Part of a story
Okay, I wrote this opening bit of a story and went no further. It stalled out. I didn't know what happened next and really had no plan. I might come back to it some day, but until then, I figured I'd might as well post it here for laughs.
“Okay,” McKay said as he gazed out over the open space. “This not good. This is so not good.” He glanced to Sheppard. “You sure this is the right place?” He twirled a finger. “Because, you know, you get lost sometime.”
Sheppard groaned, “It’s the right place.” He pointed. “There’s the bridge.”
“What’s left of it,” Ronon grumbled.
“It could be another one,” Rodney tried hopefully, craning his neck this way and that to see along the canyon. Around them, the ground was rocky and bare and the wind blew. “We might have just happened upon the ‘bad’ one.” But his expression wasn’t confident and he sighed as he stepped further away from the abyss.
“I believe this is the only one,” Teyla informed.
Ronon stepped closer to the dropoff, until his toes were over the canyon’s edge.
Rodney watched him with an uneasy expression. “If you fall, I’m not going to…”
“I’m not askin’,” Ronon responded.
With a harrumph, McKay went on, insisting, “There might be another bridge. The ‘good’ one might be just up the trail a bit.”
“You weren’t calling it a ‘good’ bridge when we crossed it the first time,” Sheppard reminded. “Seem to remember some other words being used at the time.”
“‘Unstable, totally unsafe piece of crap’,” Ronon recapped.
“I believe stronger words were used at the time,” Teyla added.
Rodney frowned, and gestured to the gap and the dangling remains of wood and rope. “Okay, fine, so this is the same bridge. How long have we been gone? An hour? Two? And in that time it just fell down? Doesn’t this just prove everything I was saying earlier?”
He did have a point. Sheppard watched as Ronon leaned rather far over the edge.
“And to think, we were just walking on that bridge,” McKay continued. “I could have fallen! Well, we all could have fallen, but it would have been worse for me because I get this problem with vertigo.” He fluttered a hand. “The rest of you would have performed some incredible Indiana Jones stunt and saved yourselves. Me? I would have plummeted.” His voice grew soft as his gaze traced the imagined trajectory. The distance to the ground was substantial. “Would have just plummeted,” he repeated.
“Yeah,” Sheppard responded. “That’s how I see it, too.” He glanced to Ronon. “What the hell happened to the bridge? Why did it fail?”
Ronon, as if eager for that question, dropped to his haunches to examine what was left of the ropes - only frayed cords remained at their side. On the far side of narrow canyon, they could see the better part of the bridge draped down the cliff.
Sheppard grimaced. Yes, only hours earlier they had crossed the thing - McKay complaining all the way about the danger presented by the thing. The instability of the thing put McKay on edge, and he’d whined about the way the thing pitched and swayed with each of their steps - the bridge pitched and swayed more after his comments.
And now the bridge was gone. Sheppard and Teyla exchanged uneasy glances as they glanced into the meager pine forest that backed them. Ronon remained tense, alert as he examined the ropes.
Rodney shifted from one foot to the other, eager to be out of this place, muttering, “Oh you know what he’s going to find! Someone cut those ropes.”
Ronon nodded, picking up one of the severed cords. “Yeah,” he said. “Looks that way.”
“Really?” McKay squeaked.
“Cut through it with an axe or something,” Ronon said with a nod. He stood, dusting his hands on his pant legs. “We’ll have to walk around.”
“Yeah, right. It’s about 30 kilometers if we were to follow the rim,” McKay muttered.
Ronon shrugged. “Got a better plan?”
“Wait for Atlantis to send a jumper,” McKay shot back.
“We’re not expected for another day,” Sheppard pointed out. “We were supposed to stay in the village for the night. Nobody expected the town to be empty.”
Teyla sighed softly, stating, “It is unlike the Monomoy to abandon their city without reason. There was no sign of the Wraith.”
“And now this,” Sheppard added, frowning at the broken bridge.
Ronon nodded in the direction of the rim trail. “We got to move.”
