Action/Adventure, Week 2: All But the Whites of Their Eyes
Title All But the Whites of Their Eyes
Author snarkydame
Genre Action/Adventure
Prompt Creature from the black lagoon
Wordcount 6700
Rating PG-13
Warnings none
Summary The team goes to investigate a mysteriously malfunctioning gate on a storm locked world.
Notes Takes place sometime mid season 5.
We came through the roaring burn of the upper atmosphere into a thunderous mass of clouds. Lightning fell past the jumper in sheets of white light -- the sort that leaves your eyes seared blind.
"Sheppard!" McKay yelped from the front seat, as the jumper surged straight up on a furious gust of wind, then sideways, strong enough to tax the inertial dampeners.
"I've got it, Rodney," Sheppard ground out. His hands were firm on the controls, but not, I noticed with approval, white knuckled. The jumper's HUD flashed a constant stream of warnings and alarms that McKay, with a curse, muted, as he hooked his computer into the ship's systems.
Sheppard and McKay had the ship in hand. It's not like they'd been surprised by their surroundings-- hard to miss from space a thunderstorm that seemed to cover half a hemisphere. Unfortunately, it was that half of this world we needed to search. So. I shrugged as the wind kicked sleet across the jumper's windscreen in a horizontal lash, and turned instead to the rear compartment.
Teyla had that tight smile on, the one that meant she was struggling not to toss Dr. Finn out of the jumper. "Colonel Sheppard is a fine pilot, " she repeated, "and will have the jumper through the worst of this storm in a matter of minutes. Please, just remain calm."
Dr. Finn, who hadn't yet stopped babbling about lightning strikes knocking the jumper out of the air, hardly seemed to hear her. He clung instead to Dr. Audley, who rolled her eyes and patted him absently on the shoulder. She shook her head apologetically at Teyla.
"He gets like this," she said. "He'll be all right once we land."
Teyla's smile gentled slightly. "We will all be glad to be safe on the ground." She stood then, keeping a grip on the storage webbing, and made her way front.
"He is worse than Torren when he's colicky," she said, soft enough that the techs couldn't hear.
"Yeah?" I asked. "And how's that going?"
She sighed. "I can only hope to catch up on my sleep while we are here." We both looked out at the storm raging behind the jumper's silently flashing HUD. Teyla smacked my arm when I smirked down at her.
* * * * *
It was McKay who finally got Dr. Finn to stop clinging to Dr. Audley.
"Stop sniveling, Rupert. Erin'll need a functioning arm when we get to the gate." He'd turned away from his computer. As he sneered at Dr. Finn, the vivid chaos of the inner storm was overtaken by steady rain as the jumper broke through the cloud cover. Sheppard was piloting now in his usual slouch, oozing relaxed confidence.
Dr. Finn settled back, sheepishly releasing Audley. She raised an eyebrow at him, rubbing life back into her arm.
"How long ‘till we land?" I asked. Staying in here with the techs wasn't anyone's idea of a good time, whether they were being quiet or not.
"Give me a minute," Sheppard shrugged. "Gotta find some level ground."
Through the windscreen I could see mountains -- old mountains, the sort with rounded, green shoulders and stone outcroppings weathered treacherously smooth. Rivers swollen with the heavy rains rushed out over moss-slick cliffs, leaping from rock to rock, while white birds flew unheeding through the spray and violent winds. Behind the cliffs, a white-caped sea tossed under the storm.
"Don't park the jumper too far from the source of these readings," McKay told Sheppard absently, looking again at his computer. "I don't want to go hiking in the rain."
"I don't think you'll melt, Rodney," Sheppard said, but I noticed he was circling back around.
Teyla peered around us, studying the landscape. "It is beautiful here," she said, "Are the storms always so fierce? It could be a pleasant world, should we need to move the city again."
McKay frowned peevishly. "It's not like we can just pick up and move whenever we want, you know." He paused, looking at the waterfalls. "But the eteorologists do think that a storm system like this is the exception here." He shook himself. "Of course, it'll probably turn out that the vegetation is poisonous, or the ground is unstable, or that there are hideously dangerous predators or something. This galaxy hates us."
"So lets just get to the gate, find out why we couldn't get a connection, fix it, and get out of here. We'll be back in Atlantis before the Daedalus comes out of hyperspace."
"What? They aren't waiting for us? But . . ."
"It's a figure of speech, McKay. Relax."
"Very funny. Ha ha. Let's make fun of the prospect of being stranded to die horribly from poisonous moss, shall we?"
"Um, excuse me." Dr. Finn's voice, now that he wasn't shrieking in terror, was actually pretty soft. I almost didn't hear him at all. "But I think I saw a spot we could land in."
* * * * *
We parked the jumper on a rocky patch of ground next to a lake whose dark waters were still, but for the scattering of rain that broke it's surface. The lake, as well as the jumper, was sheltered from the wind by dark grey cliffs laced over with deep green moss. When I moved closer, stretching my legs after leaving the jumper, I could see tiny white flowers peeking out of the moss, their petals closed tight.
Dr. Audley sighed as she stepped out behind me. "Dr. McKay," she asked, "are you certain those readings come from the gate? Even when it's powered down for maintenance, the gate on Atlantis gives of readings that are five times that powerful."
Dr. Finn paused next to her, uncertainly swinging his pack in his hand. "What else could it be, though? The database indicates only the most basic Ancient research outpost on this planet was ever built. And there was no sign that any other civilization ever came here."
McKay snapped his fingers. "Yes, exactly. I'm certain. Can we go now?"
Sheppard ran a hand fruitlessly through his rain-flattened hair. "Yes, Rodney, we can go now. Teyla, you and Ronon check out the valley, make sure McKay's 'hideously dangerous predators’ aren't laired up nearby. Stay in radio contact."
I checked the setting on my gun and nodded,. Sheppard went south, towards the readings, McKay at his side. Finn and Audley trailed along, wet and unhappy. I noticed, as they rounded the curve of the lake's shore, that McKay moved back, sandwiching the techs between himself and Sheppard.
I followed Teyla up a rocky incline. If McKay was right about the poisonous moss, we might have a problem, I thought, only sort of amused. The stuff was everywhere. A storm as big as the one we came through might not have been the norm on this planet, but it still got more than enough rain.
Teyla reached the summit before I did, more surefooted on the wet rock. She tucked her wet hair behind her ear and held up a hand to shield her eyes from the rain, looking up at the clouds.
"I think the worst of the rain is moving away," she said, "but it will still be a wet camp."
I grunted. "I've had worse."
"As have I." Teyla smiled at me, the one that meant she thought I was boasting. Well. I might have been, a little. But it was true.
We picked our way carefully down from the summit. Other than the white birds, there didn't seem to be any sign of life. But the birds had to eat something. And something had to eat the birds.
"There." I pointed out the tracks to Teyla. Hardly more than a scrape against the wet dirt between rocks -- just the edge of what was probably a paw. Whatever it was was stepping from stone to stone. And had done so after we landed, since the rain hadn't washed it away. Even now the print was becoming less distinct.
"About as large as a big orynx, I think. Or it's smaller, if it has really long legs. "
"Most likely, our arrival has frightened her away from the hunt."
"Her?"
"It usually is. I am sure her mate is laired up somewhere dry." And she moved off, not waiting for me to finish raising an eyebrow. I could tell, from the set of her shoulders, that she was smiling.
"So why are we here, anyway?" I asked as we rested by the lake, trying to distract myself from the rain's cold trails down my back.
Teyla sighed, wringing out her hair. "There was some mention in the Ancient database of a small research base, and a rare mineral that could perhaps be used to manufacture more efficient control crystals."
"But the gate doesn't work."
"No." She sighed. "It is not buried, nor is it destroyed. How did Zelenka put it? 'The phone is ringing, but no one is picking it up?'"
"Hmph." I didn't actually care that much. It was curious, but hardly an emergency. Bored, I ran a hand through the water of the lake.
"Salt water," I told Teyla after taking a taste.
She frowned thoughtfully. "The sea is not far from here, I know, but I would think with all of the rivers that empty into this lake the water would be fresh."
I shrugged. "Good thing we brought our own water, I guess."
