Flyboy Soup
Author: BadgerGater
Email:
[email protected]Category: Action Adventure, Hurt/Comfort
Season: Late four, early Five (that's what I was watching at the time I wrote it)
Summary: A little research trip turns ugly when SG-1 finds something very unexpected on a quiet little planet
Warnings: None, except there's a bit of gross description for those with queasy stomachs
Rating: PG, an adult word or two
Pairing: None
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em. Couldn't afford their medical bills if I did. <sob> No copyright infringement intended. No money changes hands. Not to be posted without the author's permission
**Author’s Notes: Thanks Jack fans, for your support.. and welcome to fic number 100 by the Badger. (Posted at www.geocities.com/sg1_oneills_house)
With special thanks to some wonderful people who helped me when I was a tentative, uncertain fanfic newbie, especially Tanya, Carol, Corine and Margo... Jack clones to all of you... this wouldn't be happening without you believing in me and sharing my vision of the best character to grace the TV screen in many, many years...;
And most of all, to Colonel Jack O'Neill (or at least the writers and the actor who created him), a wonderful, complex character of depth, passion, courage and vulnerability... and always my hero. To borrow one of his lines, "for this, (he) can stay at my place."
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Part 1/9
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I started out thinking that wasn't such a bad planet, but I should know better, shouldn't I? P4B-397.
Ewww.
Doc's gonna let me go home tomorrow, I think. My leg's no longer swollen to twice it's normal size, the stitches came out yesterday, the lump on my head has almost disappeared, and the triple vision has settled down to only the occasional bout of double vision, as long as I don't move too fast. Which I don't think will be a problem for a few days yet.
They let me up to walk today, and while admittedly my legs were a little wobbly, I did actually manage to stroll down to the end of the hallway and back. So, yeah, okay, I *was* leaning on Nurse Carroll all the way, but I really didn't need to. Not much, anyway.
----------------
Maybe I should go back and start at the beginning?
I do have a mission report to write anyway. General Hammond let me have a few extra days to get it finished, generous of him considering I find it rather hard to write reports while comatose. And no, I'm not going to use bullet point summaries.
------------
So...
SG-1 was gathered in the briefing room for, what else, our first morning briefing of the week. I'd already taken my favorite seat on what would be the General's right when Carter came in with that look on her face. You know the one, the 'I've found something splendiforous' look, the one that tends to give me heartburn. Or a heart attack. See, what Carter thinks is fun is usually *not* my idea of fun.
I was right, of course.
"Good morning, Sir," her eyes were shining, her smile so bright I was nearly blinded.
"Morning, Carter." I peered across the table at the stack of folders she'd carried in with her. I twisted my head around to read the title: "P4B-?"
"P4B-397. There's some great stuff there, Sir," she enthused.
"Great stuff, eh, Major? Like sun-kissed beaches? Crappie filled ponds?"
She was still grinning. "Even better, Sir."
"Better than an untapped fishing hole? Not possible, Major, in this universe or any other."
Daniel strolled in, coffee cup in hand, seating himself next to Carter as we talked. Teal'c followed, taking the chair next to mine.
"Better, Sir," Carter insisted.
"Better?" I challenged.
""Naquadah deposits, Sir."
"Oiy," That girl has a weird idea of fun. At least Daniel's rocks are sometimes, okay, I'll admit it, actually artifacts. But when Carter starts talking rocks, she means rocks. Stones. Pebbles. Boulders.
"Good morning, people," Hammond breezed in. I stood, the others following
suit, then we all re-sumed our seats as the General settled in at the head of the table. "Major, I hear you've got something exciting for us this morning?"
"Yes, Sir, something new," she beamed. Tapping the remote, Carter dimmed the lights, turned on the slide projector, and showed us a picture of... bluish sky, rocks and trees.
"Now *that* looks like something I've never seen before," I smirked.
Teal'c raised one eyebrow. Daniel sipped his coffee. The General shot me a withering look, but hey, I don't wither easily. "A new species of
evergreen?" I guessed.
"Something the survey team thinks may be a new type of ore containing Naquadah." Carter pushed the advance button and another slide appeared. "SG-14 visited P4B-397 last month, and collected rock samples in this area," the slide showed a rugged hillside, towering boulders interspersed among the pines. "The lab got pretty backlogged, so no one tested them until late last week. They didn't appear to be promising, since we rarely find naquadah in apatitic rock formations. Usually, they appear in ordinary igneous rock..."
"Ignited rock? Sounds frightening," I commented.
"Volcanic rock, Sir, probably forced up from deep within the planet's core. But in this case, we're not sure if this is really naquadah, or something that simply mimics it. We'll need to perform more tests."
"Sounds like a routine job for a geologist, Major," I suggested.
"Well, it might be, except that Major Pemberly's team also found this." Carter advanced to the next slide.
Daniel sat up so fast he almost fell out of his chair. "That's..." in seconds he was on his feet and up to the screen to study it more closely. "That's amazing. That looks like a variation on the writing of the Ancients." He turned to look at me. "Do you recognize any of it?"
I stared at the scratchmarks on the rock. "Looks like nonsense to me. Teal'c?" I swung to face the Jaffa.
"It is unfamiliar to me as well, O'Neill."
"Any other signs of life?" I asked.
"None, Sir, a few small animals and bird-like creatures, some fairly large deer-like animals down in the meadows, but no wildlife comes up into the higher altitude where the gate, and these ore deposits, are. No signs of human habitation within the fifty mile sweep pattern conducted by the UAV. Air quality tests show no indication of any sort of human activity affecting the environment. SG-14 found no signs of any inhabitants."
"A prize just waiting to be claimed, then?" I suggested.
Carter's smile hadn't dimmed. "Yes, Sir. Since the computer system was down for maintenance last week, and we don't have any other missions on the schedule, I thought this would be a good opportunity for both Daniel and me to work on this. Teal'c can assist Daniel with the translations."
"And I can go fishing?" I asked, plaintively.
"You can stand watch, Colonel." Hammond chuckled. "Major, are you sure this is worth the time of the SGC's number one team?"
"Yes, Sir, I think it is. It could be extremely important. Obviously, other races have visited this planet. Deciphering the message and doing further tests on this ore are both worthwhile objectives. I'd like to request that Lt. Farley of SG-14 join us. He's got some first-hand experience on the planet, and his specific knowledge of geology will help me with the tests."
"Good idea, Major."
I groaned out loud. "General, really..." As if two scientists on my team weren't bad enough, now I'd have to put up with a third?
Hammond swung towards me. "Your objections are noted, Colonel, but I do agree with the Major. You'll leave at 0900 tomorrow."
------------
I should have been a geologist. Or maybe a disc jockey, playing rock music. Hehehe. Rocks.
I love my job, I love my job, I love my job, I chanted silently as I headed back to my office to prepare the mission plan.
----------------
At 0855 the next morning, SG-1 was gathered in the gateroom, geared up and ready to travel. "What is that, Major?" I pointed at a large, unfamiliar box stowed atop the FRED.
"Testing equipment, Sir," she answered.
I walked over and took a closer look. "Looks like explosives to me, Carter."
"Yes, those are," she pointed at another small box. "That equipment," she waved a hand at the unfamiliar electronic gizmos sitting atop the heavily loaded vehicle, "is a sort of underground radar. This sends radio waves through the Earth and that device will measure the speed of their return. It will show us what's buried in that hill."
"And the explosives?"
"If we need to do a little underground exploration."
"Got it," I said, and didn't, and didn't care that I didn't.
Lt. Alex Farley joined us just as the sergeant started dialing up the coordinates. I waited impatiently as the wormhole formed, kawooshed, and settled back. We paused while the control room crew checked the current MALP video. "All clear, Sir," said the sergeant.
I turned to Hammond. "See you in a week, Sir."
"Good luck, SG-1."
I turned to Carter. "Okay, Major, let's go. Warp speed ahead."
The FRED trundled up the ramp and disappeared into the wormhole at something
certainly much less than warp speed.
With a sigh, I followed.
Ah, the excitement of intergalactic exploration.
---------------
Part Two
For the third day, I was on watch. The only thing I was watching, of course, was the grass grow. Carter and the lieutenant had all their sensors in place at last, and this morning they were going to turn on their doohickies and, I don't know, look at pretty little pictures of underground rocks. As if looking at above ground rocks wasn't enough for them. Scientists. Hmmph. I shook my head in disbelief.
Just then, my radio crackled to life. "Sir?"
"Yes, Major."
"We're ready to turn on the ground radar, Colonel. Just thought you ought to know, and you might want to warn Daniel."
"Warn Daniel about what?"
"Probably nothing, Sir..."
