He sighed. Much as he hated to admit it, and never would out loud, Rodney was right for once. This really was ridiculous.
The instant Sheppard set the Jumper down — a little unsteadily but more or less in one piece — Ronon was on his feet and charging back through the cargo hold to the rear door. “We need to find cover!” he shouted over his shoulder. One hand was tapping the open command. The other had his laser pistol drawn. “Right now!”
“Now, hold on there, chief,” Rodney argued, clambering out of his own chair and following Ronon but at a distance — he knew the Satedan well enough by now to give him a wide berth, especially when he was this agitated. “What’s the rush? We’re on the ground, and that exploding ship is half a light year away — what’s left of it.”
“That isn’t the danger,” Ronon told him brusquely. “Not anymore.”
“What is the danger, then?” Teyla asked. She stepped up beside Ronon and rested one hand on his forearm, gently pushing his gun down until it pointed at the floor. “Ronon, if there is a threat here you must let us know. How else can we ready ourselves for it?”
“I — ” It was rare to see the Satedan at a loss for words — he didn’t speak much, but when he did he was very concise. To see him pausing now made Sheppard uneasy. But after a second Ronon shook his head and holstered his pistol. “It’s just a feeling,” he claimed. “I don’t think we’re out of danger yet.”
“I tend to agree with that,” Sheppard offered, rising as well and joining the rest of them, “if only because, as long as the Jumper’s this banged up, we’re sitting ducks. But our first priority has to be getting the ship up and running again, and getting back through the gate. We can send a military unit back to investigate the wreckage from that vessel, see what they can tell us about who set it and why — they’ll be better equipped to deal with any additional threats.”
Teyla nodded. “I agree — we should return to Atlantis as soon as possible.”
“No argument there,” Ronon admitted. His hand still rested on the butt of his pistol, though.
Rodney couldn’t keep quiet, of course. Especially since he had gotten his way. That put him in a good mood, which made him talkative. Of course, when he didn’t get his way he became grumpy, which also made him talkative, just more whiny. Really, Sheppard thought, there weren’t a lot of things that didn’t make Rodney talkative. Other than sleep and maybe strong tranquilizers.
“Well, now that we’ve all agreed,” he suggested, rubbing his hands together, “is it all right if I actually get to work? Or did we want to sit and bicker a bit more?”
“Shut up and get to work, Rodney,” Sheppard told him. “The rest of us will look around, see what sort of dirtball we’ve crash-landed on.”
“You and Teyla go,” Ronon corrected with a grimace. “I’ll stand guard.”
That earned him a stare from Rodney. “Over me? You’re going to guard me?” If anything, Ronon’s grimace became more pronounced, and that woke an answering grin from Rodney. “Well, now I’ve seen everything.”
“There’s air,” Teyla reported, and Sheppard saw that she’d tied her suit’s computer into the cargo bay door. Smart — that way she’d used the Jumper’s external sensors to run an analysis on their surroundings but her suit had done the processing. “Thin, but breathable. Temperatures are within comfortable ranges. No sign of any toxins. We won’t need the suits.”
“Great — let’s get them off.” Sheppard immediately started stripping his off, and the others followed his lead. The MOPP suits were great but they had a limited air supply, so if the air outside was breathable they were better off conserving their resources. And the suits hindered movement and obstructed vision, something he didn’t want to risk when they were scouting an unfamiliar location like this.
“Better — definitely better,” Rodney exclaimed once he’d hung his own suit back on the rack. “I hate wearing that thing — I feel like the inside of a glove. Yuck!”
“Just get the Jumper up and running again,” Sheppard instructed as the door lowered and they all filed out. “And get our comm link back up so we can call Atlantis — we haven’t hit our window yet but once we do Woolsey’s going to start worrying.”
“That’s a good thing, right?” Rodney asked, automatically raising and closing the Jumper’s door again behind him. “He’ll send troops through to find us?”
“And what if whoever set that ship to explode is still here?” Ronon demanded. He’d dropped into a crouch the minute he was outside, pistol back in hand, eyes scanning the area. “What if they ambush the troops as they come through?”
