Oondalagnadak

part 3/4

It was the fourth night out for the Colonel and his kids. They'd left the foothills behind earlier in the day and were pulling the travois across the rolling, open ground of the barren plain, making good time, tired as they were.

Night fell, or what there was of it. The moons were extremely bright, lending a stark but strong light to the landscape, shadows standing out in harsh relief.

They walked on for hours. Jack was tired. They all were. He hadn't had more than an hour's uninterrupted sleep since they'd left the village. His eyes were gritty with fatigue, his legs weary, his hands cut and blistered, his head aching with that constant hum that only a decent amount of sleep could clear from one's brain. Soon, he promised himself. His team was going to win this damn silly contest, deliver their 'fodder' and SG-1 could go the hell home.

Blame it on the exhaustion, the poor lighting or just plain carelessness, he didn't know.

One minute, Team O'Neill was slogging along peacefully, the next, chaos.

Dark figures darted silently from behind a sand dune.

The Colonel, lulled by the quiet and his weariness, reacted too slowly. Something hit him, hard, in the back, driving him to his knees with a grunt of pain, the air whooshing out of his lungs. "Look--" his shout of warning was cut off by the surprising blow. He pushed away, staggering toward his feet, turning to face his attackers.

Little people. Natives.

One of the other teams.

He heard the others, his boys, shouting, a scream cut off in mid-yell, the sound of blows. Frantically, O'Neill swung the bamboo-tree trunk he'd been using as a walking stick, sweeping one of the enemy off his feet. A looping punch knocked another backward even as Jack went down hard himself, his back spasming painfully. Scrambling to his feet once again, he lunged upright, a kick staggering a third attacker who stumbled backward, and fled.

As suddenly as they'd appeared, the ambushers were gone.

Gasping with every breath, Jack stumbled toward a still form lying near their precious cargo. Homer. The boy was lying facedown, blood glittering in his matted hair. "Damn," muttered O'Neill, dropping to his knees and gently rolling the unconscious native over onto his back. He was breathing, thank God. Jack tore a strip from his shirt, using the makeshift bandage to apply pressure to the wound.

"Homer? Come on, kid," Jack whispered as he tried to stem the blood. The others were gathering around, their eyes huge, their voices high pitched and anxious. The Colonel placed a hand on Homer's neck, feeling for a pulse, or at least where he thought the pulse should be, relieved to find it. He smiled, the expression seeming to calm the others. "He's breathing, he should be okay," Jack tried to reassure them. He looked carefully at each of the others. "Anyone else hurt?" he asked instinctively, before remembering they couldn't understand him. He looked each one over carefully. "Well, you all look okay. Good. Come on. We've got to get him on one of the travois. We'll load the stuff onto three and give him the fourth."

With a sigh of relief that they were all okay, O'Neill felt the adrenaline and the energy it had brought suddenly leaching out of him. Putting his right hand out to steady himself, Jack drew one leg forward, pushing himself upright. A sudden intense pain flared across his back, agony so sharp he hissed in pain, dropping down to all fours, staring at the group, dizzy and feeling very weak.

Behind him the boys were chattering worriedly.

He flinched when a gentle hand touched his back, below his left shoulder toward the middle of his back. Alfalfa, a grim expression on his face, knelt down beside the Colonel, and brought his small hand forward. It was smeared with red blood.

"Oh crap," O'Neill moaned. In the melee, he hadn't had time to feel anything, but now, as the adrenaline dissipated from his body, the wound was starting to throb. He closed his eyes, rocking back on his haunches, trying to contain the pain that was building steadily.

In a moment, Alfalfa was back, tapping him on his good shoulder. Jack opened his eyes, managed to get them focused long enough to paste a hopefully reassuring smile on his face. He licked lips gone suddenly dry. "I'll be okay," he mumbled.

The boys did not look reassured.

Alfalfa looked at O'Neill, then pointed ahead to a cluster of rocks along the trail, and spoke in his native tongue.

"I don't understand, damn it," Jack was hurting too much to be diplomatic.

The boy again pointed, pointed at Jack, at Jack's back, and ahead to the rocks, and spoke a long string of words.

"There's help there? Water? Medicine?"