'Probably nothing, Sir,' I mumbled. 'Then why warn?" I shook my head and thumbed the radio send button again. "Fine, Major. Give me five minutes." I know, I could have just radioed the warning to Daniel. But I know him well enough to know that he'd distractedly answer 'Yes, Jack' without ever having actually processed the words I uttered. Scientists. Hmmph. Shaking my head, I left my watch spot and hiked over to where Daniel was staring contemplatively at the little boxes and circles and triangles and squiggly lines carved on
the rock. Teal'c, helping him translate, was kneeling nearby.
I could hear the two of them talking in low voices as I approached. "Hey, Dynamic Duo, got it figured out yet?"
"No. But I think that word is fractured. Or maybe fried," Daniel said, brow furrowed in concentration.
"I prefer fricasseed, actually."
Daniel glared at me, unamused. He just takes this stuff soooo seriously. "Well, Carter says they're going to turn on their ground zero radar thingys, and I should warn you, about what I don't know. But just be alert in case something weird happens."
"Ah, right, Jack," Daniel didn't shift his gaze from his study of the writing. "I'm warned."
"I will heed the warning, O'Neill," Teal'c nodded to me.
Good, at least someone was taking me seriously.
Daniel obviously wasn't. He was already busily mumbling to himself, one hand touching the carved rock, the other sketching the drawings into his notebook. Pausing, Daniel distractedly waved a hand in my direction. "Bye, Jack."
Knowing when I'm not wanted, I left, hiking back to the spot where Carter and Farley were still fussing over several scientific gizmos scattered around a small clearing. "We're all warned, Carter. Go for it."
She nodded, smiling brightly. "Lieutenant..."
He flipped a switch.
Nothing happened. No glowing lights, no rumbling or crumbling, not even any humming or buzzing.
Science can be such a disappointment.
"That thing working?" I asked, leaning over Farley's shoulder.
"Yes, Sir," he pointed at little wavy lines on a screen. "See? The first readings are coming in now, Colonel..." he looked distracted a moment, then excited. "Major!" he called.
Carter hurried over. "What is it?"
"Look at this, ma'am."
Even I could see something odd, a big round dark blob.
Carter seemed impressed. "Whoa, ah, lieutenant. Now that's strange."
"What? You found the Hope Diamond? Amelia Earhart's plane? Jimmy Hoffa?"
Carter smiled. "Not quite, Sir. It's just that the inside of that mountain, it's not at all what we expected. There are three, four..."
"I've already counted seven, Major," the lieutenant interjected.
"Seven large caverns."
"Caves? In there?" I waved a hand at the coneshaped mountain.
"It's honeycombed."
"Like Swiss cheese?"
"Yes, Sir, like Swiss cheese."
"Holy cow."
Farley shot me an odd look, Carter smiled distractedly. She's used to my brilliant humor.
"Look, there's another cavern. And another," she enthused.
"That's odd," Farley turned a knob on his machine, the view switching to something different."Major, look, see how evenly shaped they are."
Sam nodded. "Spheroid."
"Huh?"
"Oval, Sir, sort of eggshaped."
"Then why didn't you say so?"
"I did, Sir," she had turned back to the screen. "That doesn't make sense, lieutenant."
"Unless they're not natural," he suggested.
"Man made? Goa'uld made? Ancients made?" I offered, my danger radar suddenly
jumping into high gear.
"Actually, there could be many reasons, even natural ones, Sir. Some sort of unique phenomena we don't know about. It's a volcanic area, so it could be some unusual form of gas vent." Both of the scientists had their eyes raised, staring at the mountain. "I think we need to get a better look," Carter finally suggested. "Lieutenant, let's continue the pattern, but raise the pulse intensity by degrees of ten with each pass."
"Yes, ma'am."
I stood and watched for the first six or seven pulses.
Nothing happened of course.
Bored, I walked back to my watchpost.
Flipping my cap around to sit backwards on my head, I pulled out my binoculars and studied the landscape. Nothing had changed from my last look an hour ago. Nothing had moved, either. Damn. I strolled on over to check on Daniel and Teal'c.
Jackson was sitting in the same spot. I swear he hadn't moved at all. Nor Teal'c, either.
"So, Sherlock, got that thing figured out yet?" I asked.
He shook his head. "Not exactly. See, here," he reached forward and touched a spot on the stone, pointing out a squiggly line that looked remarkably like a hockey stick with two blades on one end and a bend in the middle. "This could be a modifier for that," he pointed to another squiggly line that looked like an upside down J with a double bend in the middle. "If it is, the phrase means be kind to the whole of the valley. If not, it means beware the
holy mountain."
A sudden shiver washed over me. "Holy as in sacred, or holey, as in holes like Swiss cheese?"
"Well, ah, that's debatable. Depends on this symbol right here," Daniel pointed at a small line that could either be a golf club or an upside down and backwards number 9.
"What symbol is that?"
"Don't know," the archaeologist's answer was plaintive. "I didn't bring all my notes on the language of the Ancients..."
"Why not? You knew you were going to be translating this," I waved a hand, "this rock, thing."
"Jack, my notes on the Ancients language fill two filing cabinets and six boxes. Unless you wanted to carry them?" he looked up at me pointedly.
"Oh, okay then. Never mind." I know when I'm not wanted.
I turned to go back to find Carter and her cohort.
I'd taken six steps when the ground suddenly shifted underneath my feet, vibrating. "What the hell? Carter!!" I ran for their camp. Arriving breathlessly, I discovered the two of them standing, head to head, staring at the view screen on their fancy doohickey, voices raised in excitement. "Carter! What the hell was that? An earthquake? Did you do that?"
She turned to look at me. "Ah, I don't think we did, Sir."
"Major," Farley started, "the tremor did start right when we initiated the last pulse."
I stared from one to the other. "Well?"
"Colonel, I don't know," Carter answered, running her hand through her hair in frustration. "There's no reason why the equipment should cause a quake. It's harmless. But I'll double check the calibrations on the pulse emitters."
"Okay, I'm going to take a walk around our perimeter. Don't turn that thing on again before you talk to me, got that, Major?"
"Yes, Sir."
-----------------
I spent the next thirty minutes hiking around the area. Nothing seemed to have changed, nothing seemed amiss. Until I stepped around a big rock we'd walked past on the hike to the worksite. It was cracked, top to bottom, a jagged scar across the 10 foot tall boulder.
I toggled my radio. "Carter, got a minute?"
"Ah, sure, Sir. Where are you?"
"About ten minutes down the trail back toward the Stargate, Major."
"I'll be right there, Sir."
I waited impatiently, walking around to look at another of the cluster of tall, vaguely cone shaped rocks. Three of the dozen boulders were similarly cracked.
"Sir?" Carter called out as she hiked over the crest of the little knoll. "Holy Hannah!" She stopped dead in her tracks, staring.
"Humpty Dumpty, hey, Major?"
"This is unbelievable, Sir," she said, running her hands along the cracks. "I don't remember these..."
"Oh, they definitely weren't cracked like this before, Carter. That I'd remember."
"Right, Sir," she was still peering closely at the jagged gaps. Unclipping the light from her P-90, she shone it into the crack. "Hmmm." She pushed her hand into the gap.
"Careful, Major," I cautioned.
She threw me a look, then went back to her study of the rock.
"Think your little earthquake did that?"
She shook her head. "I'd have to say yes, Colonel, but I don't have a clue why."
"Clueless? Carter? You? I'm stunned."
She tossed me an annoyed look. "Sir..."
"Okay, I know. So your little doohickies made the Earth, ah, the P4B shake, and busted a couple of oversized gravel stones. Are we in any danger?"
She shrugged. "It would be unlikely, Sir."
"Good, then. Let's get back to work, get your studies done, and get the heck home. I can still be there in time for this week's episode of Martha Stewart."
Side by side we walked quietly back toward her worksite.
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Part 3/9
---------------
Later that afternoon, Carter and Farley, having checked all their equipment twice, restarted their tests. No more quakes, nothing unusual.
It was a peaceful evening. We heated our MREs and drank coffee as the unfamiliar stars slowly appeared overhead.
After the meal, Daniel and Carter sat with their heads together pouring over his notes and drawings of the writings he'd spent the day staring at, arguing over what the little picture drawings were.
"This is plainly one of the deer we saw down in the valley," Daniel showed her a stick figure, "and this is a bird, although it seems bigger than anything we've seen so far."
"Well, it's possible that the bigger birds migrate through here so they would only be present part of the year," she theorized.
"That could be," Daniel sounded pleased. "But what about this? I haven't seen anything like this." He was pointing to another drawing on his page.
"Me, neither," Carter shook her head at the drawing. "Teal'c?" She handed the sheet to the Jaffa.