Rodney turned pale and stared all around. “Right, comm link,” he whispered. “Got it.”
Sheppard slapped him on the back. “Stay out of trouble.” He exchanged a nod with Ronon. “Keep him out of trouble.”
“Be careful,” Ronon returned. He’d straightened slightly but hadn’t lowered his weapon. “I still don’t like this.”
“We’ll watch our backs,” Sheppard assured him. “Ready?” he asked Teyla. She nodded, and together they turned away from the Jumper and their friends. “Then let’s see what this lovely little mudball has to offer!” .
*
*
*
“Not really a mudball at all,” Sheppard muttered to himself an hour later. “More like a big dirty rock.”
It was true — they had been scouting the area around their impromptu landing site, and everything he and Teyla had seen so far confirmed that basic impression. This wasn’t a planet, not in the sense of proper landmasses and full ecosystems and weather patterns. Oh, it had dirt and water and plants and a breathable atmosphere — but only barely. There was some dirt but mostly it was rock, and they’d been hiking through craggy hills and shallow valleys for the past twenty minutes or more. A short distance away those same hills rose to become a low mountain range, and Sheppard was sure he saw dark openings here and there along the sides. Caves. He hated caves.
There was some moisture here and there — narrow little streams trickling along, small muddy puddles collected in small depressions — but he suspected that was from ice-covered meteorites small enough to get sucked in by this place’s low gravity. A few plants poked up as well, mostly scrub brush and tough vines. He figured the dirt was the result of countless meteorites, asteroids, and other bits of space debris, and some of it must have held a few seeds — there was sunlight aplenty, though the “sun” was a small star with watery white light, and without competition the few plants here had managed to eke out a basic subsistence. They didn’t have enough water or soil to flourish, however, and most of this place was still just bare rock.
“It’s a hiker’s paradise,” he added, hauling himself up onto a small boulder and straightening up to survey their surroundings. “Too bad I left my good hiking boots back on Atlantis.”
“At least you have your canteen,” Teyla pointed out. She raised hers in salute before taking a quick swig. Sheppard did the same, careful to only drink a mouthful of the warm water. No telling how long it would take Rodney to fix the Jumper, and the last thing he wanted was to risk dehydration.
“The good news is, I’m not seeing any signs of other life,” Sheppard commented, still scanning the horizon. “I’d say we’re alone out here.”
Teyla nodded. “I have not see anything either.” Then she frowned. “Except perhaps for that.” She pointed off in the distance. Sheppard followed her gesture and after a second his eyes picked up a glare. Something over there was reflecting the sunlight — something metallic.
“Could just be a piece from the Jumper,” he argued, hopping down from the boulder. “I’m sure we lost a few bits of the hull in that explosion, and passing through this place’s joke of an atmosphere might have been enough to tear it loose.”
“Perhaps,” Teyla admitted. “In which case Rodney might need it in order to complete his repairs. But what if it is not from our ship? It could be random debris, pulled here by this planet’s gravity well — or it could be something left behind by whomever set that ship to explode.”
“Why would they be here, though?” Sheppard wondered out loud as she headed in the reflection’s direction. “They could have flown that ship over there, rigged it, and flown off in a second ship they had following it. They wouldn’t have needed to set down on a planet at all. And they’d probably be safer not landing here — jostling explosives is never a good idea, and you risk having the thing blow up in your face before you can clear the atmosphere.”
Teyla only shrugged. “We do not know who set the ship or for what purpose,” she pointed out without slowing her pace, “and so we have no way of knowing their motivations for anything. But perhaps whatever is up ahead will provide us with some clue.”
“Yeah, or it could just be a discarded candy wrapper,” Sheppard said softly. But he followed her anyway. There wasn’t anything else to see out here, and Ronon’s earlier paranoia still had him a little on edge.
They spent the next few minutes without speaking, picking their way over rocks or around them. “You may be correct after all,” Teyla said finally. She had increased her lead and was now a good twenty paces ahead of him. The shiny object was perhaps another twenty paces past her, Sheppard judged, and he still couldn’t tell anything more about it than the fact that it was metal or at least metallic, and probably no bigger than his fist. It had been sheer luck that Teyla had spotted it in the first place — a slightly different angle, or a different time of day, and they’d never have seen the glare it gave off.