“Yeah,” Sheppard replied, not liking this at all. No matter what they did, they’d be sitting ducks - either wait here, or travel along the only alternative path to the Gate.
Moving was better than staying still.
Of course they could hide out somewhere and wait. Certainly they could find a defensible stronghold. The memory of the empty town haunted him. This was not a good place to sit still.
“Let’s go,” he declared and started making his way along the edge of the canyon with Teyla right behind him.
“Wait, wait…” McKay called, steadfast in his place. “You’re not seriously thinking of walking around, are you? Did you remember that I said it was about 30 kilometers?”
“Heard you,” Sheppard told him.
“That’s about 19 miles,” McKay pointed out.
“More like… 18.6,” Sheppard informed.
“Whatever, look. It’s a long way and… I have the wrong sort of socks on for…” McKay continued, and winced when he felt the heavy clamp of Ronon’s hand on his shoulder.
“McKay,” Sheppard growled.
“Need I point out that whoever hacked apart the bridge has probably staked out the route ahead of us.” McKay’s voice ended in a bit of a squeak as Ronon gave him a shove in the direction of the others.
Without pausing, Sheppard responded, “Yeah.”
“They’re probably the same people who scared away the natives,” McKay spoke as he started to follow. “Who the hell are they, huh? Have we been able to figure that out yet?”
“No,” Ronon said bluntly, and gave McKay another shove.
“Hey!” McKay blurted out. “That was unnecessary! I’m moving! I’m moving! I just want to know what the hell is going on? These people obviously mean business, right? But what do they want? Why’d they cut down the bridge after we crossed it?” He gestured wildly. “What did they do to the Monotonies?”
“Monomoy,” Teyla said under her breath.
“Fine. Where did the Monomoy go? Who did this to them?”
“Possibly the Shawkemos,” Ronon said quietly.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding,” McKay snapped when he heard the name.
Sheppard turned his head, asking, “What do we know about these Shawkemos?”
“Used to be that Shawkemos and the Monomoy lived together on this planet. They battled over the Ancestral Ring,” Ronon explained. “The Shawkemos lost. Ended up on another planet, but get to come here during the harvest season to go gathering in the valleys outside of the Monomoy’s territory.”
“They have not been adversaries for many generations,” Teyla reminded.
“Old habits die hard,” Sheppard tried. “That sort of arrangement might piss them off a bit.”
“It is possible,” Teyla said, and was quiet for a moment before she added, “But in spite of their old conflicts, they have been friendly to one another. They are gentle people,” Teyla reminded. “Simple.”
“Someone cut down that bridge!” McKay cried. “And hey, I seem to remember another ‘simple’ people who turned out to have radioactive, secret, underground bunkers.”
Teyla colored slightly at that reminder, and said, “They have been at peace.”
“If it’s the Shawkemos, ” John asked, “Do we have anything to worry about? I mean, their beef should just be with the Monomoy. Do they have anything against us?”
“Hard to say,” Ronon replied, keeping his gaze darting around them, watching, waiting, looking.
“Great,” McKay murmured and received another shove for that.
They moved along the canyon rim, along the trail that would eventually bring them to the other side. It was uneven terrain. The path dipped down and then came up a rise. It cut close to the edge of the canyon and then wrapped back, carrying them away for a time - up and down. The path was narrow and dusty, and the land around them was dry.
After several minutes of blessed silence, McKay piped up with, “So… are there any snakes here? I mean, like rattlers or cobras or something venomous like that?”
“Snakes?” Ronon echoed. “No… no snakes.”
“Good. Good,” McKay said, huffing a little as the path took another upward turn. “Guess Chuck Norris hasn’t been here, huh?”
Ronon grunted out a “What? The guy from the movies?”
“Some people like to eat frog legs. Chuck Norris likes to eat lizard legs, hence, snakes,” McKay explained.
Ronon huffed out a laugh, and Teyla made a confused sound. Sheppard just chuckled.
