SGA-13 Hunt and Run by Aaron Rosenberg Read Free Book Online Page B

slightly — even in the dim lighting Ronon could see the massive scar across the other man’s back. It looked to be right about where he bore his own recent wound.
    “My people, the Retem, resisted the Wraith’s dominance,” Nekai continued, restoring his clothes and leaning against the wall again. “The Wraith slaughtered them and destroyed our planet completely. It is little more than cinders now.” The bitterness in his voice was unmistakable. “Those they did not kill they captured, to serve as slaves — and as food.” He glanced away. “I was one of those they took alive — they felled me before I could throw myself upon my blade. I had been one of our people’s finest warriors, and had killed several Wraith before they were able to subdue me, so they decided to make me an example.” His lips twisted in what Ronon took to be grief and pity and possibly disgust. He was starting to see that there was far more to this man than he had realized.
    “They made you a Runner?” Ronon prompted, when Nekai fell silent, no doubt as haunted by his memories as Ronon was by his own.
    The question roused Nekai again. “Yes,” he agreed. “Implanted the tracker in my back, just as you have in yours, and released me on the nearest planet. Then they hunted me.” He met Ronon’s gaze again. “I stood and waited for them, just as you did. I wanted nothing more than to throw myself upon them and die in battle, so that I might join the rest of my people in the afterlife of our forefathers.”
    Ronon was almost afraid to ask. Almost. “What happened?”
    To his surprise, Nekai laughed, a grim sound but one with some genuine humor. “The first Wraith to catch me was too disappointed to kill me. ‘There is no sport in this,’ he complained when I hurled myself at him. ‘Run away, little human, and keep running. Give us a reason to chase you. Show us you are the warrior we took you for, not a sniveling coward who throws his life away for no reason.’ And then he walked away.”
    Ronon blinked. “I would have torn his heart out for speaking to me in such a way!”
    “I felt the same way,” Nekai agreed. “His contempt made me furious. But then I thought about it, and realized he had been right.” He nodded. “Yes, he was right. Trying to get myself killed like that was the coward’s way out. A true warrior would do as much damage to his enemy as possible, for as long as possible. And that’s what I was determined to do.”
    “So you went after him and killed him?”
    Nekai shook his head. “No. I ran.” This time his laugh was entirely at Ronon’s expression. “Are you horrified? But if I’d attacked him again right then, he just would have killed me or recaptured me and that would have been that. In order to do serious damage to them, I needed to regain my strength and find a way to fight back. That meant time to plan, time to heal. And in order to gain time, I had to keep out of their reach. So I ran.”
    “For how long?”
    His companion sighed. “Two years.”
    Ronon stared at him. “Two years?”
    “Yes. I had little choice — no weapons, no armor, no allies. My only hope was to keep moving and to hope something changed.”
    “So what happened?”
    “I got lucky,” Nekai admitted. “I found one of the ancestral rings — you know of them?” Ronon nodded — they had the strange circular portals on Sateda as well, and the elders knew the secret of activating them. “I’d seen them back on my homeworld,” Nekai continued, “and when no one else was around I snuck over to this one and managed somehow to get it open. That took me to another world. The Wraith came after me fast, before I had a chance to really get my bearings, but I managed to active the ring again, this time to a different world, and fled through that to one as well. That continued for a while — I’d reach a world and stay only long enough to find whatever food and water I could, then flee to the next before the Wraith