"I have not seen a creature like this on this or any other planet, MajorCarter," he stated.
I leaned over and looked at the drawing. "Looks like a spider to me."
"A spider?" Daniel raised one eyebrow in his classic 'don't be a smart-ass, Jack' look.
"A really big spider," I realized in comparison with the deer and the birds, but then, who knew if these aliens could draw in perspective? "Well, it's got eight legs and long feelers, looks like a bug to me."
"Spiders aren't bugs, Sir," Carter started. "Actually, they're arachnids..."
"Ah!" I waved a finger. "Ah! Stop! I don't care whether spiders are bugs..."
"They're not, Colonel..."
"It doesn't matter. They are bug-ish, and that's good enough for me."
"Jack, I don't think that's a spider, though, the proportions are all wrong," Daniel insisted. "And when taken in context, if that's a spider, it's three times the height of those deer we saw."
"Maybe those are big deer." She pointed at the feelers. "Maybe those are poorly drawn antlers..." Carter suggested.
Daniel shook his head. "These drawings are thousands of years old, Sam. Maybe some of the artists were drawing fanciful, fantastic, imagined things." He pointed to another series of figures he'd copied. "See there are really big deer here, in this section of the carvings, but there are none later on. So maybe they weren't real, maybe they were just what these beings *wanted* to find when they went hunting."
"The Giant Elk God?" I smirked.
"The big deer could have existed, then have gone extinct," Sam interjected.
"Why would that have happened? The climate and plant life certainly seem suitable to support a population of large mammals." Daniel asked.
"Maybe the big spiders ate them all," I said smugly.
"Right, Jack," Daniel dismissed my suggestion.
I get no respect from these people, you know that?
-------------------
As we generally do when off world, we turned in early. Daniel took first watch, Teal'c relieved him, then Carter followed, while I was set for last watch.
I rolled out of my blankets two hours before dawn. Running a hand through my hair, I pulled on my boots and laced them quickly, shrugging into my jacket to ward off the pre-dawn chill. The air was cold enough I could see my breath as I stood outside my tent, stretching to work the kinks out of my back. Sleeping on the ground was *not* conducive to the comfort of 45 year old bones, I thought dismally as my back cracked.
Strolling over to the fire, I poured myself a cup of lukewarm coffee. "Major? Anything happening?"
"Quiet as a tomb, Sir."
I shivered. "Lovely choice of words, Carter."
"Sorry, Sir. But nothing's happening."
"Grab some rest then, Major."
"Thank you, Sir."
She retreated to her tent. I heard rustling for a couple of minutes while she settled in to her sleeping bag, and then the camp was quiet. I sipped my coffee and listened.
The first time I heard it I thought I was imagining things. The second, I figured it was the wind in the trees, but then, there wasn't much wind. Birds, or those bird-like things maybe, up in the trees. But I hadn't heard them any other night.
A whisper of sound, from the ground this time, coming from the area back along the trail. More rustling, sounds so slight I wasn't sure they were real.
I picked up my P-90 and stepped away from the fire, allowing my eyes to adjust to the darkness. Dawn was still quite a while away, the woods were pitch black, the dim light of the stars failing to penetrate the area under the trees.
Wshshsh.
Click.
I spun to face the noise. There was something out there in the dark. I backed up toward the camp. "Teal'c," I whispered softly. "Teal'c?"
His answer, from the far side of the fire where I assume he'd been kel no'reeming, was equally quiet. "Is there something wrong, O'Neill?"
"Something's out there."
In a split second he was standing at my side, senses alert, staring out into the night, his staff weapon clenched in his hand. "Have you seen anything?"
"No. But I can hear..."
Wshshshsh.
Click.
"Yes, O'Neill, I hear it, also."
"I'll wake the others." Quickly, I stepped back into the camp, scratching softly on Carter's tent, then the one Daniel shared with Farley. Within minutes, all three were standing beside Teal'c and me, peering sleepily out into the darkness.
We saw nothing, heard only an occasional wshshsh noise, and once in a while a 'click.'
The sky began to brighten, dawn was approaching. At last, the rim of the sun cleared the horizon, bathing the valley in light.
"Teal'c and I are going out to have a look around. The rest of you stay here,
and keep alert."
"Sir, is that wise? Splitting up?"
"We can't sit here in camp all day, Carter. We need to know what's out there.
It's just a short recon, and we'll keep our radio channels open."
I nodded at Teal'c. Carefully, rifle raised and at the ready, I led the way through the trees, the big Jaffa alert at my back. Cautiously, I worked my way down the trail, taking a step, pausing to look and listen, making slow but steady progress.
We saw nothing, heard nothing.
Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil, the thought trailed through my brain unbidden.
-------------
We found nothing unusual in the forest.
"All's quiet here in the woods, Carter," I whispered. "Proceeding toward the trail."
Feeling with each footstep, eyes raking right to left and back again, every muscle tense and alert, I stepped quietly out of the trees. Just before I set my foot on the dusty trail, I let my eyes glance down.
"Damn!" I muttered.
"O'Neill?" Teal'c inquired quietly.
"Tracks," I nodded toward the ground at my feet. There in the dust, atop our own boot prints from the day before were the tracks of... something. Oval prints, big oval prints, as big around as my outstretched hand. One here, one over there, widely scattered, four, maybe six feet apart, indicating a long stride, indicating something big. Oh shit. "I guess we're not alone in Paradise anymore, brother Teal'c."
Teal'c was beside me, kneeling to examine the tracks more closely.
I kept my eyes trained on the surrounding landscape, watching for any kind of movement.
My radio crackled softly. "Sir?" Carter's voice was low but plainly conveyed her worry. "What's happening?"
"We found some sort of...animal tracks, I guess. Big tracks," I answered.
"Very large, O'Neill, and quite heavy. See how deeply the print is embedded in the dust," the Jaffa pointed out.
I chanced a quick glance down at the mark he was studying. "I'll take your word for it. Got any idea what it might be?"
"It is difficult to tell," he said as he stepped forward to examine the next track. "The pattern is unusual. If it is an animal, it has no claws."
"Ah, that's good."
"Although many animals, like some of the felines of Earth, are able to retract their claws."
"Ah, not so good, then."
He shrugged. "I have never seen tracks such as these, O'Neill. I do not know what type of beast may have made them."
"Just full of answers, aren't you?"
"I do my best, O'Neill."
"I know you do, Teal'c. Always," I said softly.
The Jaffa continued to study the tracks, walking slowly while I kept one eye on him and the other busily scanning our surroundings. We advanced a few hundred feet, and then what I saw stopped me in my tracks.
"Ah, Teal'c, do you see what I see?" I nodded to my left.
The man from Chulak turned to look where I indicated, and saw what I'd seen.
One of those dozen or so big and honkin' rocks was tipped over, and appeared to have split open along the crack Carter's safe and effective tests had apparently caused yesterday.
"Ah, Carter, remember those big rocks with the big jagged cracks in them?"
"Yes, Sir," her voice sounded tinny coming through the radio.
"Well, one of them has fallen over and burst open."
"The rocks opened up?"
"Burst open, Major," I'd taken another six steps forward. "It was hollow inside, like a shell, with a big scooped out hole in the middle."
"Empty?" she asked, her voice sounding tight.
"Ah..." I looked at Teal'c, who shook his head no, so I stepped forward to look.
"Well, there's some stuff in there, like hair or something..."
"Like a nest, Sir?" I didn't like the tone I was hearing in her voice, not at all.
"Ah, yeah, you could say that, Carter." The hair on the back of my neck was suddenly standing up, my neck tingling with that awful feeling you get right before the shit hits the fan, you know the one I mean?
"Sir, I think you should get away from there..."
"Right, Major, I think we should all get ready to retreat to the gate. Keep one person on guard and start packing up your gear, only the most vital and..."
I didn't get to finish my order.
Wshshsh, click.
Loud and distinct this time.
Behind me.
Teal'c spun from his spot crouched down to study the rock nest thingy at the same moment I turned toward the source of the noise.
Oh shit.
The 'thing' stood there, ten maybe twelve feet tall, on eight long spindly, jointed legs. It's long, hairy antennae waved in the air in front of its 'face,' a part I could distinguish by the large, dinner plate sized eyes, which were staring straight at me. Under the eyes was a mouthlike thing, no lips but a slit from which a string of something thick and ropelike dangled wetly. Behind the bulbous head was a round and lumpy, sacklike body.
It looked for all the world like a supersized spider.
My mouth had gone suddenly dry.
"Teal'c, have I ever mentioned that I hate bugs?"
/************\
Part4
-------------------
For long moments, we stood staring at each other, big giant spider thing and small surprised humans, neither side moving, except, of course, for the creature's long thin antenna which were waving more and more frantically.