"Yes." She shrugged, and squinted up through the steady drizzle that the rain had subsided to. "Though it is not as though we would run out." She shrugged, and keyed her radio.
"Colonel Sheppard, we have finished our reconnaissance. We are on our way to join you and the others."
“Right. Watch your step on the way down."
"Understood, Colonel."
* * * * *
Apparently, the tiny power output McKay had been reading was, in fact, the gate. But it no longer seemed strange that we hadn't been able to establish a connection from Atlantis. The DHD was missing a panel, and Finn was pulling out crystal after crystal darkened, cracked, or broken.
"It's so strange," Audley said from the other side, where she was gathering her own stack of useless parts. "It looks like each of these crystals were deliberately damaged, and then put back in place. I haven't found a single one that was useable."
"Me neither," Finn replied.
McKay stood glaring at the ring itself. "Would you two stop wasting your time? Yes, it's a mystery. Yes, it must have been deliberate. Completely overkill, of course, though that's beside the point. But not one of those broken crystals will tell us why we couldn't dial in from Atlantis! It's not like we'd need the DHD for that. And where the hell is its power leeching off to? You couldn't power so much as a single drone with what it's giving out."
Audley growled back at him. "You can't think the two issues aren't connected, Dr. McKay."
"Yes, yes I can! Whatever is wrong with the gate could easily have nothing to do with the sabotaging of the DHD. And it doesn't matter! We don't need the DHD. But the gate could be useful."
"And if we need to get off world faster than the Daedalus can get back to us? What then?"
"Oh, I'm sorry, you're right. You're absolutely right. Now, did you bring enough spare crystals to fix that DHD? Because I seem to be a few short!"
"Calm down, both of you!" Sheppard commanded, stepping between the two red-faced doctors. At the DHD, Finn ducked his head and kept working..
"Dr. Audley, why don't you and Dr. Finn put the DHD on hold for awhile. Take a look at the gate. McKay, can I have a word?" And he took hold of McKay's sleeve, towing him aside.
Audley looked like she wanted to argue, but Teyla smoothly intercepted her, asking questions about what she might be looking for. The doctor looked tired. Rain had plastered her hair along her back and the sides of her face, and as she answered Teyla's questions, water dripped from her hawkish nose.
Mysteries like this bothered McKay. This gate, on this planet, had bothered McKay since before we knew there was a problem with it. And now that we here, in the rain, he was getting steadily more irritated. I didn't envy Sheppard the task of keeping him from ripping into the techs.
McKay was digging now, at the base of the ring, trying to pinpoint exactly where the faint power reading was coming from. Sheppard stood at his shoulder, musing aloud.
"I can see someone destroying a few of the DHD's crystals, if they wanted to keep someone on this planet from getting off. But the Ancients wouldn't have done it -- they'd just take a few of the important bits with them, so they could use them again later if they had too. And most of the other people we've met around here couldn't have done it without stranding themselves, too.
"Maybe some sort of hermit? A self-imposed exile kind of thing? That might explain why every one of the crystals are damaged."
McKay grunted when Sheppard paused, but wasn't really listening, far I could tell. I exchanged a glance with Teyla, who nodded and took off to make a circuit around the valley. I sat on one of the larger rocks, grimacing as the wet stone soaked my pants, and watched. I wouldn't want to miss it if McKay tore into Audley again.
* * * * *
It wasn't easy to tell when the sun began to set -- the cloud cover had yet to break, although we were getting lulls in the rain. But it was getting steadily darker now.
Finn was setting up camp, yawning as he staked out the tents and shook out bedrolls. Teyla was right -- it was going to be a wet camp. But at least McKay was too involved at the gate to complain much.
Sheppard's voice was a soft rumble in the background. He leaned against the gate, including Audley and Finn in the conversation now. Had even found the opportunity to rake a hand through his hair. But I could see how often he scanned over the valley. The ready angle of his P-90. Which jerked sharply to attention at McKay's sudden exclamation.
"I found it!" he crowed, snapping his fingers at Finn. "Bring me your light, would you? Shine it right here."
Audley and Finn both flicked their flashlights on. In their light, McKay pointed out what looked like a bundle of cords hooked into the gate under a panel covered in mud.
"Someone jury-rigged the Stargate -- turned it into a battery. That's incredibly dangerous. Really, I'm surprised they didn't blow themselves up!" He didn't sound too worried about the possibility, so I stepped on the impulse to pull him and Sheppard away from the gate.
"Who's 'they?'" Sheppard asked, an edge to his voice.
"Well, they didn't really leave a calling card, Colonel. It's pretty efficient though -- very little power is being wasted -- that's why the energy signature is so small. And it's pulling a huge amount of power -- whatever this is connected to has excellent shielding. Really top notch."
"So there is someone on this planet." Audley edged a little closer to me. "Do you think they're friendly?"
"With our record?" McKay suddenly sounded very tired. "I don't think it's likely."
Sheppard keyed his radio: "Teyla."
"Colonel?"
"Come on back to camp. We might have company out here after all."
* * * * *
The night was not quiet. The thunder was distant but unceasing, while the many waterfalls around the edges of the valley roared in harmony. The white birds let out the occasional strident cry that crossed the still waters of the lake clearly. Teyla murmured Kanaan's name in her sleep, shifting deeper into her bedroll, and Finn twitched, dreaming. Audley tossed and turned as though she slept on roots.
I paced around the camp, trying to keep warm. Everything was too wet to burn, and I felt clammy. Cold. I'd had enough of rain.
I noticed on my second pass that the tiny white flowers in the moss had opened their petals. They were star shaped, and their pollen gave off the faintest glow. In the dark valley, with neither of the two moons able to break through the sullen clouds, the flowers' bare brush of light seemed almost bright, though it did little more than give the night outlines.
I wondered if I could take a bit of moss and flowers back to Atlantis. Wondered if Amelia would like them.
I shook myself out of that train of thought and kept walking, keeping my eyes on the dark. The gutted DHD hulked disturbingly in the middle of the camp, my team and the techs rolled like large rocks at its base.
The birds were going silent -- I stood still, listening for what had startled them. For a long while, all I heard was water. Then, slowly, an eerie, modulated howl rose over the valley. It wove it's way through the air, impossible to pinpoint. The howl soared so high I couldn't hear it all, and then swooped low enough to rumble through the ground at my feet. It was beautiful. And threatening. The hair on the back of my neck was rising.
Sheppard and Teyla were already on their feet, weapons out. The techs were shifting, disturbed in their sleep. But Rodney was the first to speak, sitting up against the DHD, his pistol in his hand.
"It sounds like whale song," he said, wondering. "Like a whale, singing out of water."
"Yeah," Sheppard muttered. "Remember how well that turned out last time?"
"No one's ears are bleeding yet," I offered.
"There doesn't seem to be more than one. But I feel . . . uneasy," Teyla murmured.
And as Finn and Audley woke up, the weird howl shivered into silence. A silence broken as something surged through the shallow waters at the edge of the lake and slammed straight into me.
It was heavy and scaled, supple like a snake, and it's long legs kicked me onto my back before I could do more than throw an arm in front of my throat. My gun went skidding across the ground -- I heard it squelch in the mud at the foot of the gate.
A paw that was very nearly a hand pinned my free arm to the ground as teeth, sharp and serrated, tore into the other. Eyes, huge and pale and mad, stared straight into mine. I could hear my team shouting, and recognized McKay's gun, firing into the air.
I didn't think this thing would be frightened off that easily. Snarling beneath it, I ignored the teeth in my arm and bucked, trying to free my right hand. A knife. I needed a knife.
But Sheppard had a knife. He plunged it into the thing's muscled shoulder, cursing. The scales turned most of the blow, but the beast let go of me to yowl at Sheppard, giving me just enough room to kick it away from me, and Teyla opened up with her P-90.
The creature dug into the ground and pushed off into the night -- a brief silhouette against the moss-flower's luminescence. A flat, heavy tail smacked against Sheppard's hip as it passed, and he fell heavily back on top of me. I wheezed.
The whole attack took less than thirty seconds.
We retreated to the jumper, unable to effectively plan a defense against the predator in the dark, without a fire. Dr. Finn, pale with shock, bandaged my arm with hands that didn't shake.
