SGA-13 Hunt and Run
by Aaron Rosenberg
An original publication of Fandemonium Ltd, produced under license from MGM Consumer Products.
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METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER Presents
STARGATE ATLANTIS™
JOE FLANIGAN TORRI HIGGINSON RACHEL LUTTRELL JASON MOMOA
with PAUL McGILLION as Dr. Carson Beckett and DAVID HEWLETT as Dr. McKay
Executive Producers BRAD WRIGHT & ROBERT C. COOPER
Created by BRAD WRIGHT & ROBERT C. COOPER
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For Dave, Peter, and Jenness, who let me bounce ideas off them — and for Jen, Arthur, and Adara, as always.
“Is everything set?”
A shadowy figure moved through the dark, feet placed precisely to create no sound and leave no trace. She stopped beside two other shadows; these crouched down, fingers flickering as they worked.
“Almost, Lanara,” one replied softly.
“Good here,” the other, Misa, added, straightening.
“And here,” the first one, Adarr, agreed, standing as well.
“Fine. Move out.” Lanara turned and retraced her steps just as silently as before, now with two additional shadows at her back. “Ready, Nekai,” she called as she neared.
“On your mark,” a new voice answered, its words emerging without a point of origin.
Lanara shifted, sliding beyond the edge of the dark. She paused only long enough for Misa and Adarr to join her. “Mark.”
Behind them, a light began to blink on a panel. And somewhere, a klaxon began to wail. But here there were none but shadows to hear it.
“Now,” Lanara whispered as they departed, “we wait.”
“Okay, this is ridiculous,” Rodney commented as he strapped himself in. “Does anyone else think this is ridiculous?”
“No, Rodney, no one does,” Sheppard replied, most of his attention on the console as he powered up the Jumper and signaled the monitor crew to activate the gate. “It’s just you.”
“What’s ridiculous?” Teyla asked, and Sheppard rolled his eyes at her. Why did she have to encourage Rodney’s rants? Ronon, at least, knew better than to answer.
“This.” Rodney indicated the Jumper and them. “This mission. Some ship we’ve never heard of before sends out a distress call and we go running to the rescue? Why? What are we, the interstellar version of AAA? ‘Oh, don’t worry, ma’am, it’s just your drive coil — we’ll have you flying again in no time’?”
“We help people,” Sheppard reminded the scientist through gritted teeth, even as he maneuvered the Jumper through lift-off and through the gate in front of them. The familiar distortion kept him from adding anything else for a second. “It’s what we do,” he finished after he’d recovered from the disorientation. As always, he wondered if that would ever disappear — would he ever be able to pass through a gate without his brain and his senses taking a few seconds to adjust?
Probably not.
Now that he was able to focus again, however, he started checking their surroundings. The gate they’d come through was the free-floating kind, he saw, and it hung in outer space, its rippling surface and the glowing sigils around it edges providing weak illumination against the stark backdrop of space and distant stars. There wasn’t any sign of a ship nearby, so he began scanning for the distress signal. There!
“I’ve got a lock on it,” he told the others. “Maybe ten, fifteen minutes away. Hang on.” And he set the Jumper to close in on the other ship’s coordinates.
“Yes, but why do we do it?” Rodney was insisting. “It’s a valid question, you have to admit. Why do we help these people? Our mission is to explore this region, to catalog everything we find, and to improve our own knowledge, technology, and resources. How does fixing the flat on someone’s space jalopy add to any of that?”
“They might be a new race we have not encountered before,” Teyla pointed out. “And by helping them we earn their good will.”
“Great, that and two bucks’ll get you a cup of coffee,” Rodney muttered.
“It’s karma,” Sheppard told him. “You help them and sooner or later it comes back to you. That’s how the universe works.” At least he fervently hoped so — admittedly he was still waiting for returns on many of those investments.
“It’s not about getting something back,” Ronon announced. Sheppard turned around, surprised the big guy was even participating — usually he stayed silent during these constant arguments, watching the rest of them and frowning as if they were behaving like idiots. Which, admittedly, they often were. Teyla and Rodney were staring at the Satedan as well. “You help because it’s the right thing to do,” he continued. “That’s what separates us from animals.”
Not surprisingly, Rodney recovered from the shock first. “Wow, thank you for that staggering insight,” he sneered. “Ironic, hearing a lecture on morals from an unfeeling caveman.” Ronon glanced at him, not even a glare really, and Rodney shrank back but didn’t apologize. Then again, when did he ever?