"O'Neill," Teal'c's voice was tense, his gaze focused completely on the spider, "I think it is contemplating some action."
I was staring at the thing over the sights on my P-90. "Because those antenna-feeler thingys are moving?"
"Yes. We should be prepared to retreat with all haste."
"Ya think?" I asked.
"I do, O'Neill," he said softly.
Keeping my eyes fixed on the creature, I leaned my chin towards my radio. "Carter?" I whispered. "Grab what you need, keep your weapons ready, and retreat toward the Stargate. Now. Go around the far side of the hill. Don't come this way. At the moment, we're eyeball to eyeball with a big honkin' spiderish thing that's damn near as big as your house, and no, I'm not exaggerating. It hasn't made any hostile moves yet, but ah, I don't think it's friendly. Teal'c and I are going to start a slow withdrawal now. See you at the gate, Major."
"Sir, we could meet you, provide more backup...."
"I said back to the gate, Carter. Now. We do *not* need anyone else wandering around out here. Go. And keep your eyes and ears wide open, Major. There could be more of these things."
"Yes, Sir."
The thing was still staring at me.
And then it blinked, a big huge eyelid sliding across the glittering all black impenetrable eye.
Two legs moved slowly forward, in unison, then the others, in pairs.
The one step brought it about four feet closer.
Too close.
Way too close.
I took a step back and another, standing side by side with Teal'c now.
One foot at a time, we backed away from the thing.
It started forward. Wshshsh. Click. The sound of eight legs sliding slowly through the grass, joints snapping. Wshshsh. Click.
We kept moving, Teal'c and I staying side by side, weapons trained on the creature, moving cautiously backwards while it followed, keeping its distance. Still, I had the distinct feeling that it was studying us as much as we were studying it, a tense Mexican standoff.
This was going to be one very long walk back to the gate.
After half an hour, we'd traveled only a couple of hundred yards. We were now on the far side of the cone-shaped hill we'd come to P4B to study. Carter had checked in once to tell me that the others were within sight of the gate, and would be waiting for us. That, at least, was one less thing I had to worry about. This was definitely not a time for distractions.
Still stepping slowly backward, Teal'c and I rounded a small grove of trees.
"O'Neill," the Jaffa's voice was quiet and low and I knew this wasn't good news. "There is another creature, in the trees to our right."
I flicked my eyes in that direction and saw the second spider emerge from the forest.
The creature following us stopped, one immense eye swiveling to look at the new arrival. Suddenly, it squealed, a high pitched screech like fingernails on a chalkboard, the kind of noise that sends shivers through every nerve in your body.
The other one answered, and came closer, their antennae waving wildly in the air.
As we retreated, they advanced, and now we were faced with a dilemma. The trail back to the gate led across an open meadow, a direct route but with no cover, and one that would take us to the right and very, very close to Spider 2. On the other hand, we could leave the trail and move to our left, a longer route, but it would put some distance between us and the second creature. Considering the way the two of them were hissing and squealing, maybe they'd even forget about us.
"That way?" I suggested.
"I concur," Teal'c nodded and we stepped back, off the path, and away from the spiders.
For a moment, they simply watched us through their gleaming huge eyes, and then they followed.
"Shit," I cursed. "Just keep walking, Teal'c."
We had gone about a hundred yards when it happened.
Without warning, a third spider charged out of the trees.
I honestly don't know where the hell it came from. I never saw it, just heard it hiss, heard the click-click of its legs and then in a flash of motion it was there. You wouldn't think such an awkward looking thing could move that fast, you'd think its legs would tangle up and trip it, but you'd think wrong.
Teal'c's staff weapon snapped and discharged behind me.
In front of me, Spider1 and Spider2 charged.
I emptied a clip into the nearest creature, Spider2 I think it was, though it doesn't matter. It screeched again, shook itself, and kept coming. Something thick and yellow and very, very putrid smelling was dripping out of the lumpy bulb of its body as I frantically changed clips. Lead spewed from the muzzle of my P-90, but that thing kept coming. They both kept coming, both squealing, as was the one behind me. The staff weapon discharged again, and I heard Teal'c shout "look out" and then the spider was on me.
I emptied the P-90 into the looming body, and the creature staggered and veered away from me, but it was the second one that got me.
One of the long antennae, not nearly so thin or whispy looking when seen up close, but thick and heavy like a rope as big around as my wrist slapped against my thigh.
Okay, so it wasn't very heroic, but I screamed, because the touch was like getting hit with a torch. I felt my skin sizzle and my nerves short out, my whole body spasming like I'd just been hit by a hundred thousand volts or something.
Nerve shattering pain raced up my leg and then it went numb, which was both a good and a bad thing, as it turned out.
I landed flat on my back, finding myself looking up at the open maw of the thing with saliva-like stuff leaking out in long wet ribbons. I tried to push myself back and away with my hands, but the antenna was swinging back at me. I grabbed for my knife, slashing at the appendage, getting another jolt up my arm this time that sent the weapon flying out of my suddenly numbed hand. At the same time, the spider reared up, screaming. I'd hurt it with the knife, and it was waving the slashed antennae high above it's head, fluid dripping
from it. A drop of the 'blood' splattered onto my chest, burning through my vest like acid and I writhed.
One of the eight legs reached forward, the end wrapping around my foot. I didn't feel it at first, being numb from thigh to toes, until I felt a hard jerk. The thing was backing up, dragging me by the leg, moving faster, my shoulders bouncing along the ground as it retreated across the meadow.
I heard Teal'c shout my name, heard his staff weapon discharging again and again, but the spider didn't stop.
I was sliding across the grass, going faster now, and I reached out to grab at anything, grass and rocks until my hand connected with a thick stemmed bush. I hung on, and the creature lost its grip on me, squealing in what sounded like frustration. I rolled over, scrambling away from the thing on hands and knee, dragging my useless left leg, unable to get to my feet because I still couldn't feel my left leg at all.
I'd only gone five or six feet when it hit me again.
Another blow from the intact antenna sent a shock wave of agony racing up my previously numb leg. Every nerve vibrated, not numb now, no, and I hollered in agony again. I rolled in the dirt, clawing at my holster for the 9mm. Even as I brought it up, slipped off the safety and poured shot after shot into the creature, it swatted me once more with the antenna.
Pain flared across my chest. For a moment, everything went dark. I was gasping for air, unable to breathe, numb from head to foot now. Oh, God, I was suffocating, not getting any oxygen, my heart hammering futilely, my lungs empty and desperate for air. I felt blackness swirling around the edges of my vision.
There must have been some sort of paralyzing agent in the sting from the creature's antenna.
Everything I had was concentrated on breathing, on drawing air into my lungs, a small breath, enough to beat back the darkness, a few precious molecules of oxygen reaching my bloodstream. Gasping, wheezing, I frantically sucked air into my lungs. Vaguely, I was aware of being moved again, of something dark hovering above me, of something tight and constricting wrapped around me, but I couldn't spare a thought for that, I needed every bit of willpower, of concentration and of stubborn will to force my lungs to work.
By the time I could breathe without all my conscious thought being focused on the process and I could think again, the creature was dragging me into the dimness of the forest.
It stopped.
The spider had one leg wrapped around my torso just above the waist, a second held my ankles. I struggled, twisting from side to side, trying to pull away. The legs tightened their grip until once again I was gasping for air. My arms were free and I pushed at the hard shell of the leg wrapped around my body. The spider didn't seem to notice, and it sure as hell didn't let me go.
Above me, its head tilted until one great eye could swivel around to look at me. Below the eye, its toothless mouth was working.
"Let go of me you oversized tarantula," I shouted. "Damn you! Let...me...go!"
I hammered at its legs with my fists. It didn't seem to notice. The eye was still fastened on me, the mouth still making those weird gulping motions and then the head began to drop toward me.
Oh crap.
Can you spell arachniphobia?
I did tell you I hate bugs, didn't I?
I struggled wildly, kicking with the one leg I could feel, twisting and thrashing in the thing's strong grip.
Oh God, I was going to be lunch for an eight-legged monster.
--------------
Part 5
-------------
The mouth descended, opened, and a long string of thick goop began sliding out.
Not eaten, slimed.
By the time I realized what the creature was doing, it was too late. A third leg moved forward, deftly wrapping the ribbon of sticky goo around my body. It was wrapping me up like a mummy, like a cocoon, oh shit, like a take out lunch. The stuff smelled so rancid I gagged, fighting for breath, wildly waving my left arm around, somehow keeping half of it, from the elbow down, mostly free of the tightening binding.
The spider, having its prey, me, now firmly bound, picked me up in its mouth and began hurrying away through the forest, carrying me like a dog that had just uncovered a bone.