"It's not as bad as it looks," he said. "It ripped the skin up pretty badly, but there's no real muscle damage, and the bone is intact. We'll have to keep a close eye on it, though. I'm not qualified to give you more than field care, and I'm afraid it will probably get infected."
"s'all right, doc. You did good," I said, examining the neat bandage. My arm hurt, but I could move it, and grip with the hand. "Anybody get a good look at the thing?"
"No," McKay ground out. "Nobody got a good look at the hideously dangerous predator. It being dark and all." He still held his gun in his hand, and kept giving Finn and Audley unhappy glances. I knew what he was thinking. He'd lost too many scientists in the field.
Audley was quietly hyperventilating on the bench. Teyla pushed her head down, murmuring soothing words until she calmed. "I'm sorry," she finally gasped out, and started laughing, not quite hysterically. "But what a way to wake up!"
Finn, done with my arm, looked at Sheppard. "How are you, Colonel? It gave you a pretty good knock."
"I'm fine," he said, studying the jumper's readings of the area. Searching for the creature, or another like it.
"You mean you're bruised from hip to ankle and can hardly move your leg," McKay snapped at him. "Would you get out of that chair before you're so stiff we have to pry you out with a crowbar?"
Sheppard scowled at him, but struggled out of the chair to make his way back to Finn, who strapped a heating pad to his hip and taped up his knee. "I'm afraid this will have to do for now, Colonel. Nothing seems to be broken, at least."
"Small favors, I suppose," McKay edged out.
"We were quite fortunate," Teyla said. "A creature that size could certainly have done more damage. It did not seem fazed by my gun, or your knife, Colonel."
"I think it was playing with me," I said, studying the six-fingered paw shaped bruise on my right arm. "Figuring out what we were."
Dr. Audley drew in a breath. "There's a happy thought."
* * * * *
In the brightening day, it began to rain again, little more than a soft mist. I was glad to be in the jumper, for the chance to dry off and get warm, but the smell of wet clothes and blood was lingering. McKay was getting unhappier by the minute, studying the data he'd collected on the gate. Finn and Audley were trying to play cards, but they were both distracted, and kept losing track of the game. Teyla watched both the valley outside and Sheppard and me, unobtrusively.
I sighed, and stood up, regretting that the cuff of my pants and my waistband were still damp. "I'm going out," I announced. "See if I can track that thing before the rain starts up enough to wash the prints away."
"What?" McKay's head shot up. "Are you crazy? You're hurt!"
"It's not bad," I shrugged.
"I'll come with you," Sheppard said.
"No! You're both insane." McKay shook himself and stood up. "I'll go. I want to see if I can follow these modified readings to the power drain, anyway. And Teyla should stay here to protect the jumper. God knows the rest of you'll be useless if something happens."
Sheppard started to protest, but his knee took his sudden turn badly. Audley caught him on the way down, and while he was untangling himself, McKay and I slipped out of the half-open hatch.
"Not that you should really be going anywhere either," McKay was muttering behind me, frowning at his scanner. "But that thing was probably nocturnal. I expect you to shoot it immediately if I'm wrong."
I didn't say anything. I would, and he knew it. Letting McKay talk was usually the easiest thing to do. He didn't even expect an answer, most of the time.
The tracks were pressed deep in the muddy ground -- the creature had been genuinely frightened when Teyla shot it. But there wasn't much blood -- she hadn't done much more than shock it. Even Sheppard's knife hadn't done much damage.
The paw prints were the same as the trace I'd found yesterday with Teyla, which increased the possibility that this was the dominant predator in the area -- there really didn't seem to be much in the way of wildlife around here at all.
I followed the tracks straight to the lake -- the creature had taken to the water with a leap at least three meters long.
"Huh," I heard behind me. McKay had been trailing the power drain in the same general direction as the tracks. Standing now at my side, he squinted down at his scanner, then back to the water.
"Whatever's draining power from the gate, its conduits run directly under that," he said grimly.
"Maybe it leads to the other shore?"
McKay shook his head unhappily and held up his scanner. The rain misting on its screen made stars of the display, and he wiped it off with the cuff of his sleeve. "The modifications I made are letting me pin point the source of the drain more exactly. It's right in the middle of the lake."
We looked at the dark water, reflecting the clouds hanging heavy with unshed rain. The predator obviously felt comfortable in that lake. "Yeah. This galaxy hates you."
"Thanks."
* * * * *
We started back to the jumper. We were little more than halfway there when the clouds let go a downpour that made all the rain yesterday seem like nothing. I couldn't see McKay, two feet in front of me, couldn't hear him either, under the pounding of the rain on my head, and I knew he would be shouting. I reached for him where I guessed he would be, feeling the pull on my bandaged arm, but he wasn't there.
"McKay," I yelled, barely hearing myself, suddenly frantic. "McKay!"
When his hand hit my shoulder I almost shot him. He was an indistinct blur through the curtain of rain, but he held his scanner up a few inches from my face -- through the water sheeting down the screen, I could see the four dots that meant the jumper, and the rest of our team. I held onto his arm, and followed the scanner.
The water was sheeting over the rocky ground so quickly it made keeping our footing difficult at best. When we hit a patch of moss under that water McKay went sideways. I came down on top of him, unwilling to let go. I could feel him gasping for air, and winced. Breathing in this rain almost felt like drowning as it was, and I'd knocked all the air out of him.
"Come on," I said, hauling him up. I knew he couldn't hear me, but he patted my shoulder, and we kept going.
We couldn't be that far from the jumper. I checked the scanner again -- and again. There were five life signs ahead of us.
I hauled back on McKay's arm, nearly sending us to the ground again, and shoved the scanner at him. His arm tensed under my hand.
"It's right on top of them!" he yelled into my ear.
I keyed my radio, but all I got was static. There was just too much water in the air, interfering with the signal. Even if it made it through, I doubt that they could hear it over the rain.
"Stay here!" I shouted. "I'll shoot it and come back for you!"
"You're insane! I'm not staying here alone!" And he wrapped his fist in my shirt, so I couldn't let go and leave him.
Stubborn. But I felt the tiniest smile working its way across my face.
We went in relative silence, masked by the rain. I didn't know if the creature could hear us, or see us -- the rain certainly didn't seem to handicap it as much as it did us. Nothing we could do about it if it could.
The scanner's screen flickered but stayed on, and I could feel McKay drawing breath to curse. The scanner, hardy though it was, wasn't meant for full submersion, which this downpour nearly was. I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the soaking storm. Fighting that thing completely blind . . .
But then the rain was slowing to merely heavy, and the jumper was looming up out the storm. And on the roof, nearly invisible, almost exactly the color of the rain and the clouds, was the predator. Long and lean, with the sleek, heavy musculature of a giant snake, it crouched on top of the jumper and stared directly at us. Its eyes glowed with very much the same faint light as the moss-flowers. Only pale scars remained from its wounds the night before. Slowly, as we stared it down, heavy curved claws slid out of its webbed feet, and its flat eel-like tail lashed at its flanks.
I raised my gun, set to kill. The rain shouldn't have effected it much. Though I wasn't sure about McKay's hand gun. He had it out anyway, face set and arm steady. His eyes were wide, lashes starred with rain. Good man.
We shot at the same time, the bark of his gun and the snap of my blaster both dulled by the rain. The creature leapt right over the shots, and pushed off McKay's shoulders, sending him face first in the mud. I kicked frantically at the beast, but it had already spun away, and all I saw was its tail flicking around the jumper's side.
I pulled McKay coughing and cursing to his feet. He swiped at the mud in his eyes. "It only got the pack!" he yelled, though I suspected he'd end up with black eyes at least. I nodded, relieved, and tried the radio again.
Sheppard's reply was garbled, but there -- "Whe . . . you? . . . . right? That thing is . . . . "
"It's still out here, Sheppard! Keep everyone inside!" I tugged McKay over to the hatch and leaned him against it, leaving him the scanner. "Guard the door. I'm going around the jumper." He looked like he wanted desperately to argue, but just swallowed hard and rolled his eyes nervously to the roof.
"Don't get eaten." He shot after me, and I grinned. Good man, yeah.
