Author: Flaim aka Darkfalconheart

Story: You can run with us. (13/?)

Pairing: nothing as of yet.

Summary: A formal meeting offworld goes awry and John Sheppard finds himself captured.

Rating: for this chapter: 16

Warnings: some violence

Status: WIP

Spoilers: Up to ‘The lost tribe’.

Wordcount: ca. 3600

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters, names or other various parts of the SG/SGA universe and all rights are with their respective owners. This is a work of non-profit fanfiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.

Author’s note: This wasn’t an easy chapter to do. Some of the issues coming up where expected, some of them came out of nowhere. Thanks to all those who listened to me and were patient with the issues I had while writing this chapter.

Chapter 13: Forces moving

The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

(Yeats: The second coming)

Teyla sighed frustrated as the cart drove away. In their back was the village, the path to the gate ran around a bent and vanished between the hills further down. “So we don’t know anything new. John was made a Runner and he was alive some months ago.” She summed up, what she had learned from Syrkhan. “Ronon is gone, and we don’t have a clue, where to begin the search.” She did not exactly talk to her companion, in a way, she could have talked to anybody else.

“Is there anybody else, who could know something?” he asked nevertheless.

“Runners live constantly on the move, to many worlds they are just legends, stories that are told in whispers. They said about Ronon that he was seven feet tall and killed more than one hundred Wraith.” Teyla explained. “But those who had heard the story were Wraith worshippers.” She gestured him to be silent, to not answer or speak. Her eyes fixed on the side of the path. In the semi-dark of dawn, all bushes and trees up there threw long shadows, but Teyla’s keen eyes saw the crouching figure, that was obviously watching the cart, as it drove away. So Syrkhan had someone on his trail too. Teyla straightened up and cast a glance to her companion. He would need to trust her, and she could only hope he did far enough. “Captain, when I say so, go walking down the path to the upper end of the bend, stop by the Satchel bush and pretend to collect some kind of equipment, we might have hidden there earlier on. Do it in a careful way, that is prone to attract attention.”

Dietmar was puzzled, that much was clear, but he nodded. “Will do, Teyla.” On her signal he began walking, carefully checking his back. Twice glancing over to the last houses of the village, before he went on. His every move projected the believe to move in secrecy, and the distrustful checking now and then.

Teyla had silently retreated into the shadows, using the cover some old trees gave her to move rapidly uphill. Her eyes never left the figure, that now seemed transfixed on watching what was going on down on the path. Teyla moved silently in on the watcher, who didn’t even realise that she was there. Coming closer Teyla saw it was a man, armed with a rifle and a Wraith stunner, that was intently watching the path. She silently took up a heavy piece of wood, it took only one hit and the man went down cold. “Captain, you can come up!”

Dietmar came hurriedly running uphill. When he saw the unconscious man, he whistled. “Compliments, I hadn’t seen him.” He admitted. “Do you know him?”

“No, but he was watching Syrkhan’s cart, so I must assume he was watching him.” Teyla said, tying their prisoner up. When she turned him around, she saw a medallion dangling from the prisoner’s neck. A medallion like this she had seen before. “So I was right – he is a Wraith worshipper.” She concluded. Had Syrkhan been aware that he had someone on his trail? Had he been uncooperative for a reason? She wondered.

“Wraith worshipper? Those people who are worshipping the Wraith and serving them?” Dietmar asked. He might have read tons of material onboard Daedalus, but back then it had been all very theoretical.

“Worshipping, serving, betraying their fellow humans.” Teyla replied. “completely addicted to the Wraith enzyme, probably. The Wraith must have send this one to watch Syrkhan. If he truly is known to have helped Runners, it is no wonder, they want to punish him.”

Dietmar’s gaze was still on the medallion, he had not really listened to her last sentence. “Perhaps we started on the wrong end,” he said thoughtfully.

Teyla turned around, facing him. He seemed genuinely determined to find Sheppard, so she was willing to give him a chance. “What do you mean?”

“There is a group that knows how to find Sheppard – the Wraith who are hunting him. Why don’t we start at that end?” He pointed at the man, tied up on the ground. “He must know some things, things that might help us.”

“Even as the idea is a good one – he will not help us voluntarily.” Teyla knew what she was talking about. Only rare few Wraith worshippers, had been honourable men, like Tyre had been. Only few of them possessed the Satedan sense of honour and might follow it.

Dietmar looked around, they were alone on the hillside, the people of the village were unaware of the events up here. “Nobody said, that he’d give us the information out of the goodness of his heart,” he said in low tones. “But he can be encouraged to depart with all he knows.”