“Okay, great, no snakes. But, what about stinging insects. You know, I have allergies… and Sheppard… Well, he has some serious issues with bugs. Fears that are well founded and…”
“McKay,” Sheppard cut him off sharply.
“There are no insects that should be of concern,” Teyla responded.
“Great!” McKay stated, his gaze on his feet as he struggled to get up the trail. “And, no horrible monsters either, right?”
Both Teyla and Ronon were silent as they walked, and Sheppard threw a glance at Teyla before saying, “Tell me he’s wrong.”
“It’s only a legend,” Teyla started. “The local people believe that the Quaise lurks near the canyon.”
“What the hell is that?” Rodney’s voice was sharp.
“Creature. It’s supposedly covered with spines,” Ronon put in.
“What? Like a porcupine?” McKay quizzed.
Ronon frowned, remembering the image McKay had shown him after the scientist had once applied that term to Sheppard’s hair. “Not so spiky,” he decided. “Its spines aren’t that long. It’s more like thick hairs, I guess. Kinda bowl shaped when it’s on all four legs.”
“Sounds like a hedgehog, huh?” McKay commented.
“Yes,” Teyla responded brightly. “I have seen Lt. Cisco’s photograph of her pet hedgehog. The Quaise would resemble that creature.”
“Oh,” McKay responded. “They’re not so bad.” He smiled. “They’re kinda cute, you know, with their little noses and everything. So…what’s the size of this thing?”
Ronon turned to Teyla and gave her a conspiratorial grin, “Gets bigger depending on who tells the story. Sometimes it’s about …” he paused as he converted measurements in his head, “…twelve feet from nose to tail. Gets pretty damn big from there.”
“12 feet?! What? So, how big is ‘pretty damn big’?” Rodney exclaimed.
“Heard someone say it was half a mile long once,” Ronon went on, turning his head to hide his expression from the scientist. Teyla, when she saw him, stifled a little laugh.
Rodney sneered at the sound. “Oh please. That would be impossible.”
“Could have been exaggerating,” Ronon responded with a shrug.
They moved onward, with Rodney at a quicker pace, and Ronon chuckling.
“Seriously,” Sheppard said over his shoulder. “I don’t remember hearing anything about this thing in the briefing. Would have been good information to know, especially since we’re now going to be out walking AROUND the canyon.”
Ronon shook his head. “It’s just stories. It doesn’t exist.”
Teyla smiled sweetly at Rodney. “It’s only a tale told to children to ensure that they mind their elders.”
Rodney continued to scowl and they went on their way.
The trail continued to be difficult. Constantly, they were routed down one steep channel just to go up again in the next moment, never truly gaining any elevation for all the up-and-down efforts.
It was tedious and tiring.
“About this hedgehog thing,” Rodney tried to ask.
“Just stories, McKay,” Ronon told him.
“Yeah,” Sheppard responded. “I’m more worried about what happened to the Monomoy.”
“Might have been the hedgehog!” McKay countered.
“And what happened to the bridge,” Sheppard went on.
“Again, it could be the hedgehog!” McKay declared.
“Quaise,” Teyla corrected. “Ronon said that the ropes were cut with an axe.”
“Might have been sharp pointy teeth,” McKay argued.
“Axe,” Ronon stated. “I’m sure of it. Plus, there were a lot of footprints.”
“The footprints might have been its victims,” Rodney tried.
“McKay!” Sheppard’s voice bit. “Knock it off! Let’s keep moving.”
Rodney frowned, following the path that couldn’t come to a resolution whether it if was going up or down. “Just sayin’…” McKay mumbled.
They group kept moving - moving because it was safer than standing still. The native people had vamoosed. Someone (or something) had brought down the bridge during time it took them to reach the village, scout out the area, and return.
It wasn’t a good situation.
Sheppard, in the lead, kept his eyes always in front, searching the ridges and hoodoos, watching the buttes and arroyos for any sign of ambush. Teyla, behind him, scanned along their sides, constantly turning left and right. Ronon glanced backward, keeping watch over their six.