The mud around the jumper squelched and stuck to my feet -- but then, I don't think I could sneak up on this thing anyway. It was waiting for me. I just had to shoot faster than it could jump me.
But it wasn't waiting for me around the jumper. I looked in through the windscreen, and saw Teyla and Sheppard looking back, faces set with worry. Teyla shook her head at my raised eyebrow -- she hadn't seen it. Sheppard's eyes sharpened when he didn't see McKay with me. I motioned back towards the hatch, and he frowned, looking rearward. The two techs were huddled on the bench seats there.
If it wasn't here, and McKay hadn't shot at anything (because of course he'd get a shot of. It wouldn't have snuck back around and picked him off silently) then where was it? Back on top of the jumper? I backed away, by chance moving at the same time back towards McKay. Who was perfectly safe.
And there it was. Right in the middle of the roof, folded very nearly flat against the jumper's surface. Hidden by the curve of the ship. It wasn't stalking McKay. Wasn't hiding from me. No. With its paw -- its six-fingered, very nearly hand-like paw -- it was working at one of the exterior access hatches that governed the jumper's controls. As I stared, almost too shocked to shoot, the creature raised its head and looked at me. I swear it smiled, teeth shining in the rain.
This time, when I shot, it didn't dodge. The blast knocked it over the other side of the jumper. But the damage was done -- the hatch was opening.
"McKay!" I bellowed, "Move." But he was already scrambling away from the back of the jumper, aghast as it fell nearly on top of him.
"How? Who?!"
I was sprinting as quickly as I could on the unstable ground. The creature wasn't dead in the mud, though I could see the mark of its landing and smell the singed scales from the blast. I yelled into the radio.
"Sheppard! That thing's intelligent! Get the techs out of the rear compartment." I was answered by gunfire -- McKay, Teyla and Sheppard firing -- but the creature was already inside.
The gunfire ended as I slid to a stop in the hatch -- the creature was backed against the bench, body covered by Dr. Finn, whose hands were locked around the creature's jaws, trying to pry them away from his throat. No one had a clear shot. But the creature wasn't biting -- there was no more than a trickle of blood.
Finn's rolling eyes caught mine, pleading. I switched my gun to stun. It may not do anything at all to the creature, if it could survive a direct hit on kill. But it would stun Finn. Whether that would be a mercy or not . . .
Sheppard's eyes were wild. "Ronon! Do not let that thing leave," he ground out, jaw clenched. "If it's intelligent, it knows it's outnumbered."
McKay kept glancing from the frantic Finn to Audley, who stood shaking behind Teyla, Sheppard's gun in her hand. He looked furious. They were scared, McKay and Sheppard both, of losing yet another scientist under their command. Under their protection.
Under my protection, that meant. But I remembered the mad eyes from the night before, and I knew, whether this thing was actually sentient, or just cunning, it didn't care about being outnumbered.
Teyla was edging slowly closer to the creature -- so slowly I hadn't noticed for the last several steps. But when she took the next the creature's eyes caught her, and he bit a little tighter around Finn's throat. His strangled gasp stopped her in her tracks.
"Please," Audley's whisper sounded loud, the only sound under the steady drum of the rain. "Please, he's my friend."
And I shot it.
I was right before, it didn't knock the creature out -- it spasmed against the wall, dropping Finn, who was out cold, limbs still twitching. Rodney dove for him, clapping a hand to his bleeding neck. The creature bolted out the door, and Sheppard and Teyla both followed, emptying a clip after it.
I stayed, watching McKay and Finn. I needed to know if I'd just killed him. "He's breathing," McKay said, looking over at me. "It was starting to bite when you shot it, but it didn't get the jugular. Not quite. We need to get him back to the Daedalus." Behind us, Dr. Audley sat with a thump on the floor, Sheppard's gun still held tight in her left hand.
I closed my eyes and nodded.
Sheppard and Teyla backed into the jumper, Sheppard limping heavily, guns still trained into the rain. Over the sound of the rain, that aching howl went soaring.
"Rodney," Sheppard said, voice tight, "lock us up." Rodney grabbed Dr. Audley's hand.
"Hold here," he commanded. "Don't let go. John, we have to get him to a medic."
"Yeah. We're going."
* * * * *
The Daedalus, even with the constant vibration from her great engines, seemed quiet after the heavy rush of water on the planet.
The steady beep of Finn's monitor seemed very loud here. I stood just inside the infirmary door, watching.
The trip back into space had been nerve wracking. Sheppard had to fly half way around the planet to avoid going back through the storm. We couldn't go through it with Finn in that condition, but even taking the longer, gentler way, the kid had stopped breathing twice before we docked with the Daedalus. Shock, McKay thought.
He was resting comfortably now, the medic said. He'd be all right, he said. He'd live.
Dr. Audley lay curled on the bunk next to Finn's, fast asleep. Her hawk face looked softer. Younger. I turned away.
Teyla met me in the corridor. "Colonel Sheppard is planning on returning, with Lorne's team, and one other. Rodney says that there must be more about that planet, about that creature in the database. The little we found before we left can't have been all there was. He is searching through what the Daedalus has now."
We walked slowly, reveling in being warm, and dry. I couldn't get the creature's pale stare out of my head.
McKay raised a hand when we reached the door to Sheppard's quarters. He looked distracted, even disturbed.
"I found something," he said, and motioned us in.
"There's very little in the database about that planet," he started, pacing across Sheppard's tiny quarters in six steps, "so I started searching for any mention of a creature like that. And I found one thing -- an Ancient Captain's log, from just before the war with the Wraith got into full swing.
"The Captain was sent on a rescue mission, to pick up a group of scientists stranded on a planet with a malfunctioning DHD. When she got there, the scientists were all missing. They searched for them. Never found so much as a lab coat. All of their instruments were gone -- anything that held a charge of any kind. She was following the power drain on the gate, just like I did, when she was called away to respond to a Wraith attack in the quadrant. She left a team there to investigate, but when she got back, they were gone as well. Not so much as a distress call came back. All she found was one dead predator, hacked to pieces, with scales like a serpent and wide pale eyes that seemed to glow in the dark, even though it was dead.
"She didn't have any reason to try the gate, so I don't know if it had already been rigged like we found it. I doubt it though. That seemed like more recent work. She made note of the incident in her log, intending to make a formal report on the fate of the outpost when she returned to Atlantis. Looks like she never made it back, though. Hers must have been one of the first ships lost in the war.
"That's why, when we found that data, this bit wasn't included. It never got entered into the database properly. Just as part of a lost Captain's log."
We were silent in Sheppard's quarters. Then I stirred, thinking of the creature's, mad, clever eyes. "It destroyed the DHD to keep them there. The scientists. It wanted them trapped."
Teyla nodded. "But did it want the scientists, or their power sources? Like the energy creature Jinto released in Atlantis."
"Maybe both," Sheppard said grimly. "Either way . . ."
"Either way," McKay interrupted, "They died. And those things are using the power of the gate now. We know that they're nearly indestructible -- the one the Ancient found was only dead because it was in too many pieces to heal. If we go back, we might find out what they're doing with the power, whether they're really sentient beings or just very clever predators with a taste for amps. But we'll be under constant threat, for very little gain. New control crystals? Sure, that'd be nice. But we're always finding more of those. The gate? We can come back with the Daedalus later and steal the whole thing from orbit if we need it. I don't think it's worth risking more lives to go after that thing."
Sheppard glared at him. But McKay wasn't backing down. Sheppard's eyes turned to my bandaged arm, to Rodney's black eye. To the corridor, thinking, I knew, of Dr. Finn's torn throat.
"John?" Teyla asked, her voice calm. Patient. I wanted to go back so badly it ached. Wanted to hunt down that thing and cut it apart, until it stayed down. But Rodney was right, and I stayed quiet.
"All right," Sheppard said finally. "All right. I'll advise Woolsey to block the address, for now. We can always come back, better prepared, if we need too. No use borrowing trouble."
Rodney breathed out a sigh of relief. Not for himself -- no, that would be loud and enthusiastic. This was for his people, the ones who'd be most likely to get hurt. The ones he pretended not to like at all.
And I could respect that. A few dreams of mad white eyes in a howling downpour -- just another nightmare in my collection. A dead team? That would finish me.