Alfalfa nodded. Water was a word he understood. The small hand again gently touched O'Neill's wound, then made a circular motion Jack didn't understand.

O'Neill shook his head again. "I don't know what you're trying to say, but I know staying here's no good." Gathering his strength, the Colonel again started pushing himself to his feet. This time, five sets of small hands helped him, steadying him, and he managed to get erect, shakily.

Well, it's wasn't much like boogieing, Jack soon realized. The best he could manage was an awkward shuffle forward, one small Orphradine youth helping him, the others struggling to pull the three travois filled with fodder and the fourth bearing Homer, who was still unconscious. Even the shambling slow motion movement O'Neill could manage kept up with the struggling boys.

They kept casting anxious glances back at him, and he tried not to let them see how much he was hurting. It wasn't easy, when every step was an effort, when every breath made him want to sink down to the sand and curl up and moan. He wasn't going to let the pain win. He wasn't. He was Jack O'Neill and he had a job to do and by God, he was doing it.

Jack looked up. They'd been walking for an eternity, and the rocks didn't seem any closer. Okay, he knew it was probably an hour, two at most, but it seemed like forever.

Dawn arrived, not that there was much difference between the bright light of the multiple moons and the early morning sun. The sun, however, brought heat.

Damn. They were moving so slowly, and his energy, already sapped by the long ordeal of the test, was flagging fast.

Jack didn't know how he got on his knees, he just felt the sudden impact of the ground against his kneecaps, jolting his back, a small cry of pain escaping his lips before he could clamp his teeth shut.

Quickly, a small face was there in front of him, eyebrows raised in question, the alien's expression tight with worry. A small hand reached out to touch his face. Then another hand was there, holding his canteen in front of him, and gratefully, he sucked down swallow after swallow of water. Four scowling faces surrounded him, eyes dark with concern, high pitched voices turned low, four pairs of hands patting his hair gently. He didn't need to understand the words to know they were offering comfort. Small comfort, but all they had, and he was grateful.

He stayed on his knees for what he guessed was five minutes, and then forced himself to his feet. They had to go on.

Again, his teammates helped him up, one staying by his side, the others returning to the heavy work of towing the loaded travois.

They made it all the way to the rocks this time. There was a tiny amount of shade there, under a scattering of stunted trees, and the others wedged Homer's travois into the sheltered spot, pushing O'Neill down to sit beside him. Then Giraffe started climbing up on the rock while Alfalfa took O'Neill's canteen and refilled it at a tiny spring-fed pool.

Jack drank more of the cool water and tried to get Homer to drink some, dribbling the fluid onto the boy's cracked lips. Homer swallowed instinctively, so Jack continued giving him small amounts.

Jack was sitting with his right shoulder leaning against the warm rock, eyes closed, resting, when Alfalfa called his name. "Chak?"

O'Neill opened his eyes slowly, nodding at the boy who was holding the gourd. Alfalfa motioned for the tall man to lie flat. Groaning with the effort, Jack shifted around until he was prone on the ground, the remnants of his shirt pulled away from his shoulder.

Alfalfa pantomimed placing the stuff on O'Neill's back, then grimaced fiercely.

"Guess that's some sort of medicine, is it?" Jack looked at the boys, all but one crowded around him now. "And that face means it hurts? Oiy."

Chandler pulled off his own shirt, folding it like a pillow for O'Neill to place his head on it. As the Colonel did, the native placed a gentle hand on Jack's head. "Omda omid adabba, Chak. Tolonga portan ooliega. Umdala, Chak, umdala."

"I wish I knew what you were saying, kid," Jack muttered.

"Omda elka ramda. Umdala, Chac."

"Umdala to you, too, kid."

A hand touched his back, near the wound, Alfalfa muttering comforting noises. The other boys began humming. Then something wet and slimy touched the wound. It stung a bit.

Chandler's hand continued to stroke O'Neill's gray hair.

"Hmmm," it stung more than a bit, actually. A lot more. "That, ah, that hurts boys. I think that's enough. Really. That's enough!"

Chandler pushed O'Neill's head back down. "Umdala, Chak, umdala."

