look like a fur-covered native of Kashyyyk from another universe. And likewise, his quick temper and adherence to laws of honor, duty, and all that. "Ihaar meant that we haven't encountered this personally. Though we've heard about it from Jensen."
"Then it's strange that the engineer doesn't trust my words."
"I think he's more interested in why he himself couldn't find a way to switch the Wraith weapons from stun mode to 'kill' mode," I smoothed things over. "Right, Ihaar?"
"Yes, yes," he grimaced. "I don't understand. I've already taken apart five samples of their weapons, but I haven't found a switch anywhere. It's infuriating."
"Or perhaps the Wraiths have two types of the same weapon," Teyla suggested. "One paralyzes, the other kills. The Ancients have that too."
"Yes, only they look different from each other," I reminded.
"But the Nomads don't have that," Ihaar reminded. "Just switch modes on the 'frequency gun' and that's it."
When we were ready to enter Sateda's atmosphere, the 'jumper's transmitter came to life. A holographic screen appeared, and on it was Larrin's face.
"Mikhail," she addressed. "We've finished the scan, as you requested."
"Wonderful," I smiled quickly. "Anything interesting for us?"
The latter was unlikely. If there had been anything on the planet giving off energy signatures, the Wraiths would have either destroyed it or taken it with them. Unless the energy source was powerful enough for their not-so-advanced scanners to detect.
"Surprisingly, yes," the girl smirked.
It seemed our thoughts were going in the same direction.
Larrin broadcast.
"Details wouldn't hurt," I hinted.
"I'm sending the scan results," she reported, and the visual communication screen disappeared.
Instead, a schematic image of a fairly large settlement appeared, with a Stargate marker in its center. But that was obvious — we had already been heading for the Sateda metropolis.
But a blinking marker in one of the city's districts could not go unnoticed.
"Ronon," I addressed the Satedan sitting in the seat behind me. "If you understand this map, can you tell me..."
"That marker is at the site where the Sateda Military Museum was," the man said, leaning forward. "I thought it was destroyed."
"The signal could be coming from a basement or bunker," I suggested. "On my home planet, museums have protected storage for various purposes. Do you think it's worth checking?"
"Possibly," Ronon said. "We had a collection of Ancient artifacts in the museum. Maybe something survived the attack."
"And you kept silent about this until now?" Ihaar exclaimed. "I asked you if there was anything on Sateda that wasn't made by you!"
"I thought the museum was destroyed," Ronon repeated.
"Don't argue, you two," I concluded. "We have another destination..."
Larrin's image returned, but this time it occupied only half the virtual screen.
"Actually, there are other signals," she said. Ah, right... the communication channel had remained open. "Outside the city. At varying distances, but they all have one thing in common..."
"Energy sources?" Ihaar became interested.
I zoomed out the image of Sateda, shrinking the map of the metropolis and... Exactly. Half a dozen signals at a distance from the city. Some larger dots, meaning strong signals, some small.
"Do you recognize these places?" I asked Ronon.
"That's rural area," he said. "I don't know of anything that could be there besides villages."
"Energy sources in villages could be..." Teyla began, but Ihaar interrupted her, pointing at the overall image of the city and the surrounding area.
"Those aren't energy sources outside the city," he said at the same moment that the space bitch smiled. I'd bet my hand that she knew perfectly well what she had found, but decided to keep quiet. "See, the indication is a different color."
"Larrin, enough teasing," I ordered. I never liked talking on the phone while driving. It usually led to disasters. "What did you find outside the city?"
But it wasn't the commander of the Ares who answered.
It was our engineer.
"These are life signs," he muttered, stunned. "There's intelligent life on Sateda!"
----------------------
Support the work and read up to 100 chapters ahead — p at reon . com / Granulan