So. Let that creature have its gate. I hope the rain washed it out to sea.
fin
Author snarkydame
Genre Action/Adventure
Prompt Creature from the black lagoon
Wordcount 6700
Rating PG-13
Warnings none
Summary The team goes to investigate a mysteriously malfunctioning gate on a storm locked world.
Notes Takes place sometime mid season 5.
We came through the roaring burn of the upper atmosphere into a thunderous mass of clouds. Lightning fell past the jumper in sheets of white light -- the sort that leaves your eyes seared blind.
"Sheppard!" McKay yelped from the front seat, as the jumper surged straight up on a furious gust of wind, then sideways, strong enough to tax the inertial dampeners.
"I've got it, Rodney," Sheppard ground out. His hands were firm on the controls, but not, I noticed with approval, white knuckled. The jumper's HUD flashed a constant stream of warnings and alarms that McKay, with a curse, muted, as he hooked his computer into the ship's systems.
Sheppard and McKay had the ship in hand. It's not like they'd been surprised by their surroundings-- hard to miss from space a thunderstorm that seemed to cover half a hemisphere. Unfortunately, it was that half of this world we needed to search. So. I shrugged as the wind kicked sleet across the jumper's windscreen in a horizontal lash, and turned instead to the rear compartment.
Teyla had that tight smile on, the one that meant she was struggling not to toss Dr. Finn out of the jumper. "Colonel Sheppard is a fine pilot, " she repeated, "and will have the jumper through the worst of this storm in a matter of minutes. Please, just remain calm."
Dr. Finn, who hadn't yet stopped babbling about lightning strikes knocking the jumper out of the air, hardly seemed to hear her. He clung instead to Dr. Audley, who rolled her eyes and patted him absently on the shoulder. She shook her head apologetically at Teyla.
"He gets like this," she said. "He'll be all right once we land."
Teyla's smile gentled slightly. "We will all be glad to be safe on the ground." She stood then, keeping a grip on the storage webbing, and made her way front.
"He is worse than Torren when he's colicky," she said, soft enough that the techs couldn't hear.
"Yeah?" I asked. "And how's that going?"
She sighed. "I can only hope to catch up on my sleep while we are here." We both looked out at the storm raging behind the jumper's silently flashing HUD. Teyla smacked my arm when I smirked down at her.
* * * * *
It was McKay who finally got Dr. Finn to stop clinging to Dr. Audley.
"Stop sniveling, Rupert. Erin'll need a functioning arm when we get to the gate." He'd turned away from his computer. As he sneered at Dr. Finn, the vivid chaos of the inner storm was overtaken by steady rain as the jumper broke through the cloud cover. Sheppard was piloting now in his usual slouch, oozing relaxed confidence.
Dr. Finn settled back, sheepishly releasing Audley. She raised an eyebrow at him, rubbing life back into her arm.
"How long ‘till we land?" I asked. Staying in here with the techs wasn't anyone's idea of a good time, whether they were being quiet or not.
"Give me a minute," Sheppard shrugged. "Gotta find some level ground."
Through the windscreen I could see mountains -- old mountains, the sort with rounded, green shoulders and stone outcroppings weathered treacherously smooth. Rivers swollen with the heavy rains rushed out over moss-slick cliffs, leaping from rock to rock, while white birds flew unheeding through the spray and violent winds. Behind the cliffs, a white-caped sea tossed under the storm.
"Don't park the jumper too far from the source of these readings," McKay told Sheppard absently, looking again at his computer. "I don't want to go hiking in the rain."
"I don't think you'll melt, Rodney," Sheppard said, but I noticed he was circling back around.
Teyla peered around us, studying the landscape. "It is beautiful here," she said, "Are the storms always so fierce? It could be a pleasant world, should we need to move the city again."
McKay frowned peevishly. "It's not like we can just pick up and move whenever we want, you know." He paused, looking at the waterfalls. "But the eteorologists do think that a storm system like this is the exception here." He shook himself. "Of course, it'll probably turn out that the vegetation is poisonous, or the ground is unstable, or that there are hideously dangerous predators or something. This galaxy hates us."
"So lets just get to the gate, find out why we couldn't get a connection, fix it, and get out of here. We'll be back in Atlantis before the Daedalus comes out of hyperspace."
"What? They aren't waiting for us? But . . ."
"It's a figure of speech, McKay. Relax."
"Very funny. Ha ha. Let's make fun of the prospect of being stranded to die horribly from poisonous moss, shall we?"
"Um, excuse me." Dr. Finn's voice, now that he wasn't shrieking in terror, was actually pretty soft. I almost didn't hear him at all. "But I think I saw a spot we could land in."
* * * * *
We parked the jumper on a rocky patch of ground next to a lake whose dark waters were still, but for the scattering of rain that broke it's surface. The lake, as well as the jumper, was sheltered from the wind by dark grey cliffs laced over with deep green moss. When I moved closer, stretching my legs after leaving the jumper, I could see tiny white flowers peeking out of the moss, their petals closed tight.
Dr. Audley sighed as she stepped out behind me. "Dr. McKay," she asked, "are you certain those readings come from the gate? Even when it's powered down for maintenance, the gate on Atlantis gives of readings that are five times that powerful."
Dr. Finn paused next to her, uncertainly swinging his pack in his hand. "What else could it be, though? The database indicates only the most basic Ancient research outpost on this planet was ever built. And there was no sign that any other civilization ever came here."
McKay snapped his fingers. "Yes, exactly. I'm certain. Can we go now?"
Sheppard ran a hand fruitlessly through his rain-flattened hair. "Yes, Rodney, we can go now. Teyla, you and Ronon check out the valley, make sure McKay's 'hideously dangerous predators’ aren't laired up nearby. Stay in radio contact."
I checked the setting on my gun and nodded,. Sheppard went south, towards the readings, McKay at his side. Finn and Audley trailed along, wet and unhappy. I noticed, as they rounded the curve of the lake's shore, that McKay moved back, sandwiching the techs between himself and Sheppard.
I followed Teyla up a rocky incline. If McKay was right about the poisonous moss, we might have a problem, I thought, only sort of amused. The stuff was everywhere. A storm as big as the one we came through might not have been the norm on this planet, but it still got more than enough rain.
Teyla reached the summit before I did, more surefooted on the wet rock. She tucked her wet hair behind her ear and held up a hand to shield her eyes from the rain, looking up at the clouds.
"I think the worst of the rain is moving away," she said, "but it will still be a wet camp."
I grunted. "I've had worse."
"As have I." Teyla smiled at me, the one that meant she thought I was boasting. Well. I might have been, a little. But it was true.
We picked our way carefully down from the summit. Other than the white birds, there didn't seem to be any sign of life. But the birds had to eat something. And something had to eat the birds.
"There." I pointed out the tracks to Teyla. Hardly more than a scrape against the wet dirt between rocks -- just the edge of what was probably a paw. Whatever it was was stepping from stone to stone. And had done so after we landed, since the rain hadn't washed it away. Even now the print was becoming less distinct.
"About as large as a big orynx, I think. Or it's smaller, if it has really long legs. "
"Most likely, our arrival has frightened her away from the hunt."
"Her?"
"It usually is. I am sure her mate is laired up somewhere dry." And she moved off, not waiting for me to finish raising an eyebrow. I could tell, from the set of her shoulders, that she was smiling.
"So why are we here, anyway?" I asked as we rested by the lake, trying to distract myself from the rain's cold trails down my back.
Teyla sighed, wringing out her hair. "There was some mention in the Ancient database of a small research base, and a rare mineral that could perhaps be used to manufacture more efficient control crystals."
"But the gate doesn't work."
"No." She sighed. "It is not buried, nor is it destroyed. How did Zelenka put it? 'The phone is ringing, but no one is picking it up?'"
"Hmph." I didn't actually care that much. It was curious, but hardly an emergency. Bored, I ran a hand through the water of the lake.
"Salt water," I told Teyla after taking a taste.
She frowned thoughtfully. "The sea is not far from here, I know, but I would think with all of the rivers that empty into this lake the water would be fresh."
I shrugged. "Good thing we brought our own water, I guess."
"Yes." She shrugged, and squinted up through the steady drizzle that the rain had subsided to. "Though it is not as though we would run out." She shrugged, and keyed her radio.