Jack squirmed, felt warmth and heat growing on his back. It hurt, burned, HURT. "Arrrgghhh!" What had they done? Maybe this stuff was okay for these locals, but human skin was sensitive, not like their pebbly multi-colored skin. Another wave of agony raced through him, like acid eating through his tissues. O'Neill hollered wordlessly, arching up off the ground, Chandler futilely trying to hold the wounded man down as he writhed.

Jack bit his lip holding in the scream. His skin was on fire, he wanted to roll onto his back to put out the flames, but five pairs of hands held him. He moaned, breathing hard, gulping for air, couldn't seem to get enough as the blackness swept in, and O’Neill lost the battle.

The tall human went limp.

The five small figures chattered worriedly, then four of them curled up next to the tall, pale man, and the other went to stand watch.

-----

He awoke shivering. Funny, he'd never been cold on this planet. It was always hot here. Of course, maybe it was all just a dream and he was really sleeping in his grandparent's cabin up in Minnesota, the snow outside piled halfway to the rafters. That was a pleasant thought, and O'Neill drifted with it for several minutes, recalling the soft sighing of wind in the trees, the sight of quarter-sized snowflakes drifting slowly to the ground, piling up in ever growing drifts. He was tucked into the warm bed in the loft, Grandma's old quilt wrapped tightly around him for warmth. He could almost smell the heavenly scent of bread baking, hear Grandma humming as she worked in the kitchen.

His eyes snapped open. It wasn't Grandma humming, it was an alien boy, four of them, actually, curled up asleep around him.

Around him, sleepy eyes opened, stared around; alien voices began chattering desultorily.

He tried to get to his feet, but they pushed him down.

None of them showed the slightest interest in moving.

"How long did I sleep?" No one answered. "How much time have we lost?" He pointed up into the sky, waved his arm like the sun moving. He still had his watch but he had no idea when they'd arrived here, and he knew only that his watch didn't correlate with local time anyway, so it wasn't much help in finding out if they were too late to reach the finish line with the fodder.

The boys stared at him, then looked at one another, confused.

Suddenly, despite the alien cast of their faces, he recognized that look. They'd given up. Quit. Thrown in the towel. Called it a day. Conceded.

Well, damn, he wasn't going to. Quit was *not* a word in his vocabulary.

"We can't quit," he shouted at them. Staggering upright, slapping away their hands, he stumbled over to the pool, dipping handfuls of water to wash across his face, then drinking deeply of the cool fluid. O'Neill checked Homer, found the boy still breathing, deeply asleep, but with no apparent fever. "Come on. We've got to go. Now. Get up! Move!" he ordered.

They sat on the ground, staring up at him.

"Damn you, don't you dare give up on me," O'Neill shouted. "You can't. I won't let you. I'm not going to die out here and neither are you!"

He lifted the travois bearing Homer, one-handed with his right hand. He somehow managed to fasten his other hand around the second pole, biting his lip to suppress the cry of pain as the weight settled against his pain-wracked shoulder, and stumbled forward.

Behind him, O'Neill could hear the boys whispering, arguing, Alfalfa's voice suddenly rising, and then he heard running feet, and Alfalfa was there, taking the one pole away from him, then both, taking the load.

Jack stopped, sagging, leaning forward with his right hand resting on his knee, his left hand clutched to his chest, fighting to control his breathing and his thundering heart and the trembling in his legs. He wasn't even ready to tackle the pain that was shooting up his back, neck and shoulders.

From the corner of his eye, he saw the others gather together, pick up the travois poles, and begin dragging the loads of fodder forward.

Relief staggered him, and he barely managed to keep his feet.

They were moving.

They still had a chance.

--------

The rest had helped the boys. The native medical treatment, excruciating as it had been, had sure as hell helped O'Neill. If he moved carefully, steadily, not jarring anything, the wound on his back was reduced to a steady throbbing ache, nasty, but controllable. So that's what he concentrated on, putting one foot in front of the other, moving forward, following his team.

They could see the city walls now, far in the distance. But even as O'Neill made that realization, he realized something else.

It was getting dark.

For the first time since they'd been out here, the sun was setting and neither of the moons were yet above the horizon.

Darkness meant predators.

O'Neill raised his head and saw the terror filled eyes of the boys. They knew.

Once it got full dark, the beasts would come.

And after six days and nights of fasting, they'd be ravenously hungry.

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go on to part 4