The thing's movements were bouncy, a rolling gate like a camel, the motion making me sick, or maybe it was the smell or the whole idea of being wrapped up like a pig in a blanket that was making my stomach churn. I caught an occasional glimpse of my surroundings through the trees as we moved, but all I could tell was that we were moving in the general direction of the cone-shaped mountain.
Suddenly, the thing stopped, stooped lower and entered something, a cave or a hole, I couldn't tell, just that it was someplace dark, the air so rank and fetid I could hardly breathe.
And then the stinkin' monster dropped me.
Right on my head.
In the split second I realized what was happening, and knew I couldn't so much as reach out a hand to break my fall, I knew what was going to happen.
I hit the ground head first.
Good night, Jack.
//*****\\
**Teal'c**
I watched helplessly as the creature carried O'Neill away, unable to break away to assist him, surrounded as I was by the other two creatures. My staff weapon had proved ineffective in stopping, or even slowing the giant beasts, until, in the midst of the conflict, a chance blast struck one of the creatures in the eye.
It shrieked and fell back, digging at its smoking, charred orb with its front legs. Realizing that there was a way the spider could be harmed by my weapon, I turned to fire on the other. It was backing away, toward its wounded companion, making small soft hissing sounds, much like a parent trying to soothe an injured child. Side by side, the two creatures retreated into the forest.
I depressed the switch on my radio. "Major Carter?"
"Teal'c?" worry was evident in the tone of her voice. "What happened? Where are you? We're waiting at the gate..."
"We have encountered trouble, MajorCarter," I informed here. "We came upon two more of the creatures and they attacked."
"Are you and the Colonel okay?"
"I am unscathed, but one of the creatures injured ColonelO'Neill."
"What's your situation? How badly is he hurt?"
"I do not know, MajorCarter. The creature has taken him away."
"What?"
"While I was engaged in battle with two of the creatures, the third took O'Neill. At this moment, I am endeavoring to follow its tracks into the forest."
"Teal'c, we'll be there in fifteen minutes, no, make that ten..."
"I cannot wait. O'Neill was injured. He is in need of assistance."
"Teal'c, you can't go after those creatures without back-up."
"Indeed, Major, it would be difficult to both fend off the spiders and rescue O'Neill."
"Then wait for us, we're on our way now. Carter out."
-------------
**Daniel Jackson**
"What happened?" I asked, a sinking feeling in my chest. I'd overheard just enough of Sam's end of the conversation to be worried. After all, I was the one who'd dismissed Jack's suggestion that the spiders were real, and big.
"Teal'c and the Colonel were attacked by the spiders."
"Spiders attacked them?"
"There are at least three. And one of them injured the Colonel somehow and carried him away. We need to go meet Teal'c now."
We ran, eyes scanning the trail and the woods, looking for more of the creatures, but not spotting any. The minutes ticked by, and my mind was racing faster than my legs as we worried to rendezvous with Teal'c.
Spiders had what... had Jack been bitten? Run over? Stung? God, there were poisonous spiders on our world, deadly poisonous spiders. Teal'c apparently hadn't explained.
At last we arrived, in nine minutes, breathless and gasping for air after the double time run.
"Teal'c? What's the situation?" Sam asked.
The Jaffa was plainly worried. "I have followed the trail of the creature into the forest, but there are many tracks there, going in numerous directions. I was unable to determine which are the tracks of the creature that took O'Neill," Teal'c informed us. "However, it appears that the majority of the traffic is in the vicinity of the cone-shaped hill where you were conducting your studies."
"Then that's where we'll go," Sam stated.
//****\\
**Jack O'Neill**
Headache, oh yeah, big and honkin' headache.
Blood trickling down across my face, more dribbling out of my nose.
Crap.
I tried to roll over, couldn't, and remembered.
Slowly, I forced my eyes to open, well, the one that wasn't swollen shut at least.
Why can't I ever get a room with a view, huh? The light was so dim I could see very little, and I didn't much like what little I could see.
I was in some sort of dark, dank and damp hole in the ground, pretty big, maybe 20 by 20. There were more cocoon like things, just like the one I was at the moment, stacked up next to me. Across the 'room' sat my friend, the spider.
I felt very much like the fly, all trussed up in my own little spider-glop bubble. The first thing that dawned on my traumatized brain was that I was in really, really big trouble because good ol' Spiderman over there hadn't brought me down here for my health.
The only good news I could see was that, since he had other little packages all wrapped up like me, that just maybe the first thing on the menu wasn't going to be flyboy soup du jour.
So maybe I had time to get out of here. Like that was about to happen. That sticky rope stuff I was wrapped up in was strong, tough, and getting harder by the minute, like being encased in a plaster bodycast, accentuating the fact that my left leg wasn't exactly numb anymore. Nope, I could feel it swollen tight in my boot, really rather agonizingly tight when I thought about it, my whole leg, from toes to thigh was in fact throbbing with every
heartbeat.
Wonderful.
And that was just the start.
My arm was sort of tingly yet, where I'd been hit a glancing blow. My head hurt where I'd landed on it when my arachnoid friend had dropped me on it. My shoulders were bruised from where I'd been dragged across the ground for what, ten miles, fifteen? And my chest ached because it was difficult breathing encased in Spidey's hardened goo.
Of course, the good part of the shallow breathing was that it mitigated the smell somewhat.
Spidey was *not* a good housekeeper.
The place reeked of rotted something, what, I figured I *really* didn't want to know.
I closed my eye for a moment, trying to gather my scattered thoughts, trying to find something positive in this mess.
Well, I did have my left hand free. I scratched my thumbnail across the now shell-like cocoon that encased 90% of my body, and succeeded only in breaking off my thumbnail. So much for the idea of clawing my way out.
I shifted my weight a bit, not an easy task, trussed up as I was, trying to see if there might be anything I could reach.
Bad move.
When I moved, ol' Spidey noticed. He, she, it, whatever stopped whatever it was doing over there on the other side of its hideyhole and stalked back to stand over me.
Oh shit.
What if it decided to cover over the rest of me, like my nose and mouth? Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn.
The big bug was just hovering above me, staring at me once again with one eye, its head tilted sideways.
His one feeler, the one I'd chopped at with my knife, was held high above its head. The other one sank down towards me.
I tried to get away, tried to push myself away because I knew what that thing felt like and I really, really didn't want to feel that again.
Useless effort.
The long antenna reached out, ever so slowly and touched my leg, the left one, again.
Pain galloped along already raw nerves, leaping from synapse to synapse, racing through me like wildfire, like flowing acid. I writhed, my cocoon wrapped body sliding off the pile of other similar things, falling toward Spidey's feet.
The creature jumped back, it's injured antenna spilling drops of blood, I suppose you'd call it, you remember, the nice, acid stuff spraying across my spider silk wrapped legs.
So, yeah, I yelled a bit. You would, too. And then the numbness started again, the tingling, paralyzing so I couldn't breathe stuff.
Mr. Spider jumped back another step, stood staring, and suddenly lost interest and walked away. Maybe he thought this time I was dead, since I wasn't wiggling around any more. I didn't have the energy to wiggle, it took every ounce of energy I had to breathe.
Breathe, Jack, breathe.
Just...one...breath...please....God...
And everything went black.
-----------------
Part 6
-------------------
Odd crunching noises woke me, really gross, disgusting crunching noises.
Spidey was having lunch.
Not me, fortunately, but he was kneeling over a similar cocoon wrapped something only a few feet away from me.
I couldn't see what he was eating, thank God, but the sound of it, and the smell, were bad enough. I've got a pretty strong stomach, and I've eaten some pretty disgusting stuff myself a time or two, in training, in the field, in that stinkin' Iraqi jail. You can't be queasy and be in Special Forces. You'll die of starvation. I've eaten snakes and rats and bugs, but listening to that big honkin' bug eat, and smelling what it was eating, was too much.
I began to retch.
Bugman didn't like it.
Apparently, Spidey likes the food in his cupboard to be dead, and I wasn't cooperating to his satisfaction.
He hissed at me.
I couldn't stop my body's revulsion, especially when he stepped toward me and hissed again, blowing the putrid smell from his mouth into my face. Didn't help that I could see pieces of bone and grey-green rotted meatlike stuff flopping around in there. This bug needed some Altoids, a truck load of TicTacs, hell, a tanker truck full of Listerine.
My stomach turned inside out.
Spidey got pissed.
He reached over and swatted me with one of those long spider legs, throwing me across the room.
Oh shit.
The last thing I remember was my back smacking painfully into the wall.
//*****\\
**Teal'c**
We had advanced carefully through the forest, until we were once again within sight of the cone shaped hill. We found no further signs of ColonelO'Neill among the myriad of tracks.