McKay watched his feet, trying to keep from skidding on the uneven trail, and making sounds of annoyance every time they headed up again.
“Down is worse,” Ronon said when McKay make a particularly wretched sound at their next uphill stretch.
“No, it is not,” Rodney shot back. “Down is infinitely better. Uphill kills me.”
“Down is tougher on the body,” Ronon informed. “Jolts your joints too much. It’s what’ll make you sore tomorrow.”
“Great… great,” McKay moaned. “Something else to look forward to. Thank you very much.” He grumbled, pressing his hands against his knees as they strove up the path. “Are we almost there?”
“We just started, McKay,” the colonel responded. “And I swear, McKay, if you don’t keep your yap shut for the next five minutes, I’m going to…”
“What?” McKay blurted out. “Going to what?”
“We don’t know who’s out here, McKay,” Sheppard shot back. “Keeping quiet for a while might keep you alive for a bit longer. Zip it!”
Rodney started to speak, but apparently thought better of it.
And for a good ten minutes, they walked in blissful quiet.
They could hear the quiet crunch of their feet against the rocky terrain, the squeak and shuffle of their packs, the clitter-clatter of rocks that broke loose in the canyon beside them, the cry of strange birds, and the wind that breathed past.
It would have been downright peaceful - if not for the looming threat. Something had happened, something that they had not yet begun to understand. They had to return to Atlantis, get a jumper and bring back more people.
As they came to the end of a rocky outcrop, Sheppard came to a sudden halt. Behind him, Teyla stopped, but she heard her muffled grunt as McKay ran into her back. The Canadian, strangely enough, did not launch into a stream of complaints.
John heard a ‘clomp’ and a startled, quiet ‘eep’ from McKay. Apparently, Ronon had grabbed onto the scientist’s shoulder and had stunned him into silence.
A rocky formation ahead of them would be an excellent place to stage an ambush. Sheppard’s eyes narrowed and he examined the spot, sure that something had moved, that some shadow had drawn into the rocks just as the structure had come into sight.
Behind him, Rodney was whispering, “What? What’s going on? Ow! Was that necessar…”
Sheppard gestured to the others, telling them to keep back, keep quiet, telling them to stay alert. He signaled to Ronon, directing him around the rocks that were protecting them. The Satedan slipped away without a word.
He motioned to Teyla to keep low, telling her to cover him. Rodney, he pressed back a few steps. He then pointed to himself and then out toward the rocks.
Rodney watched Sheppard’s movements intensely, and then a look of shock came over him as he divined what Sheppard was telling them. “Wait!” he hissed. “What are you thinking? You’re not going to attempt to distract whoever’s out there, are you? That’s a seriously stupid idea.”
Sheppard’s expression hardened, and he gave McKay a hard slap on the chest.
“I know, keep quiet. Keep hidden and…”
Another punch to the chest and Rodney silenced, drawing up his hands to protect himself, and looking as if he wanted to say something… say a lot… but the hard look he received kept him quiet.
Grateful for small favors, Sheppard edged forward.
Something was out there. Something was waiting. Above him, he could hear Ronon coming around their rocky stronghold - making little more than quiet ‘clicks’ against the rocks as he moved. Teyla was alongside him, her weapon drawn and ready to aim.
Sheppard inched forward, his gaze raking the pile of stones. Somewhere… somewhere in there… he stepped forward again, crawling carefully along the shield of rocks that formed a sort of wall.
He glanced back to his people. He couldn’t see Ronon from this angle, but both Teyla and Rodney had positioned themselves well, ready to back him up. Rodney was leaning slightly in front of Teyla as if to protect her, in spite of her attempts to keep him back.
Sheppard smiled stiffly at them, and turned, angling himself up a little to get a better view of what had attracted his attention. Unable to see anything, he stood a little taller.
Ka-BLAM!
The rock wall shattered. Sheppard jolted backward, scrambling for cover.