“What, it is a candy wrapper?” Sheppard called out. His stomach rumbled. “I don’t suppose it’s unopened?” He had emergency ration bars on him, of course, but didn’t want to eat those if he didn’t have to. They had better rations back on the Jumper, anyway. As soon as they’d inspected this thing, whatever it was, he planned on heading them back there. Hopefully Rodney at least had a diagnosis by now. Assuming Ronon hadn’t shot him yet.
“It may be,” Teyla agreed. She had slowed a few feet from it. “All I can be certain of is — ” her words cut off abruptly as the ground suddenly vanished beneath her and she disappeared completely from view.
“Teyla!” Sheppard burst into a sprint, making for her last location, and covered the rough ground in a flash. There was a crevice of some sort there, long but narrow. How had they missed that?
“I am unharmed,” her voice floated up from that gash in the earth. “This appears to be a natural formation, and it ends in a ledge some eight feet down. Be careful, however — there is a tarp here with me.”
“A tarp?” Sheppard had reached the edge and dropped to his knees, peering down. Sure enough, there was Teyla less than ten feet below him. She was holding one edge of a wide, stiff cloth that also piled below her boots. It was the same color as the rocks around them both, and even from here Sheppard could tell it had some texture to it as well. Someone had deliberately covered the crevice, and had placed that shiny object there as bait!
“It’s a trap!” he muttered, spinning around, his P90 submachine gun in hand as he scanned their surroundings. But he didn’t see anyone, or any movement. As far as he could tell, they were alone.
“A well-set one,” Teyla agreed. “I did not notice the difference in the ground until I felt it give way beneath me.”
“But why?” Sheppard wondered. He swept the area again, then slung the P90 back on his shoulder and lay flat on his belly, arms extended into the hole. “Why put this here? Who were they expecting? Us?”
“Perhaps whomever answered the distress beacon,” Teyla offered. She took a few steps away, then turned, ran back, and leaped. Her powerful legs propelled her upward and she caught Sheppard’s outstretched hands easily, her own locking onto them with a powerful grip. Before he could move she had slammed her feet against the crevice wall, pushed off, and flipped up and over him to safety.
“Okay, well let’s talk about this back — ” Sheppard suggested, rolling over — and stopped short, all sound and motion cut off by the rifle barrel pressed against his chest. A dark figure, silhouetted against the sun, offered him a hand up. Past the stranger’s shoulder Sheppard saw another one securing Teyla’s hands behind her back. “Hi. You must be the welcoming committee.”
“Up,” the stranger commanded. The barrel didn’t waver in the least.
“Doesn’t look like I have much of a choice,” Sheppard acknowledged. He took the hand and let the stranger pull him to his feet. Male, Sheppard guessed, and in good shape, but beyond that he couldn’t tell — both of the strangers wore what looked like armored hooded jumpsuits, patterned in desert camouflage to blend in with the dirt and rock around them, and face-masks and goggles completely concealed their features. “Nice setup,” he admitted. “So where were you hiding?” he glanced down into the crevice, and — as he’d hoped — his captor’s gaze flicked to the hole as well. And so did his gun barrel.
“Now!” Sheppard yelled. He pivoted to the side, one hand grabbing the rifle and keeping it aimed past him while the other landed at the back of the stranger’s neck. The blow knocked the man forward a step, and Sheppard’s tug on the weapon continued the motion, causing the stranger to stumble — right into the crevice.
Turning, he saw Teyla flip her own captor over her shoulder. She landed on his abdomen as he hit the ground, her knee knocking the wind out of him, and his head bounced off a rock a second later, leaving him stunned. In an instant Sheppard was at her side, his knife out to sever her bonds.
“Let’s get out of here!” She nodded and fell into step beside him as they took up a quick march back toward the Jumper. She’d retrieved her P90 from where it had fallen and his had never left his shoulder, so they both covered the area as they moved quickly but carefully. The last thing they needed now was to stumble and shoot themselves in the foot because of some loose rocks.