"So how many of these spiders are there?" Daniel Jackson asked.
I shook my head. "We encountered three, but it is impossible to say if there are more."
"There are an awful lot of tracks here for only three creatures," Carter commented.
"That is true, MajorCarter, but three active beasts can make many tracks, even in a short time."
Lt. Farley was staring from one to another of the SG-1 team members. He appeared to be very worried. "Where did they come from?"
"I'd guess they were in the rocks..." Carter suggested.
"Like eggs?" Farley sounded incredulous.
"Probably. Our tests cracked the eggs and the spiders emerged."
"Or," Daniel was looking hard at Sam. "Or the 'rocks' contained babies, and when they hatched, Mom came looking."
"There were three of the spiders, DanielJackson," I reminded him.
"Okaaay, so Mom, Dad and Uncle Joe."
I nodded. "It is possible. The first two creatures we encountered did seem to recognize each other."
"So if there were existing adults here, where were they?" Carter demanded. "We didn't see any sign. And you didn't on your previous visit either, did you Lieutenant?"
Farley shook his head. "Not a sign of anything. Although, maybe the 'parents' were hibernating. In those holes in the mountain. And our tests woke them up."
"Oh boy," said Daniel softly.
//*****\\
**O'Neill**
This was getting really, really old, waking up in another uncomfortable position, my head hurting worse with each incident.
I didn't know how long I'd been unconscious this time.
The last thing I remembered was hitting the wall, and then nothing except odd, really odd, dreams about trying to climb up water spouts, and sitting on some weird thing Daniel called a tuffet while eating an MRE of curds and whey, whatever the hell that was.
I opened my eyes and saw nothing. Panicked for a moment, before I realized I was lying face down this time. Oh great. Lucky I hadn't smothered, though with the smell in this place it was still a distinct possibility. Especially since I was still having more than a bit of trouble breathing, partly due to the smell, but more so because of the awkward way I was lying. I was on my stomach, on top of my P-90 which was clipped to my vest and firmly wedged against my ribs. Bruised ribs, from falling on the useless thing. Useless because the clip was empty, well, doubly useless because the bullets hadn't done a thing to the creature anyway.
I bit my lip to contain a groan, because while I was having trouble thinking about much beyond the pounding in my head, I did know that I definitely did not want to attract my eight-legged buddy's attention again by making too much noise.
You are in trouble, Jack-man, I told myself sternly.
Yeahsureyoubetcha, I answered.
Bad sign, answering myself.
Bad all around.
Head hurt, leg hurt, arm hurt, ribs hurt, hurt all over.
Cold fingers, left hand numb.
Move the fingers, warm them up, grub around in the, ick, stuff/debris/dirt on the floor.
And touched something sharp.
"Ahhh," I caught myself before the sound got too loud.
Jesus, I can't buy a break. On top of everything else, I'd just cut my hand.
Cut my hand.
Cut.
My.
Hand.
Something sharp, there, beside my hand.
I groped with my fingers, carefully this time, and found the thing, a piece of bone I figured it was, though I couldn't move my head far enough to see.
Very cautiously, I felt along the sharp edges, finding a smoother place to grip the thing and then cautiously began digging at the spider-silk cement goo wrapped around me.
It was slow going, frustrating, chipping away at the stuff. My fingers began to cramp. Several times my hand slipped and I jabbed the sharp thing into my own thigh, although I had to admit I barely felt it since my whole left leg was already so inflamed and sore I couldn't even notice one more point of pain. Thoughts of nasty infections trailed through my brain, but that was the least of my worries. I'd have to still be alive a day or more from now for the infection to kill me. And since that was about as likely as snow in Miami
in July, I wasn't going to worry about the possibility.
I had enough to worry about now.
Dig.
Dig.
Dig.
I hadn't seen or heard anything from Spidey for quite a while. Hopefully, ol' Daddy Longlegs was enjoying his after-dinner nap. And wouldn't wake up hungry.
//*****\\
**Teal'c**
We had experienced no success in our search for any sign of Colonel O'Neill when MajorCarter found a solution.
"Teal'c, wait," she called out to me suddenly.
I stopped my march through the forest and turned to her. "Major Carter?"
"Teal'c, we've got to go back to our camp."
"What?" Farley asked.
Carter turned to him. "Lieutenant, we need the data we extrapolated from the underground radar images."
"Why?" Daniel was puzzled.
"Because we found a group of holes in the mountains, holes that could be caves where the spiders might be hiding.
"And what, we're going to go looking for them?" Farley asked.
I nodded. "We must find ColonelO'Neill, lieutenant."
"Look, one of those things carried him away hours ago. What makes you think he's still alive?"
"What makes you think he isn't?" Jackson countered quickly.
Farley looked from one to another member of SG-1. "Shouldn't we go back to the gate and go for reinforcements?"
"There is no time," I stated simply.
"We won't leave him behind," the Major insisted quietly.
"He wouldn't leave us," Jackson explained.
"Or you, lieutenant, he wouldn't leave if you'd been the one taken away by one of those creatures." Carter added. "So, let's get going."
//*****\\
Part 7
------------------
**O'Neill**
By the time I'd opened up a fair sized hole in the hard shell of the cocoon covering my left thigh, I'd also opened up a fair sized hole in my own leg, a rather steadily bleeding hole. Which, surprisingly, proved to be a good thing.
Bet you're thinking I've lost my mind, right?
Well, people have thought that before, and for good reason, but not this time.
Apparently, there's something about human blood and spider goo that's incompatible.
The blood did something to the spider silk. I'm sure Carter could give a scientific explanation of what was happening, how molecules of this reacted with molecules of that. All I knew was that wherever the blood touched the otherwise nearly impenetrable spider spit stuff, it softened enough that I could pull it away, like peeling back an eggshell.
The hard part was getting the blood where it needed to be to free my limbs. The human wrist isn't designed to bend in some of the directions I was trying to bend mine to get myself free.
I was making progress when a second problem reared its ugly head. My leg stopped bleeding.
Oh shit.
Why do I always have to do these kinds of things?
I dug around until I found the sharp piece of bone again, and, grimly gritting my teeth, sliced my thigh open again. Warm blood began to slide wetly, steadily, across my skin.
I smeared it on my fingers, spreading it across the hard cocoon that encased me, freeing myself bit by bit. I uncovered my legs and feet, a big area around my waist and chest, more of my left arm until finally I could wrench my whole arm loose.
Things moved faster after that.
At last, I was free.
Now, to escape ol' Spidey's lair.
//*****\\
**Teal'c**
Using Major Carter's printout of the pattern of underground caverns, we began our search in earnest.
I was deeply concerned about the fate of my friend and commanding officer. When we were trapped in the glider, and all hope appeared lost, I had called him brother, meaning it sincerely. O'Neill is a warrior I honor, a man I respect, a friend I cherish; a person I would be glad to truly have as my brother. We understand each other. Side by side, we have fought together now for many years, and I wish to continue to do battle against our mutual enemies, my brother at my side. I fear for his life. I heard his shouts of defiance, and pain, when the creature carried him away. I know him well, and therefore know the injury must have been severe or he would not have reacted so. The 'spiders' were large and vicious, perhaps even angry at us, if I can credit a beast with such emotion.
I do not think my commander and friend will fare well in the company of the creature.
We must find him soon.
-------------
The first cave we checked was empty.
The second had only a very small entrance, much too small for any of the spiders to enter.
The third had once been occupied by one of the creatures. It was littered with old bones and dried spoor but plainly had not been used in a lengthy period of time.
We hurried on to the next cave.
I feared time was running out for O'Neill. He is a strong and resourceful man, but only human, and thus, his body is frailer than his indomitable spirit.
//*****\\
**O'Neill**
Spidey was still napping, his lumpy head resting on his forelegs, his huge eyes closed. He was making a soft hissing noise, like he was snoring.
Maybe I could just slip past him, and out of his little hidey hole nest.
Cautiously, I shifted my hips and sat up.
Whoa.
Okay, so I was a little dizzy.
And a little loopy.
And a lot nauseous.
Blood loss, concussion, dehydration, exhaustion, and probably a few more things.
Oiy.
I closed my eyes again, leaning back against the damp cave wall, and rested for a few moments, subduing my rebellious stomach. After a few minutes, I carefully re-opened my eyes. Whew. Big improvement this time. Things pretty much stayed in place.
First things first.
Each movement careful and silent, one eye watching the snoozing arachnid, I dug the sterile dressing out of my vest pocket and wrapped the bandage around the still oozing wound in my thigh. Next, weapons. My P-90 wasn't going to help me at all. The clip was empty, and the others I'd had stuffed into the pocket of my BDUs were gone, fallen out when the creature had dragged me away across the meadow I suspected. I pulled my little hideout knife out of my boot and moved it into a more accessible place in my vest pocket.