That's all I got. Yeah. Really, that's all I got, and in spite of mulling it over for a month or so, I still have nothing. So, it sits. Thought you might like a look though.
“Okay,” McKay said as he gazed out over the open space. “This not good. This is so not good.” He glanced to Sheppard. “You sure this is the right place?” He twirled a finger. “Because, you know, you get lost sometime.”
Sheppard groaned, “It’s the right place.” He pointed. “There’s the bridge.”
“What’s left of it,” Ronon grumbled.
“It could be another one,” Rodney tried hopefully, craning his neck this way and that to see along the canyon. Around them, the ground was rocky and bare and the wind blew. “We might have just happened upon the ‘bad’ one.” But his expression wasn’t confident and he sighed as he stepped further away from the abyss.
“I believe this is the only one,” Teyla informed.
Ronon stepped closer to the dropoff, until his toes were over the canyon’s edge.
Rodney watched him with an uneasy expression. “If you fall, I’m not going to…”
“I’m not askin’,” Ronon responded.
With a harrumph, McKay went on, insisting, “There might be another bridge. The ‘good’ one might be just up the trail a bit.”
“You weren’t calling it a ‘good’ bridge when we crossed it the first time,” Sheppard reminded. “Seem to remember some other words being used at the time.”
“‘Unstable, totally unsafe piece of crap’,” Ronon recapped.
“I believe stronger words were used at the time,” Teyla added.
Rodney frowned, and gestured to the gap and the dangling remains of wood and rope. “Okay, fine, so this is the same bridge. How long have we been gone? An hour? Two? And in that time it just fell down? Doesn’t this just prove everything I was saying earlier?”
He did have a point. Sheppard watched as Ronon leaned rather far over the edge.
“And to think, we were just walking on that bridge,” McKay continued. “I could have fallen! Well, we all could have fallen, but it would have been worse for me because I get this problem with vertigo.” He fluttered a hand. “The rest of you would have performed some incredible Indiana Jones stunt and saved yourselves. Me? I would have plummeted.” His voice grew soft as his gaze traced the imagined trajectory. The distance to the ground was substantial. “Would have just plummeted,” he repeated.
“Yeah,” Sheppard responded. “That’s how I see it, too.” He glanced to Ronon. “What the hell happened to the bridge? Why did it fail?”
Ronon, as if eager for that question, dropped to his haunches to examine what was left of the ropes - only frayed cords remained at their side. On the far side of narrow canyon, they could see the better part of the bridge draped down the cliff.
Sheppard grimaced. Yes, only hours earlier they had crossed the thing - McKay complaining all the way about the danger presented by the thing. The instability of the thing put McKay on edge, and he’d whined about the way the thing pitched and swayed with each of their steps - the bridge pitched and swayed more after his comments.
And now the bridge was gone. Sheppard and Teyla exchanged uneasy glances as they glanced into the meager pine forest that backed them. Ronon remained tense, alert as he examined the ropes.
Rodney shifted from one foot to the other, eager to be out of this place, muttering, “Oh you know what he’s going to find! Someone cut those ropes.”
Ronon nodded, picking up one of the severed cords. “Yeah,” he said. “Looks that way.”
“Really?” McKay squeaked.
“Cut through it with an axe or something,” Ronon said with a nod. He stood, dusting his hands on his pant legs. “We’ll have to walk around.”
“Yeah, right. It’s about 30 kilometers if we were to follow the rim,” McKay muttered.
Ronon shrugged. “Got a better plan?”
“Wait for Atlantis to send a jumper,” McKay shot back.
“We’re not expected for another day,” Sheppard pointed out. “We were supposed to stay in the village for the night. Nobody expected the town to be empty.”
Teyla sighed softly, stating, “It is unlike the Monomoy to abandon their city without reason. There was no sign of the Wraith.”
“And now this,” Sheppard added, frowning at the broken bridge.
Ronon nodded in the direction of the rim trail. “We got to move.”
“Yeah,” Sheppard replied, not liking this at all. No matter what they did, they’d be sitting ducks - either wait here, or travel along the only alternative path to the Gate.