Startled Teyla looked at her companion. “Not…not that I say you are wrong,” she began carefully. “but I was under the impression that these actions were outlawed on Earth. The one time Dr. Weir nearly had to draw up these tactics she left it to Ronon.” And she had felt bad about it, trying to justify her actions for a long time after, even as the scientist in question had fainted right away when Ronon entered the room.

“It is outlawed in countries that call themselves civilized,” Dietmar replied, again checking the area. “but believe me – there are enough people who won’t care if it furthers their cause.” He stopped, taking a deep breath. “Teyla – you don’t need to associate with this. Just give me some time – the night if you can – and don’t ask what will happen.”

Teyla rose. “Dietmar – I appreciate that you try to protect me, but I am willing to be as guilty as you will be, when we go through with this. It is to save John.” She meant every word of it, even as her stomach twisted at the idea of extracting the information forcefully from the Wraith worshipper. Sometimes hard measures were necessary. “I just wondered – most of the soldiers in Atlantis are very conscious of that line…”

“You wonder why I am doing this? I owe John Sheppard my life, twice.” Dietmar rose, lifting up the unconscious man, throwing him over his shoulder. “Can you invent something, that O’Neill doesn’t suspect us, when we do not return before tomorrow?”

“I believe I will be able to come up with something.” Teyla replied. “Where are you going?”

“Deeper into the woods, no need for the village to witness this.”

Teyla pointed east. “Beyond that hill his a small river and a waterfall, behind that waterfall is a cave.” It was not necessary to say more.

***

“Five more of them, moving east.” Jircanor took down his field glasses and turned to John and Ronon, that were watching the other two streets. From their vantage point the Runners could see most of the ruined streets and alleys around them.

“Another group is holding out on that plaza north form here.” John replied. “With the five Ronon has seen, we are talking about twenty of them.”

“There’ll be more.” Ronon stated without turning his eyes away from the ruins. “We need to get to the gate before they find it.”

John Sheppard couldn’t agree more with him. “How do we know that it isn’t already guarded by them? They could have come through the gate.”

“They can’t.” Ronon replied. “It’s a coded one, they couldn’t dial in or out without the right code. Meaning Michael must have a ship in orbit. Those troops are searching for the gate. We need to get there, before they find it.”

“Agreed. How far is it?”

Jircanor pointed south. “Not far. But we’ll have to cross some dangerous territory.”

The three runners didn’t hesitate long, the moment the second group was far enough from them, they got moving, leaving their vantage point and headed down a narrow alley. Staying close to the ruins, they had a meagre cover most of the time. John raised his fist to stop them, when they reached the next street. A patrol was passing by. They moved slowly, checking the area thoroughly. Like the first two John had seen, they closely resembled the experiments Michael had conducted on the Athosians, but there were also differences. The change in them seemed deeper than it had been with the Athosians. John patiently waited until the group vanished at the end of the street. “Okay, we are clear.”

They moved on, crossing what might once have been a beautiful mall and heading for a huge building further down the road. They had to be careful not to be seen. Behind the wrecks of two burned out ground vehicles, they ducked down through a half collapsed doorway. “Down the stairs, the gate is below ground level.” Jir said, and they hastened on.

John was relieved when he saw the gate. They could get out of here. “Whatever Michael wants here, I am afraid this will be his newest project or plant.”

“Who is this ‘Michael’ anyway?” Jircanor had begun dialling the sequence. “it sounds like you both know him.”

“He is a Wraith the Atlantians tried to turn into a human.” Ronon growled. “He is stuck between both races since then.”

Jircanor finished dialling, the sequence took longer as usual, like back when it had brought John to the dark world. “The Hybrid, I have heard rumours flying around about such a creature, but I did not believe them true.”

“Could we discuss this another time?” John had a bad feeling about this. Something was wrong, terribly wrong and it would be wise, when they got out of here fast. The wormhole established and stabilised.

Ronon nodded towards John. “Let’s get out of here.”

***

General O’Neill couldn’t help it but grin when he heard Teyla and Schmiedeberg as they stepped out of the gate. The two of them were obviously arguing. “It was unnecessary, you just heightened the pressure and might have scared off as well,” Teyla was somewhat exasperated and made no effort to hide it. “It was not necessary to step in, I had things under control.”

“For the record – I did not intervene because I thought you couldn’t handle him, but because I saw, that this guy had his reflexes not under control. Which placed him next door to the proverbial loose canon. And I am still astonished you let him off so lightly.” Schmiedeberg replied somewhat aggressively.