Just those few movements had exhausted me. I closed my eyes again to gather my strength, to force myself to concentrate, to think.
Wound treated, weapon in place, time to move.
Problem.
My left leg was not responding to commands. I could feel a sort of tingling, vibrating pain, and an occasional sharper, shooting stab of pain when I shifted my weight, but the muscles were not answering my requests to move.
Crap.
Okay, so no walking out.
Crawling.
I can do crawling.
I slipped to my hands and one knee, and began sliding myself cautiously toward the cave's exit.
Hard to be silent, dragging one leg. Hard to move far and certainly not fast, when I had to carefully place one limb at a time, trying to avoid sharp bones, gobs of putrid smelling stuff, crumbs from some of Spidey's old meals, cocoons that contained the creature's future meals. Spiders, quite obviously, like dinner dead. Long dead. Fermented, to put it delicately. Just imagine the rest. Or maybe you shouldn't, if you're squeamish.
I crawled past a stack of other cocooned things, some of those deer-like animals we'd spotted out in the plains and over piles of their shattered bones. I was going to have to pass awfully close to my sleeping pal.
Inch by inch, I maneuvered toward the sleeping creature.
Suddenly, it moved.
Oh shit.
One leg shifted, another moved sideways, and I had to scramble backwards to avoid the thing inadvertently hitting me. My numb leg snagged on something, throwing my balance off, and I threw out an arm to steady myself. My hand bumped the pile of cocoons, and one of them slid off the stack and hit the ground.
I froze in place.
Spidey's eye opened, blinking sluggishly, the head turning slightly to look for the source of the noise.
I was barely breathing, afraid any small movement would attract it's attention, terrified the creature would hear the hammering of my adrenaline fueled heart.
Spidey's eye swiveled around, looking right at me, past me, moving back to look around, and then slowly, the huge eyelid slid closed.
Oh God.
I dropped my head down into the crook of my elbow, using the cloth of my jacket to muffle the sound of gasping as I sucked in lungful after lungful of air. That had been close, too close, way too close.
Once more, I began moving toward the bright spot that marked the way out of the cave. With a sigh of relief, I moved past the sleeping monster.
It was then I discovered another problem.
Spidey hadn't had any trouble getting in and out of his hideyhole.
But then, Spidey was more than a bit taller than me, and his legs were very, very long. Much longer than mine.
I wasn't sure if I could get myself upright to start with, what with my left leg being nothing more than a dangling weight. And even if I could stand up, the edge of the exit hole was at least three feet beyond my reach.
Shit.
//*****\\
Part 8
-------------------
**Teal'c**
We found the first spider in the fourth cave. MajorCarter carefully pointed the light of her P-90 into the ground opening, and recoiled, a look of disgust on her face.
"There's one in there, all right," she said quietly, wrinkling her nose. "And it reeks, like something died in there."
Daniel Jackson's face had a momentarily panicked look. "Like..."
"No," Major Carter answered him quickly. "Whatever is in there creating that smell has been dead quite a while. That's too much decay for the Co...for a....a.... fresh body. It takes days for an odor like that."
Jackson nodded. "So what do we do?"
"O'Neill could be in there," I stated.
"We can't tell from out here, I guess," Carter stated reluctantly.
"The smell is not so offensive to me, MajorCarter. Let me attempt to ascertain the contents of the cave," I offered. She nodded gratefully, and handed me her light.
I climbed to the opening, snapped the light on, and cautiously played the beam across the interior of the underground chamber. Bones. Debris. Something that looked like stacks of hardshelled containers.
A noise sounded from further back in the cave, an angry hiss, and I quickly raised the light. The bright beam blazed, reflecting off the huge obsidian eye.
The creature neither blinked nor moved.
"MajorCarter," I said softly.
She was immediately there at my shoulder. "Teal'c?"
"I believe the animal is mesmerized by the light. If I leave the beam pointed at it's eye, I am certain it will not move. You will have to use your light to check the rest of the cave."
"Right," she answeredd, and I heard her swallow convulsively, but she quickly snapped on another light, and carefully studied the remainder of the cave.
After long silent moments, she turned the light off. "Nothing. If the Colonel's in there, I can't see any sign."
"Good, then," I stated softly. "Withdraw, and we will move on to the next cave."
While I kept the light trained on the beast's eye, she backed away to rejoin the others. I turned off my light, and retreated hurriedly. The spider hissed repeatedly, but did not come out of the cave.
"Okay. On to the next. That way," Major Carter pointed further up the hill.
//*****\\
**O'Neill**
I slumped against the cave wall, defeated. I couldn't reach the exit. Damn. Double damn. Damn.
Spidey shifted, but the eye did not open this time. Instead, the critter seemed to sink down lower, as if snuggling deeper into sleep.
Fat lot of good that was going to do me, if I couldn't find a way out of here.
I turned to examine the wall, desperately seeking a way out.
There, a tiny knob of rock protruding from the wall. That could act as a handhold, maybe. Not much, but something.
First, I had to get to my feet, er, foot, since my left leg was not going to be helpful in any way. Carefully, I pushed myself up off the floor, onto one knee, then straightened slowly, balancing on my right leg. The little rocky knob was still a foot or so above my reach.
I pulled the small knife out of my vest pocket, digging a little pocket in the wall about two feet above the cave floor, another about four feet up, a third about six feet up, and the final as far up as I could reach. Switching the knife to my left hand, I reached as high as I could and thrust the blade all the way to the hilt into the wall of the cave. Grunting in concentration, I dragged myself up off the floor in a one handed pull up.
My right hand clawed at the little knob, and found a grip.
Right hand pull-up this time, my right toe digging at the wall, searching for the little step I'd made.
Clawing, digging and pulling, I maneuvered up the wall until my left hand gripped the edge of the exit.
One more pull and I'd be out.
Arms shaking with exhaustion, I took a deep breath and summoned up the last of my strength for one final effort.
//*****\\
**Teal'c**
The next cave contained another creature.
Unprovoked, it attacked the moment it sensed our presence.
Even as we walked toward the cave, perhaps the vibrations of our footsteps giving away our approach, the spider emerged from its underground hole, emitting a highpitched whine that was painful to one's ears, antennae weaving wildly in the air, hissing.
I raised my staff weapon. Beside me, the three humans raised their P-90's in unison, the loud rattle of the Earth weapons chattering as my weapon snapped and discharged, the blast hitting the beast in the eye.
It shrieked, but to my surprise, it continued its charge.
I shot it again and again, severing a pair of legs, unable to hit the other eye as the creature flung its head around in random, frantic movements.
"Concentrate on its legs!" MajorCarter shouted the order, and a hail of bullets cut across the creatures remaining limbs, knocking aside the legs on its left side, the beast toppling to the ground, still crawling forward, the whining, keening noise it was making increasing in volume and pitch. I fired a finishing blast to the beast's head, and the noise stopped.
I could hear Daniel Jackson's ragged breathing, Major Carter's gulping breaths, and Lt. Farley's mumbled chant, "Oh god oh god oh god oh god."
And from the cave, I heard more noises. I turned on my flashlight and carefully waved the light down into the hole. Inside was a seething mass of smaller spiders, each one about the size of a large Earth dog.
Retreating hastily, I fired a blast at the rock above the cave entrance, a landslide of dirt and stone raining down on the cave's entrance, entombing the creatures.
"Teal'c?" Carter was staring at me.
"Juveniles, dozens of them. That is why the beast attacked so aggressively."
"It was protecting its young?"
I nodded yes.
"But what about Jack?" Dr. Jackson inquired.
"If ColonelO'Neill was inside that cave, he was beyond our assistance, DanielJackson."
His face went pale.
And then I heard a noise, faint, but familiar, a sound quite like Colonel O'Neill's voice, raised in anger or fear or horror, coming from several hundred yards away across and up the hill.
------------------
Part 9
--------------------
**O'Neill**
My hand had just reached up over the lip of the exit when the noise began, a familiar noise, the chatter of P-90's and the snap of a staff weapon.
Unfortunately, I wasn't the only one who heard it.
Spidey heard it, too, of course.
I heard him hiss behind me.
Sheer terror pumped another gallon of adrenaline into my flagging muscles.
I pulled myself up once more, up and over the edge of the cave, out into the fresh air and sunshine, tumbling and sliding and skidding uncontrollably down the rocky hillside.
Spiderman was right behind me.
//*****\\
**Teal'c**
"Quickly! We must hurry!" I cried, and began running with all haste across the mountain. In a moment, I saw O'Neill, and one of the great eight legged creatures moving toward him. "O'Neill!" I shouted.