Moving was better than staying still.
Of course they could hide out somewhere and wait. Certainly they could find a defensible stronghold. The memory of the empty town haunted him. This was not a good place to sit still.
“Let’s go,” he declared and started making his way along the edge of the canyon with Teyla right behind him.
“Wait, wait…” McKay called, steadfast in his place. “You’re not seriously thinking of walking around, are you? Did you remember that I said it was about 30 kilometers?”
“Heard you,” Sheppard told him.
“That’s about 19 miles,” McKay pointed out.
“More like… 18.6,” Sheppard informed.
“Whatever, look. It’s a long way and… I have the wrong sort of socks on for…” McKay continued, and winced when he felt the heavy clamp of Ronon’s hand on his shoulder.
“McKay,” Sheppard growled.
“Need I point out that whoever hacked apart the bridge has probably staked out the route ahead of us.” McKay’s voice ended in a bit of a squeak as Ronon gave him a shove in the direction of the others.
Without pausing, Sheppard responded, “Yeah.”
“They’re probably the same people who scared away the natives,” McKay spoke as he started to follow. “Who the hell are they, huh? Have we been able to figure that out yet?”
“No,” Ronon said bluntly, and gave McKay another shove.
“Hey!” McKay blurted out. “That was unnecessary! I’m moving! I’m moving! I just want to know what the hell is going on? These people obviously mean business, right? But what do they want? Why’d they cut down the bridge after we crossed it?” He gestured wildly. “What did they do to the Monotonies?”
“Monomoy,” Teyla said under her breath.
“Fine. Where did the Monomoy go? Who did this to them?”
“Possibly the Shawkemos,” Ronon said quietly.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding,” McKay snapped when he heard the name.
Sheppard turned his head, asking, “What do we know about these Shawkemos?”
“Used to be that Shawkemos and the Monomoy lived together on this planet. They battled over the Ancestral Ring,” Ronon explained. “The Shawkemos lost. Ended up on another planet, but get to come here during the harvest season to go gathering in the valleys outside of the Monomoy’s territory.”
“They have not been adversaries for many generations,” Teyla reminded.
“Old habits die hard,” Sheppard tried. “That sort of arrangement might piss them off a bit.”
“It is possible,” Teyla said, and was quiet for a moment before she added, “But in spite of their old conflicts, they have been friendly to one another. They are gentle people,” Teyla reminded. “Simple.”
“Someone cut down that bridge!” McKay cried. “And hey, I seem to remember another ‘simple’ people who turned out to have radioactive, secret, underground bunkers.”
Teyla colored slightly at that reminder, and said, “They have been at peace.”
“If it’s the Shawkemos, ” John asked, “Do we have anything to worry about? I mean, their beef should just be with the Monomoy. Do they have anything against us?”
“Hard to say,” Ronon replied, keeping his gaze darting around them, watching, waiting, looking.
“Great,” McKay murmured and received another shove for that.
They moved along the canyon rim, along the trail that would eventually bring them to the other side. It was uneven terrain. The path dipped down and then came up a rise. It cut close to the edge of the canyon and then wrapped back, carrying them away for a time - up and down. The path was narrow and dusty, and the land around them was dry.
After several minutes of blessed silence, McKay piped up with, “So… are there any snakes here? I mean, like rattlers or cobras or something venomous like that?”
“Snakes?” Ronon echoed. “No… no snakes.”
“Good. Good,” McKay said, huffing a little as the path took another upward turn. “Guess Chuck Norris hasn’t been here, huh?”
Ronon grunted out a “What? The guy from the movies?”
“Some people like to eat frog legs. Chuck Norris likes to eat lizard legs, hence, snakes,” McKay explained.
Ronon huffed out a laugh, and Teyla made a confused sound. Sheppard just chuckled.
“Okay, great, no snakes. But, what about stinging insects. You know, I have allergies… and Sheppard… Well, he has some serious issues with bugs. Fears that are well founded and…”
“McKay,” Sheppard cut him off sharply.