Teyla stoppd, only steps away from the gate. “Captain, an attempt to joke will not alleviate my mood.,” she said, but her voice showed, that she wasn’t half as angry as she wanted him to believe.

Nursing a cup of coffee O’Neil watched the scene from the command gallery. The two of them were bickering like only Daniel and Carter could at times. Only that… only that it did not fit with their profiles and behavioural patterns, at least if their files were to be trusted.

Schmiedeberg raised his hands, clearly giving up. “I concede the point, Teyla. If you are sure he told us all he knew, then I’ll trust your judgement.”

O’Neill waited until both of them had reached the command gallery. “The mission did not go as expected, I take it?”

Teyla nodded. “That is true, General. Ronon hasn’t come to Belkan in months, but Bran pointed us to another person, who might have some knowledge about Runners. While this man confirmed that John is a Runner, he wasn’t willing to part with any further information.”

O’Neill’s eyes went to Schmiedeberg. “Which was when you decided to step in and apply some pressure?”

“Sir, that man attacked Teyla – not exactly intentionally, but rather in an uncontrolled reflex.” Dietmar replied. “I just told him to mind his manners.”

“Reminded him at gunpoint.” Teyla corrected. “and then offered to extract the information… what did you call that?”

“Beat the information out of him,” Dietmar ended the sentence. “Some people get far more cooperative with a good threat hanging over their head.”

“He believed full well that you would go through with your threat…”

O’Neill raised his hand, interrupting the discussion. “Stop right there! So you played ‘good cop – bad cop’ with that guy. Did you get the information?”

“Yes, Sir. It is not as much as we might have hoped – but it is a good start.”

O’Neill studied Schmiedeberg for some moments silently, he knew that this kind of scrutiny could make people nervous. If Schmiedeberg was he didn’t show it. “How stupid do you think, I am?” O’Neill asked all of sudden.

“Sir?” Schmiedeberg had let go of his relaxed pose, snapping to a semi-attention state.

“Oh, come on… do you think I am stupid? It is a nice act you and Teyla put on here. I would have believed it, I was close of buying your little act here in fact - had you not bickered at each other all the time.” O’Neill ignored Teyla’s attempt to interrupt him, and went on. “So, Captain, what did you do to obtain the intel?”

“Nothing, except talking, Sir.” Schmiedeberg kept his gaze fixed on an imaginary point on the wall. “I may have told him some things, I would do to him, if he did not answer Teyla’s questions…”

O’Neill interrupted him again. “Captain – I really hate to repeat myself, so don’t make me ask too often: Do you believe me stupid?”

“Sir, no, Sir.”

“You know what, Schmiedeberg – you just gave yourself away.” O’Neill walked past his desk, standing right opposite of the Captain. “Back in Greenland, I went to my best ‘General-mode’ to stop you from asking further impertinent questions. But you never stopped. And now you just give me the ‘Yes, Sir; No, Sir; Three bags full,’ Sir treatment? C’me on, not even Woolsey would fall for that one.”

“Sir, your were not my CO back then.” Schmiedeberg still kept his gaze on the wall, his face an unreadable mask.

“Thanks to God for that!” O’Neill crossed his arms in front of his chest. “So – what did you do to get the intel? I’d really advise you Captain, not to make me ask a third time.”

“General, perhaps…” Teyla began, but O’Neill wouldn’t let her finish the sentence.

“I did not ask you. You were lying last night, when you told us you needed to stay on longer. Your husband was rather marvelled about the change of habits, the people on Belkan seemed to have had.” O’Neill’s gaze went back to Schmiedeberg. “I guessed something was up then, Captain. Contrary to what you might believe I have read your file, the real one, not the one three different organisations washed clean using up a lifetime supply of Persil in the process. And when you two came back through the gate, putting up that school – theatre act, I knew I was right. So what did you do?”

“Sir, we caught a Wraith worshipper, spying on some of our sources, caught him and beat some intel out of him: the name of the hive that took Sheppard, and the places where they have outposts.” Schmiedeberg replied. “After that the worshipper was disposed off.”

“Meaning you killed him.” O’Neill watched the Captain closely.

“Aye. By next nightfall the wolves will have eaten him up.”

O’Neill leaned back more, casting a sardonic glance at the man in front of him. “Let me get this straight: you caught an enemy, interrogated him illegally and eventually killed him. Why do you think I should let you get away with this?”

“You have no reason to, Sir.”

O’Neill turned to Teyla. “You can go, your family is waiting for you.”