"Colonel Sheppard, we have finished our reconnaissance. We are on our way to join you and the others."
“Right. Watch your step on the way down."
"Understood, Colonel."
* * * * *
Apparently, the tiny power output McKay had been reading was, in fact, the gate. But it no longer seemed strange that we hadn't been able to establish a connection from Atlantis. The DHD was missing a panel, and Finn was pulling out crystal after crystal darkened, cracked, or broken.
"It's so strange," Audley said from the other side, where she was gathering her own stack of useless parts. "It looks like each of these crystals were deliberately damaged, and then put back in place. I haven't found a single one that was useable."
"Me neither," Finn replied.
McKay stood glaring at the ring itself. "Would you two stop wasting your time? Yes, it's a mystery. Yes, it must have been deliberate. Completely overkill, of course, though that's beside the point. But not one of those broken crystals will tell us why we couldn't dial in from Atlantis! It's not like we'd need the DHD for that. And where the hell is its power leeching off to? You couldn't power so much as a single drone with what it's giving out."
Audley growled back at him. "You can't think the two issues aren't connected, Dr. McKay."
"Yes, yes I can! Whatever is wrong with the gate could easily have nothing to do with the sabotaging of the DHD. And it doesn't matter! We don't need the DHD. But the gate could be useful."
"And if we need to get off world faster than the Daedalus can get back to us? What then?"
"Oh, I'm sorry, you're right. You're absolutely right. Now, did you bring enough spare crystals to fix that DHD? Because I seem to be a few short!"
"Calm down, both of you!" Sheppard commanded, stepping between the two red-faced doctors. At the DHD, Finn ducked his head and kept working..
"Dr. Audley, why don't you and Dr. Finn put the DHD on hold for awhile. Take a look at the gate. McKay, can I have a word?" And he took hold of McKay's sleeve, towing him aside.
Audley looked like she wanted to argue, but Teyla smoothly intercepted her, asking questions about what she might be looking for. The doctor looked tired. Rain had plastered her hair along her back and the sides of her face, and as she answered Teyla's questions, water dripped from her hawkish nose.
Mysteries like this bothered McKay. This gate, on this planet, had bothered McKay since before we knew there was a problem with it. And now that we here, in the rain, he was getting steadily more irritated. I didn't envy Sheppard the task of keeping him from ripping into the techs.
McKay was digging now, at the base of the ring, trying to pinpoint exactly where the faint power reading was coming from. Sheppard stood at his shoulder, musing aloud.
"I can see someone destroying a few of the DHD's crystals, if they wanted to keep someone on this planet from getting off. But the Ancients wouldn't have done it -- they'd just take a few of the important bits with them, so they could use them again later if they had too. And most of the other people we've met around here couldn't have done it without stranding themselves, too.
"Maybe some sort of hermit? A self-imposed exile kind of thing? That might explain why every one of the crystals are damaged."
McKay grunted when Sheppard paused, but wasn't really listening, far I could tell. I exchanged a glance with Teyla, who nodded and took off to make a circuit around the valley. I sat on one of the larger rocks, grimacing as the wet stone soaked my pants, and watched. I wouldn't want to miss it if McKay tore into Audley again.
* * * * *
It wasn't easy to tell when the sun began to set -- the cloud cover had yet to break, although we were getting lulls in the rain. But it was getting steadily darker now.
Finn was setting up camp, yawning as he staked out the tents and shook out bedrolls. Teyla was right -- it was going to be a wet camp. But at least McKay was too involved at the gate to complain much.
Sheppard's voice was a soft rumble in the background. He leaned against the gate, including Audley and Finn in the conversation now. Had even found the opportunity to rake a hand through his hair. But I could see how often he scanned over the valley. The ready angle of his P-90. Which jerked sharply to attention at McKay's sudden exclamation.
"I found it!" he crowed, snapping his fingers at Finn. "Bring me your light, would you? Shine it right here."
Audley and Finn both flicked their flashlights on. In their light, McKay pointed out what looked like a bundle of cords hooked into the gate under a panel covered in mud.
"Someone jury-rigged the Stargate -- turned it into a battery. That's incredibly dangerous. Really, I'm surprised they didn't blow themselves up!" He didn't sound too worried about the possibility, so I stepped on the impulse to pull him and Sheppard away from the gate.
"Who's 'they?'" Sheppard asked, an edge to his voice.
"Well, they didn't really leave a calling card, Colonel. It's pretty efficient though -- very little power is being wasted -- that's why the energy signature is so small. And it's pulling a huge amount of power -- whatever this is connected to has excellent shielding. Really top notch."
"So there is someone on this planet." Audley edged a little closer to me. "Do you think they're friendly?"
"With our record?" McKay suddenly sounded very tired. "I don't think it's likely."
Sheppard keyed his radio: "Teyla."
"Colonel?"
"Come on back to camp. We might have company out here after all."
* * * * *
The night was not quiet. The thunder was distant but unceasing, while the many waterfalls around the edges of the valley roared in harmony. The white birds let out the occasional strident cry that crossed the still waters of the lake clearly. Teyla murmured Kanaan's name in her sleep, shifting deeper into her bedroll, and Finn twitched, dreaming. Audley tossed and turned as though she slept on roots.
I paced around the camp, trying to keep warm. Everything was too wet to burn, and I felt clammy. Cold. I'd had enough of rain.
I noticed on my second pass that the tiny white flowers in the moss had opened their petals. They were star shaped, and their pollen gave off the faintest glow. In the dark valley, with neither of the two moons able to break through the sullen clouds, the flowers' bare brush of light seemed almost bright, though it did little more than give the night outlines.
I wondered if I could take a bit of moss and flowers back to Atlantis. Wondered if Amelia would like them.
I shook myself out of that train of thought and kept walking, keeping my eyes on the dark. The gutted DHD hulked disturbingly in the middle of the camp, my team and the techs rolled like large rocks at its base.
The birds were going silent -- I stood still, listening for what had startled them. For a long while, all I heard was water. Then, slowly, an eerie, modulated howl rose over the valley. It wove it's way through the air, impossible to pinpoint. The howl soared so high I couldn't hear it all, and then swooped low enough to rumble through the ground at my feet. It was beautiful. And threatening. The hair on the back of my neck was rising.
Sheppard and Teyla were already on their feet, weapons out. The techs were shifting, disturbed in their sleep. But Rodney was the first to speak, sitting up against the DHD, his pistol in his hand.
"It sounds like whale song," he said, wondering. "Like a whale, singing out of water."
"Yeah," Sheppard muttered. "Remember how well that turned out last time?"
"No one's ears are bleeding yet," I offered.
"There doesn't seem to be more than one. But I feel . . . uneasy," Teyla murmured.
And as Finn and Audley woke up, the weird howl shivered into silence. A silence broken as something surged through the shallow waters at the edge of the lake and slammed straight into me.
It was heavy and scaled, supple like a snake, and it's long legs kicked me onto my back before I could do more than throw an arm in front of my throat. My gun went skidding across the ground -- I heard it squelch in the mud at the foot of the gate.
A paw that was very nearly a hand pinned my free arm to the ground as teeth, sharp and serrated, tore into the other. Eyes, huge and pale and mad, stared straight into mine. I could hear my team shouting, and recognized McKay's gun, firing into the air.
I didn't think this thing would be frightened off that easily. Snarling beneath it, I ignored the teeth in my arm and bucked, trying to free my right hand. A knife. I needed a knife.
But Sheppard had a knife. He plunged it into the thing's muscled shoulder, cursing. The scales turned most of the blow, but the beast let go of me to yowl at Sheppard, giving me just enough room to kick it away from me, and Teyla opened up with her P-90.
The creature dug into the ground and pushed off into the night -- a brief silhouette against the moss-flower's luminescence. A flat, heavy tail smacked against Sheppard's hip as it passed, and he fell heavily back on top of me. I wheezed.
The whole attack took less than thirty seconds.
We retreated to the jumper, unable to effectively plan a defense against the predator in the dark, without a fire. Dr. Finn, pale with shock, bandaged my arm with hands that didn't shake.