“There are no insects that should be of concern,” Teyla responded.
“Great!” McKay stated, his gaze on his feet as he struggled to get up the trail. “And, no horrible monsters either, right?”
Both Teyla and Ronon were silent as they walked, and Sheppard threw a glance at Teyla before saying, “Tell me he’s wrong.”
“It’s only a legend,” Teyla started. “The local people believe that the Quaise lurks near the canyon.”
“What the hell is that?” Rodney’s voice was sharp.
“Creature. It’s supposedly covered with spines,” Ronon put in.
“What? Like a porcupine?” McKay quizzed.
Ronon frowned, remembering the image McKay had shown him after the scientist had once applied that term to Sheppard’s hair. “Not so spiky,” he decided. “Its spines aren’t that long. It’s more like thick hairs, I guess. Kinda bowl shaped when it’s on all four legs.”
“Sounds like a hedgehog, huh?” McKay commented.
“Yes,” Teyla responded brightly. “I have seen Lt. Cisco’s photograph of her pet hedgehog. The Quaise would resemble that creature.”
“Oh,” McKay responded. “They’re not so bad.” He smiled. “They’re kinda cute, you know, with their little noses and everything. So…what’s the size of this thing?”
Ronon turned to Teyla and gave her a conspiratorial grin, “Gets bigger depending on who tells the story. Sometimes it’s about …” he paused as he converted measurements in his head, “…twelve feet from nose to tail. Gets pretty damn big from there.”
“12 feet?! What? So, how big is ‘pretty damn big’?” Rodney exclaimed.
“Heard someone say it was half a mile long once,” Ronon went on, turning his head to hide his expression from the scientist. Teyla, when she saw him, stifled a little laugh.
Rodney sneered at the sound. “Oh please. That would be impossible.”
“Could have been exaggerating,” Ronon responded with a shrug.
They moved onward, with Rodney at a quicker pace, and Ronon chuckling.
“Seriously,” Sheppard said over his shoulder. “I don’t remember hearing anything about this thing in the briefing. Would have been good information to know, especially since we’re now going to be out walking AROUND the canyon.”
Ronon shook his head. “It’s just stories. It doesn’t exist.”
Teyla smiled sweetly at Rodney. “It’s only a tale told to children to ensure that they mind their elders.”
Rodney continued to scowl and they went on their way.
The trail continued to be difficult. Constantly, they were routed down one steep channel just to go up again in the next moment, never truly gaining any elevation for all the up-and-down efforts.
It was tedious and tiring.
“About this hedgehog thing,” Rodney tried to ask.
“Just stories, McKay,” Ronon told him.
“Yeah,” Sheppard responded. “I’m more worried about what happened to the Monomoy.”
“Might have been the hedgehog!” McKay countered.
“And what happened to the bridge,” Sheppard went on.
“Again, it could be the hedgehog!” McKay declared.
“Quaise,” Teyla corrected. “Ronon said that the ropes were cut with an axe.”
“Might have been sharp pointy teeth,” McKay argued.
“Axe,” Ronon stated. “I’m sure of it. Plus, there were a lot of footprints.”
“The footprints might have been its victims,” Rodney tried.
“McKay!” Sheppard’s voice bit. “Knock it off! Let’s keep moving.”
Rodney frowned, following the path that couldn’t come to a resolution whether it if was going up or down. “Just sayin’…” McKay mumbled.
They group kept moving - moving because it was safer than standing still. The native people had vamoosed. Someone (or something) had brought down the bridge during time it took them to reach the village, scout out the area, and return.
It wasn’t a good situation.
Sheppard, in the lead, kept his eyes always in front, searching the ridges and hoodoos, watching the buttes and arroyos for any sign of ambush. Teyla, behind him, scanned along their sides, constantly turning left and right. Ronon glanced backward, keeping watch over their six.
McKay watched his feet, trying to keep from skidding on the uneven trail, and making sounds of annoyance every time they headed up again.