“General, I would prefer to stay.” Teyla replied. “Whatever happened is as much my…”

“You’re a civilian, whatever you did, you have to live with it.” O’Neill replied, gesturing her to leave. Uneasy Teyla left the office.

***

A garb of fire shot after them, John dodged them, returning fire on their pursuers. He had neither the strength nor the time to curse. It was the third gate they had passed, trying to shake off their pursuers, but no luck so far. John had not much hopes that their fourth attempt, another gate transfer, would really help them much. Crouching behind a rock beside the DHD, his caused their enemies to duck right now. “Wormhole established – run!”

It didn’t really need encouragement, John retreated to the gate, still firing on their enemies, as did Ronon and Jir, shortly after the others, he entered the gate. The moment they stepped out of the gate, all three of them split up in different directions, finding cover, weapons ready to fire on whoever might follow them through the gate. But the wormhole expired without anybody following them. John let go of a long breath and rose behind the fallen tree-trunk that had been his cover. “Let’s get moving, they’ll come through soon enough.” It wouldn’t take them long to find the address that had been dialled last on the DHD.

Ronon nodded. “Tactics change?”

John agreed silently. Time to revert to classical runner tactics, getting away from the gate, forcing the enemy to search a vast territory, splitting his forces thin. All around the gate stretched a dense forest, there was no sign of any inhabitants close. The ideal place to go to ground. They fell into the typical runner pace: a fast jog they could keep up for many hours and vanished into the forest.

The forest grew more dense the farther they got away from the gate. By nightfall they slowed down for the first time. “I think, we shook them off.” Ronon gestured back. “No way the followed us that fast.”

John agreed, up till now it had taken their pursuers less than an hour to be after them again. “We keep moving, hiding away in the forest. It will make it harder for them to find us.” They could go to ground for some weeks here, until their pursuers lost their patience and gave up. But for some weeks they would have to stay far away from the gate. They walked on into the night. John noticed that whenever they came across a rare clearing, Ronon studied the skies.

“What is it?” he asked after a while, when Ronon again had looked up to the dark sky above. “Something is worrying you.” He felt all too clearly, that something was worrying Ronon.

Ronon pointed up, to a bright constellation of stars, their light seemed to have a bluish tinge, a cold, bright light. John could easily judge that this small cluster of stars couldn’t be that far away. “The fires of Caldemar’s forge,” Ronon said. “we are too close to them. We are close to Wraith-territory.”

Jircanor had stopped too, turning around. “The half-breed will have to be careful bringing his troops too close to Wraith space – he isn’t exactly welcome there.”

They moved on, crossing a river around midnight, making their way across a small ravine soon after and evading the outskirts of a swamp, in the hours before dawn. The skies grew grey again, the new day upon them, but they kept walking, the sun was already rising again, when they reached a long dry canyon and left the woods behind them for the first time. “We better hurry, these canyons are a death-trap.” Ronon said.

“Much as I dislike to agree with you – but you are quite right.” The voice came out of nowhere, but was close enough to be heard clearly. Ronon whirled around, his weapon levelled in the direction of the voice. But he saw nothing. Just the rocks in front of them and the forest behind them.

“Where are you?” he bellowed.

“A cloak.” John observed coldly, studying the territory around them, searching for the best way out.

“You are quite right, Sheppard.” The voice replied, only moments before the cloak fell. It wasn’t one person cloaked, it was a troop, at least fifty of them, having the three runners encircled. But John didn’t see the troop, he saw the man who had spoken, whose voice John knew all too well. “Michael.”

“You forced quite a hunt on me, Sheppard.” Michael replied. “But now, the hunt ends.”

John looked around, there was next to no chance, that they could break out of this circle. “What do you want this time?” he stalled. They needed time to come up with something.

“I had believed you of no further importance for my plans, Sheppard.” He said. “But then one of my spies told me by accident a fascinating detail about you. You surely know that Captain-General Vintár will be put to death, for failing you? For failing one of the true blood?” Michael paused, raising his hand. “You didn’t know? How tragic.”

“If this is another of your mad plans…” John tried not show what he was feeling. He knew that many people in Pegasus treated him with respect because of the ATA gene, it had been true that Vintár’s people had treated him with a respect bordering to reverence, but what Michael was claiming here had to be a lie. It was just impossible. “I won’t help you. And you know that.”

Whatever Michael intended to say was drowned out by the shriek of a single dart high up in the air. All, runners and soldiers alike looked up. The ship passed right overhead, the white culling beam fell down, it white focus enveloping John and Ronon in a bright light, ripping them away, out the midst of their enemies. The dart swooped again, leaving Jircanor and Michael’s troops behind.