"It's not as bad as it looks," he said. "It ripped the skin up pretty badly, but there's no real muscle damage, and the bone is intact. We'll have to keep a close eye on it, though. I'm not qualified to give you more than field care, and I'm afraid it will probably get infected."
"s'all right, doc. You did good," I said, examining the neat bandage. My arm hurt, but I could move it, and grip with the hand. "Anybody get a good look at the thing?"
"No," McKay ground out. "Nobody got a good look at the hideously dangerous predator. It being dark and all." He still held his gun in his hand, and kept giving Finn and Audley unhappy glances. I knew what he was thinking. He'd lost too many scientists in the field.
Audley was quietly hyperventilating on the bench. Teyla pushed her head down, murmuring soothing words until she calmed. "I'm sorry," she finally gasped out, and started laughing, not quite hysterically. "But what a way to wake up!"
Finn, done with my arm, looked at Sheppard. "How are you, Colonel? It gave you a pretty good knock."
"I'm fine," he said, studying the jumper's readings of the area. Searching for the creature, or another like it.
"You mean you're bruised from hip to ankle and can hardly move your leg," McKay snapped at him. "Would you get out of that chair before you're so stiff we have to pry you out with a crowbar?"
Sheppard scowled at him, but struggled out of the chair to make his way back to Finn, who strapped a heating pad to his hip and taped up his knee. "I'm afraid this will have to do for now, Colonel. Nothing seems to be broken, at least."
"Small favors, I suppose," McKay edged out.
"We were quite fortunate," Teyla said. "A creature that size could certainly have done more damage. It did not seem fazed by my gun, or your knife, Colonel."
"I think it was playing with me," I said, studying the six-fingered paw shaped bruise on my right arm. "Figuring out what we were."
Dr. Audley drew in a breath. "There's a happy thought."
* * * * *
In the brightening day, it began to rain again, little more than a soft mist. I was glad to be in the jumper, for the chance to dry off and get warm, but the smell of wet clothes and blood was lingering. McKay was getting unhappier by the minute, studying the data he'd collected on the gate. Finn and Audley were trying to play cards, but they were both distracted, and kept losing track of the game. Teyla watched both the valley outside and Sheppard and me, unobtrusively.
I sighed, and stood up, regretting that the cuff of my pants and my waistband were still damp. "I'm going out," I announced. "See if I can track that thing before the rain starts up enough to wash the prints away."
"What?" McKay's head shot up. "Are you crazy? You're hurt!"
"It's not bad," I shrugged.
"I'll come with you," Sheppard said.
"No! You're both insane." McKay shook himself and stood up. "I'll go. I want to see if I can follow these modified readings to the power drain, anyway. And Teyla should stay here to protect the jumper. God knows the rest of you'll be useless if something happens."
Sheppard started to protest, but his knee took his sudden turn badly. Audley caught him on the way down, and while he was untangling himself, McKay and I slipped out of the half-open hatch.
"Not that you should really be going anywhere either," McKay was muttering behind me, frowning at his scanner. "But that thing was probably nocturnal. I expect you to shoot it immediately if I'm wrong."
I didn't say anything. I would, and he knew it. Letting McKay talk was usually the easiest thing to do. He didn't even expect an answer, most of the time.
The tracks were pressed deep in the muddy ground -- the creature had been genuinely frightened when Teyla shot it. But there wasn't much blood -- she hadn't done much more than shock it. Even Sheppard's knife hadn't done much damage.
The paw prints were the same as the trace I'd found yesterday with Teyla, which increased the possibility that this was the dominant predator in the area -- there really didn't seem to be much in the way of wildlife around here at all.
I followed the tracks straight to the lake -- the creature had taken to the water with a leap at least three meters long.
"Huh," I heard behind me. McKay had been trailing the power drain in the same general direction as the tracks. Standing now at my side, he squinted down at his scanner, then back to the water.
"Whatever's draining power from the gate, its conduits run directly under that," he said grimly.
"Maybe it leads to the other shore?"
McKay shook his head unhappily and held up his scanner. The rain misting on its screen made stars of the display, and he wiped it off with the cuff of his sleeve. "The modifications I made are letting me pin point the source of the drain more exactly. It's right in the middle of the lake."
We looked at the dark water, reflecting the clouds hanging heavy with unshed rain. The predator obviously felt comfortable in that lake. "Yeah. This galaxy hates you."
"Thanks."
* * * * *
We started back to the jumper. We were little more than halfway there when the clouds let go a downpour that made all the rain yesterday seem like nothing. I couldn't see McKay, two feet in front of me, couldn't hear him either, under the pounding of the rain on my head, and I knew he would be shouting. I reached for him where I guessed he would be, feeling the pull on my bandaged arm, but he wasn't there.
"McKay," I yelled, barely hearing myself, suddenly frantic. "McKay!"
When his hand hit my shoulder I almost shot him. He was an indistinct blur through the curtain of rain, but he held his scanner up a few inches from my face -- through the water sheeting down the screen, I could see the four dots that meant the jumper, and the rest of our team. I held onto his arm, and followed the scanner.
The water was sheeting over the rocky ground so quickly it made keeping our footing difficult at best. When we hit a patch of moss under that water McKay went sideways. I came down on top of him, unwilling to let go. I could feel him gasping for air, and winced. Breathing in this rain almost felt like drowning as it was, and I'd knocked all the air out of him.
"Come on," I said, hauling him up. I knew he couldn't hear me, but he patted my shoulder, and we kept going.
We couldn't be that far from the jumper. I checked the scanner again -- and again. There were five life signs ahead of us.
I hauled back on McKay's arm, nearly sending us to the ground again, and shoved the scanner at him. His arm tensed under my hand.
"It's right on top of them!" he yelled into my ear.
I keyed my radio, but all I got was static. There was just too much water in the air, interfering with the signal. Even if it made it through, I doubt that they could hear it over the rain.
"Stay here!" I shouted. "I'll shoot it and come back for you!"
"You're insane! I'm not staying here alone!" And he wrapped his fist in my shirt, so I couldn't let go and leave him.
Stubborn. But I felt the tiniest smile working its way across my face.
We went in relative silence, masked by the rain. I didn't know if the creature could hear us, or see us -- the rain certainly didn't seem to handicap it as much as it did us. Nothing we could do about it if it could.
The scanner's screen flickered but stayed on, and I could feel McKay drawing breath to curse. The scanner, hardy though it was, wasn't meant for full submersion, which this downpour nearly was. I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the soaking storm. Fighting that thing completely blind . . .
But then the rain was slowing to merely heavy, and the jumper was looming up out the storm. And on the roof, nearly invisible, almost exactly the color of the rain and the clouds, was the predator. Long and lean, with the sleek, heavy musculature of a giant snake, it crouched on top of the jumper and stared directly at us. Its eyes glowed with very much the same faint light as the moss-flowers. Only pale scars remained from its wounds the night before. Slowly, as we stared it down, heavy curved claws slid out of its webbed feet, and its flat eel-like tail lashed at its flanks.
I raised my gun, set to kill. The rain shouldn't have effected it much. Though I wasn't sure about McKay's hand gun. He had it out anyway, face set and arm steady. His eyes were wide, lashes starred with rain. Good man.
We shot at the same time, the bark of his gun and the snap of my blaster both dulled by the rain. The creature leapt right over the shots, and pushed off McKay's shoulders, sending him face first in the mud. I kicked frantically at the beast, but it had already spun away, and all I saw was its tail flicking around the jumper's side.
I pulled McKay coughing and cursing to his feet. He swiped at the mud in his eyes. "It only got the pack!" he yelled, though I suspected he'd end up with black eyes at least. I nodded, relieved, and tried the radio again.
Sheppard's reply was garbled, but there -- "Whe . . . you? . . . . right? That thing is . . . . "
"It's still out here, Sheppard! Keep everyone inside!" I tugged McKay over to the hatch and leaned him against it, leaving him the scanner. "Guard the door. I'm going around the jumper." He looked like he wanted desperately to argue, but just swallowed hard and rolled his eyes nervously to the roof.
"Don't get eaten." He shot after me, and I grinned. Good man, yeah.
The mud around the jumper squelched and stuck to my feet -- but then, I don't think I could sneak up on this thing anyway. It was waiting for me. I just had to shoot faster than it could jump me.