//*****\\
**O'Neill**
My precipitous slide down the hillside ended with a jolting, bone-jarring collision with a tree. My left shoulder hit first, followed by my head snapping back and things going all gray and wobbly.
Oh man, my head hurt.
I wanted to lie there and die.
And then I remembered that oversized bug coming down the hillside after me.
Groaning, I opened my eyes, bright sunlight sending spikes of pain through my aching head.
I heard him coming, hissing, clicking, wshshshing.
Pushing myself off the ground with shaking arms, I turned to face Mr. Spider, armed only with the small knife I still clutched in my hand.
And then I heard the most blessed sound in the whole world.
"O'Neill!" Teal'c's shout echoed across the mountainside, hell, maybe it only echoed inside my addled brain.
Teal'c's staff weapon fired, the charged bolt flashing over my head at Spidey, hitting its mark.
Spidey's hiss turned to a shriek, but he kept coming.
Bullets whipped through the air over my head. Ah, Carter then, maybe even Daniel and Farley, I thought distractedly.
Daddy Longlegs wasn't stopping. Thirty yards away, twenty, ten.
Teal'c's staff weapon sparked and spat a stream of energy at and into the creature.
With a high-pitched wail it reared up, legs waving, then crashed to the ground, thrashing in its death throes. A hard-shelled jointed leg whipped against my hip, knocking me head over heels, and then, quite suddenly, everything went dark and silent.
//*****\\
**Teal'c**
I feared we were too late. I saw my shot stop the creature, but in its final frenzy, its leg struck the downed form of the Colonel, flinging him further down the hillside.
"Jack!" Daniel Jackson shouted, dashing toward the spot from where O'Neill had disappeared.
MajorCarter and I were just a step behind the archaeologist as he reached the Colonel.
The Tau'ri leader, my friend, was not moving, lying slumped against a boulder. There was blood matted in his gray hair, more soaking his torn left pant leg, and yet more dried on his face and left hand.
Dr. Jackson slipped to his knees beside O'Neill, gently rolling the man over, placing a hand against the grime-covered neck, checking for a pulse. "He's alive!" the scholar stated gratefully, wiping blood off the too-pale face. "Jack?" he asked softly.
A pained grimace crossed the still face, and the brown eyes opened slowly, rolling, unfocused. "Hmmmm."
"Easy," Jackson soothed.
The eyes were glazed, the ragged breathing easing even as we watched. "Wh--?" Suddenly, O'Neill snapped upward, pushing at the archaeologist, frantically trying to sit up. "Spider. Spiders!!"
"Whoa, Jack. Easy. It's okay. The spider is dead. You're safe."
"Bugsy's dead?"
"Yes. Dead."
"Dead? Sure?"
"Yes, we're sure."
The brown eyes slowly sank closed, then snapped open again. "More, there were more..."
"We are safe for the moment, O'Neill," I promised my commanding officer. "We have slain one other of the beasts, and left another trapped in its lair."
"Safe?"
"Yes, for the moment we are safe, O'Neill. But we should retreat to the Stargate as soon as possible," I suggested.
"That's an understatement," said Farley, who was standing, gun still raised, eyes still studying the landscape.
"Colonel," Carter was kneeling beside our team leader, offering him her canteen as Daniel kept his shoulders raised. He drank greedily, then sank back with a sigh.
"Thanks," he said softly.
"Sir, you've got a nasty bump on the head here, and cuts on your leg and hand. Are you injured anywhere else?"
His chuckle surprised them. "Anywhere else?" The chuckle stopped abruptly as he coughed and gasped for air. "Sorry, my ribs aren't up to laughing."
"Okay, then, sore ribs, too. Broken?"
Eyes closed, he shook his head slightly. "Bruised."
"Can you walk, then, Sir, if we help?"
"Ah, that would be a no, Major," he answered very matter of factly.
"Sir?" worry clouded her voice as she frowned.
"My leg. It's all numb. Can't move it. Spidey stung me," he explained.
"We'll rig a stretcher, then, Sir." Carter raised her glance to mine, and I nodded.
Quickly, I moved to the edge of the woods, ever alert for more creatures, but seeing nothing. I used my staff weapon to blast a pair of small trees, creating a pair of six foot long poles. Carrying them back to the spot where Dr. Jackson and Major Carter waited with O'Neill, the Major used her knife to trim off the small branches. I utilized my own jacket and that of Dr. Jackson to create the sling part of the stretcher, and gently we eased Colonel O'Neill onto it.
The Major and the Lieutenant provided their blankets to cover the Colonel as Lt. Farley took one end of the stretcher, and I took the other, and we began the long walk back to the Stargate.
Somewhere during that walk, O'Neill lapsed into unconsciousness.
We could not rouse him when we reached the gate, and so it was with great trepidation that we carried him into the wormhole.
-------------------------
Three days have passed since our return, and O'Neill remains gravely ill. Doctor Fraiser and her medical staff have remained vigilant around the clock, but the wound on O'Neill's thigh is badly infected. His temperature remains very high, and his breathing is labored.
Though strong medications keep him sedated and ease the pain, so the doctor explained to me, he seems uneasy and uncomfortable.
I have remained here at his bedside throughout the long nights. Though I am unable to do anything to assist him or ease his pain, I feel that he knows he is not alone, and that knowledge gives him some small comfort. It is all I can do for my friend, and I do it gladly.
Even as I watch, Dr. Fraiser is here to check on him. She speaks soothing words and moves gently. Her touches are soft as she goes about her medical tasks, her face expresses worry and weariness, but she does not allow those feelings to affect her work.
The Colonel and the Doctor have an interesting relationship. Though she and O'Neill most often exchange words that seem sharp or cutting, I have come to understand that these exchanges merely hide the respect and trust that underlies their friendship.
"Teal'c, you should rest."
"As should you, Dr. Fraiser."
"I've had a few hours sleep..."
"And I have performed kel'noreem while I await O'Neill's awakening," I say
softly.
"It will be a while yet, Teal'c, I'm afraid." She turns to glance at her patient. "He's fighting it but this is a virulent infection. Our drugs can only slow the rapid growth of the infectious organisms, the Colonel has to be strong enough to beat them back."
I nod. "O'Neill is a warrior, he will never concede defeat."
Her smile is tired, and she sighs softly. "No, he won't give up or give in, that I know. We just have to help him hang on long enough to beat this." Gently, she uses a damp cloth to wipe the sweat from O'Neill's face and brow. Though not awake, he turns instinctively toward the comforting feel of the soft cloth. "You hold on, Colonel. Hear me?" She smoothes the blankets that cover him and checks the monitors one more time before turning to me. "I can stay with him for a while, if you'd like to take a break," she offers.
"Thank you, Dr. Fraiser, but I shall remain." I lift the book that is sitting on my lap. "I have been reading to him. The sound of my voice seems to soothe him..."
"Yes," she nods. "It's been shown that even comatose patients respond to familiar voices. What are you reading?"
"The book was a gift from O'Neill. It is called the Joy of Fishing," I tell her solemnly. "It is a book he said I would enjoy."
She smiles again, and pats my arm. "It doesn't matter what you read, Teal'c, it only matters that you are here."
I nod, and smile, and a look of understanding passes between the tiny Earth woman and myself.
//*****\\
**O'Neill**
I don't remember the last few hours I was on that planet. I was peacefully unconscious at the time, a blessing considering how many places on my body hurt.
Things didn't get much better once we reached the SGC. I have vague, scattered memories of Doc calling my name, of her shouting orders to her medical staff, of being wheeled through the corridors and to the infirmary, and then it all went dim and hazy.
For days and days.
Remember that infection thing I wasn't worried about?
I should have been.
Doc says I nearly died.
Fever of 105 and spiking above it; difficulty breathing; fluid filled lungs.
I don't remember any of *that,* thank God.
I do remember my teammates, though, being there every time I surfaced: Daniel, Sam, Teal'c, Doc, even the General a time or two. Lots of worried looks, exhausted faces, and encouraging words. I complain a lot about Doc and her medical staff but when a man needs 'em, they are the best. Don't get me wrong, I don't like much of what they do, but the results are generally pretty positive. Hell, they've kept me alive through a crisis or two. Or
eight or ten or twelve.
----------------
I'm feeling pretty good now, good enough to be up and out of bed, to complain about the food and the lack of privacy and mostly the boredom. But I'll be going home soon.
Before I go, though, I'm going to call the exterminator.
I don't want to see a single, solitary spider anywhere in my house.
I don't think my heart could take it.
-------------------- The End-----------
To be posted June 14: the Sequel to Flyboy Soup: Strays