“Down is worse,” Ronon said when McKay make a particularly wretched sound at their next uphill stretch.
“No, it is not,” Rodney shot back. “Down is infinitely better. Uphill kills me.”
“Down is tougher on the body,” Ronon informed. “Jolts your joints too much. It’s what’ll make you sore tomorrow.”
“Great… great,” McKay moaned. “Something else to look forward to. Thank you very much.” He grumbled, pressing his hands against his knees as they strove up the path. “Are we almost there?”
“We just started, McKay,” the colonel responded. “And I swear, McKay, if you don’t keep your yap shut for the next five minutes, I’m going to…”
“What?” McKay blurted out. “Going to what?”
“We don’t know who’s out here, McKay,” Sheppard shot back. “Keeping quiet for a while might keep you alive for a bit longer. Zip it!”
Rodney started to speak, but apparently thought better of it.
And for a good ten minutes, they walked in blissful quiet.
They could hear the quiet crunch of their feet against the rocky terrain, the squeak and shuffle of their packs, the clitter-clatter of rocks that broke loose in the canyon beside them, the cry of strange birds, and the wind that breathed past.
It would have been downright peaceful - if not for the looming threat. Something had happened, something that they had not yet begun to understand. They had to return to Atlantis, get a jumper and bring back more people.
As they came to the end of a rocky outcrop, Sheppard came to a sudden halt. Behind him, Teyla stopped, but she heard her muffled grunt as McKay ran into her back. The Canadian, strangely enough, did not launch into a stream of complaints.
John heard a ‘clomp’ and a startled, quiet ‘eep’ from McKay. Apparently, Ronon had grabbed onto the scientist’s shoulder and had stunned him into silence.
A rocky formation ahead of them would be an excellent place to stage an ambush. Sheppard’s eyes narrowed and he examined the spot, sure that something had moved, that some shadow had drawn into the rocks just as the structure had come into sight.
Behind him, Rodney was whispering, “What? What’s going on? Ow! Was that necessar…”
Sheppard gestured to the others, telling them to keep back, keep quiet, telling them to stay alert. He signaled to Ronon, directing him around the rocks that were protecting them. The Satedan slipped away without a word.
He motioned to Teyla to keep low, telling her to cover him. Rodney, he pressed back a few steps. He then pointed to himself and then out toward the rocks.
Rodney watched Sheppard’s movements intensely, and then a look of shock came over him as he divined what Sheppard was telling them. “Wait!” he hissed. “What are you thinking? You’re not going to attempt to distract whoever’s out there, are you? That’s a seriously stupid idea.”
Sheppard’s expression hardened, and he gave McKay a hard slap on the chest.
“I know, keep quiet. Keep hidden and…”
Another punch to the chest and Rodney silenced, drawing up his hands to protect himself, and looking as if he wanted to say something… say a lot… but the hard look he received kept him quiet.
Grateful for small favors, Sheppard edged forward.
Something was out there. Something was waiting. Above him, he could hear Ronon coming around their rocky stronghold - making little more than quiet ‘clicks’ against the rocks as he moved. Teyla was alongside him, her weapon drawn and ready to aim.
Sheppard inched forward, his gaze raking the pile of stones. Somewhere… somewhere in there… he stepped forward again, crawling carefully along the shield of rocks that formed a sort of wall.
He glanced back to his people. He couldn’t see Ronon from this angle, but both Teyla and Rodney had positioned themselves well, ready to back him up. Rodney was leaning slightly in front of Teyla as if to protect her, in spite of her attempts to keep him back.
Sheppard smiled stiffly at them, and turned, angling himself up a little to get a better view of what had attracted his attention. Unable to see anything, he stood a little taller.
Ka-BLAM!
The rock wall shattered. Sheppard jolted backward, scrambling for cover.
That's all I got. Yeah. Really, that's all I got, and in spite of mulling it over for a month or so, I still have nothing. So, it sits. Thought you might like a look though.