But it wasn't waiting for me around the jumper. I looked in through the windscreen, and saw Teyla and Sheppard looking back, faces set with worry. Teyla shook her head at my raised eyebrow -- she hadn't seen it. Sheppard's eyes sharpened when he didn't see McKay with me. I motioned back towards the hatch, and he frowned, looking rearward. The two techs were huddled on the bench seats there.
If it wasn't here, and McKay hadn't shot at anything (because of course he'd get a shot of. It wouldn't have snuck back around and picked him off silently) then where was it? Back on top of the jumper? I backed away, by chance moving at the same time back towards McKay. Who was perfectly safe.
And there it was. Right in the middle of the roof, folded very nearly flat against the jumper's surface. Hidden by the curve of the ship. It wasn't stalking McKay. Wasn't hiding from me. No. With its paw -- its six-fingered, very nearly hand-like paw -- it was working at one of the exterior access hatches that governed the jumper's controls. As I stared, almost too shocked to shoot, the creature raised its head and looked at me. I swear it smiled, teeth shining in the rain.
This time, when I shot, it didn't dodge. The blast knocked it over the other side of the jumper. But the damage was done -- the hatch was opening.
"McKay!" I bellowed, "Move." But he was already scrambling away from the back of the jumper, aghast as it fell nearly on top of him.
"How? Who?!"
I was sprinting as quickly as I could on the unstable ground. The creature wasn't dead in the mud, though I could see the mark of its landing and smell the singed scales from the blast. I yelled into the radio.
"Sheppard! That thing's intelligent! Get the techs out of the rear compartment." I was answered by gunfire -- McKay, Teyla and Sheppard firing -- but the creature was already inside.
The gunfire ended as I slid to a stop in the hatch -- the creature was backed against the bench, body covered by Dr. Finn, whose hands were locked around the creature's jaws, trying to pry them away from his throat. No one had a clear shot. But the creature wasn't biting -- there was no more than a trickle of blood.
Finn's rolling eyes caught mine, pleading. I switched my gun to stun. It may not do anything at all to the creature, if it could survive a direct hit on kill. But it would stun Finn. Whether that would be a mercy or not . . .
Sheppard's eyes were wild. "Ronon! Do not let that thing leave," he ground out, jaw clenched. "If it's intelligent, it knows it's outnumbered."
McKay kept glancing from the frantic Finn to Audley, who stood shaking behind Teyla, Sheppard's gun in her hand. He looked furious. They were scared, McKay and Sheppard both, of losing yet another scientist under their command. Under their protection.
Under my protection, that meant. But I remembered the mad eyes from the night before, and I knew, whether this thing was actually sentient, or just cunning, it didn't care about being outnumbered.
Teyla was edging slowly closer to the creature -- so slowly I hadn't noticed for the last several steps. But when she took the next the creature's eyes caught her, and he bit a little tighter around Finn's throat. His strangled gasp stopped her in her tracks.
"Please," Audley's whisper sounded loud, the only sound under the steady drum of the rain. "Please, he's my friend."
And I shot it.
I was right before, it didn't knock the creature out -- it spasmed against the wall, dropping Finn, who was out cold, limbs still twitching. Rodney dove for him, clapping a hand to his bleeding neck. The creature bolted out the door, and Sheppard and Teyla both followed, emptying a clip after it.
I stayed, watching McKay and Finn. I needed to know if I'd just killed him. "He's breathing," McKay said, looking over at me. "It was starting to bite when you shot it, but it didn't get the jugular. Not quite. We need to get him back to the Daedalus." Behind us, Dr. Audley sat with a thump on the floor, Sheppard's gun still held tight in her left hand.
I closed my eyes and nodded.
Sheppard and Teyla backed into the jumper, Sheppard limping heavily, guns still trained into the rain. Over the sound of the rain, that aching howl went soaring.
"Rodney," Sheppard said, voice tight, "lock us up." Rodney grabbed Dr. Audley's hand.
"Hold here," he commanded. "Don't let go. John, we have to get him to a medic."
"Yeah. We're going."
* * * * *
The Daedalus, even with the constant vibration from her great engines, seemed quiet after the heavy rush of water on the planet.
The steady beep of Finn's monitor seemed very loud here. I stood just inside the infirmary door, watching.
The trip back into space had been nerve wracking. Sheppard had to fly half way around the planet to avoid going back through the storm. We couldn't go through it with Finn in that condition, but even taking the longer, gentler way, the kid had stopped breathing twice before we docked with the Daedalus. Shock, McKay thought.
He was resting comfortably now, the medic said. He'd be all right, he said. He'd live.
Dr. Audley lay curled on the bunk next to Finn's, fast asleep. Her hawk face looked softer. Younger. I turned away.
Teyla met me in the corridor. "Colonel Sheppard is planning on returning, with Lorne's team, and one other. Rodney says that there must be more about that planet, about that creature in the database. The little we found before we left can't have been all there was. He is searching through what the Daedalus has now."
We walked slowly, reveling in being warm, and dry. I couldn't get the creature's pale stare out of my head.
McKay raised a hand when we reached the door to Sheppard's quarters. He looked distracted, even disturbed.
"I found something," he said, and motioned us in.
"There's very little in the database about that planet," he started, pacing across Sheppard's tiny quarters in six steps, "so I started searching for any mention of a creature like that. And I found one thing -- an Ancient Captain's log, from just before the war with the Wraith got into full swing.
"The Captain was sent on a rescue mission, to pick up a group of scientists stranded on a planet with a malfunctioning DHD. When she got there, the scientists were all missing. They searched for them. Never found so much as a lab coat. All of their instruments were gone -- anything that held a charge of any kind. She was following the power drain on the gate, just like I did, when she was called away to respond to a Wraith attack in the quadrant. She left a team there to investigate, but when she got back, they were gone as well. Not so much as a distress call came back. All she found was one dead predator, hacked to pieces, with scales like a serpent and wide pale eyes that seemed to glow in the dark, even though it was dead.
"She didn't have any reason to try the gate, so I don't know if it had already been rigged like we found it. I doubt it though. That seemed like more recent work. She made note of the incident in her log, intending to make a formal report on the fate of the outpost when she returned to Atlantis. Looks like she never made it back, though. Hers must have been one of the first ships lost in the war.
"That's why, when we found that data, this bit wasn't included. It never got entered into the database properly. Just as part of a lost Captain's log."
We were silent in Sheppard's quarters. Then I stirred, thinking of the creature's, mad, clever eyes. "It destroyed the DHD to keep them there. The scientists. It wanted them trapped."
Teyla nodded. "But did it want the scientists, or their power sources? Like the energy creature Jinto released in Atlantis."
"Maybe both," Sheppard said grimly. "Either way . . ."
"Either way," McKay interrupted, "They died. And those things are using the power of the gate now. We know that they're nearly indestructible -- the one the Ancient found was only dead because it was in too many pieces to heal. If we go back, we might find out what they're doing with the power, whether they're really sentient beings or just very clever predators with a taste for amps. But we'll be under constant threat, for very little gain. New control crystals? Sure, that'd be nice. But we're always finding more of those. The gate? We can come back with the Daedalus later and steal the whole thing from orbit if we need it. I don't think it's worth risking more lives to go after that thing."
Sheppard glared at him. But McKay wasn't backing down. Sheppard's eyes turned to my bandaged arm, to Rodney's black eye. To the corridor, thinking, I knew, of Dr. Finn's torn throat.
"John?" Teyla asked, her voice calm. Patient. I wanted to go back so badly it ached. Wanted to hunt down that thing and cut it apart, until it stayed down. But Rodney was right, and I stayed quiet.
"All right," Sheppard said finally. "All right. I'll advise Woolsey to block the address, for now. We can always come back, better prepared, if we need too. No use borrowing trouble."
Rodney breathed out a sigh of relief. Not for himself -- no, that would be loud and enthusiastic. This was for his people, the ones who'd be most likely to get hurt. The ones he pretended not to like at all.
And I could respect that. A few dreams of mad white eyes in a howling downpour -- just another nightmare in my collection. A dead team? That would finish me.
So. Let that creature have its gate. I hope the rain washed it out to sea.
fin