Author's Notes: This story was written for the sgagenficathon. The prompt was fear of heights. I've decided to go ahead and post it here because I am in the midst of written a sequel – hopefully to post in the near year. As such, this part of the story is complete but has been divided into four parts. Thanks to the ever patient sharpes_hussy for a remarkable beta.
THE GUARDIAN
It was one hell of a big mountain. Looming dark and majestic against a cloudless blue sky, it was at odds with the sprawling Omari village at its base. An equally out of place ornate stone wall spread in both directions away from an opening blocked by a heavy wooden gate. Brightly colored flowers, grains, and other food items were grouped in baskets on each side of the gated opening.
John frowned. There was something about the rocky obsidian peak. It was like having a half-formed thought in the back of his mind, but not being able to bring it into focus. It teased at the edge of his senses, enticing him to continue forward.
A rustle at his side signaled Ronon's presence. "We could make a run for it. We would be through before anyone could stop us."
John glanced over at the big guy, and then around at the bustling settlement behind them. Though the Omari were farmers and fishermen whose weapons were spears and arrows, it was obvious that they were watching for that kind of move. He had counted seven watchmen in the trees and in various points around the village—one for each member of his team.
"Our friends might not appreciate that," he said, gesturing toward the closer of the two watchmen—the ones with eyes on him and Ronon.
"I could stun 'em both." Ronon's answer was simple, given with a relaxed shrug. John knew he wasn't serious. It was his way of killing time, lightening the mood.
"We'll keep that plan in our back pocket," John allowed. "In the meantime, let's give Teyla and Woolsey a chance to try to convince the village elders to let us go up there." He thought about the large open sided hut where the meeting was under way. He could see them all still seated cross-legged around a low fire. His butt protested just thinking about it.
"Kremer and Bowen have been missing for almost a day. Do you really think we'll find them alive? Or that these people had nothing to do with it?"
John made a face. The jury might still be out on whether the Omari knew more than they were saying, but the bottom line was, their world was the source of some new mineral that someone higher up the food chain was in a tizzy about. Word was that they were to make nice with the natives until the research was complete.
"Let's see if McKay's found anything." John set off toward the stand of trees where Rodney, Zelenka, and Kazinksi had set up an array of computers and scanning equipment. The Omari seemed pretty willing when they'd offered hand crafted wooden tables for their use.
Rodney looked up at their approach, his gaze drawn to the mountain behind them. "It's really overbearing isn't it? It's like it's breathing down our necks."
"Teyla says that's why the Omari call it The Guardian. Because it watches over the Omari people." Radek spoke softly as he looked up at the giant landmark.
Rodney rolled his eyes. "Well, there's a surprise. Of course a bunch of primi—"
"Have you gotten anywhere with the sub-Q transmitters?" John stopped him before he could really get rolling. Not that Rodney couldn't insult the locals and his colleagues while performing scientific miracles.
"Regrettably, no. Still can't get through that." He gestured behind them. "Something in its structure is seriously limiting the range of our scanning technology. It gets worse the closer we are. It's almost like it absorbs the signal, like a natural dampening field."
"What about last known location?" John asked. They were almost a day behind the two scientists, but something was better than nothing.
"Yes." Radek spoke up. "We have been able to clean up some of data gathered from the MALP which remained near the gate." He turned his tablet toward the group to show a display of the area with several green dots against the shadowy lines which John guessed represented the terrain. The large jagged peak with a thick line arcing around it was a dead giveaway.
"This is time lapse of their movements." Radek pressed a button and the dots moved in various areas together and separately around the village and surrounding forest. They faded occasionally as they moved closer to the wall and the mountain.
"This is nearer hour of disappearance." For a time all of the dots were together in one place. Then two of the dots broke off from the group before heading out of the village. They went deep into the forest while gradually moving closer to the wall. Eventually the dots flickered and then faded out all together.
"That is it," Radek informed. "Their signals have not reappeared. They were very close to wall when their signals disappeared."
"How far is that?" John asked. "Did the original team check that area?"
"About 3 kilometers, and yes, they did." Radek checked his data. "They searched along the wall for five kilometers in either direction from the village. They found nothing."
"Of course they didn't," Rodney said. "This is Mason Kremer we're talking about. All of the data suggests that the vein of mineral T-9 is stronger on the other side of the wall and probably up into that mountain. He wouldn't let something as simple as a stone wall prevent him from having his moment in the sun."
"If you were worried about his behavior off world, why did you authorize him for this mission?" John asked.
"Well, because aside from the arrogance, borderline obsessiveness, and occasional rudeness, he's not horrible."
John frowned. Had Rodney just given a fellow scientist a compliment?
"He is the one who discovered mineral T-9." Radek cleared it up for him.
Okay. So that made sense. "What about Bowen? Why would she go with him? Better yet, if he wanted all the glory, why would he take her?"
"She has crush, and he has ..." Radek searched for the right word.
"I get it," John interrupted. More details weren't necessary. He was saved from following up by the approach of Teyla and Woolsey. He read Teyla's look and knew he wasn't going to like what she had to say. Woolsey, on the other hand, looked like he was wishing he'd thought to bring a cushion before spending two hours sitting on the cold hard ground.
"How'd it go?" John asked, looking more toward Teyla. Woolsey might be the leader of Atlantis, but negotiations like these were so much more her arena.
"They would not be moved," she responded with a solemn shake of her head. "Nor would they allow the use of the jumpers in their airspace. They insist that it is the sacred domain of The Guardian. Even the watchers have to be blessed by the village elders before they can climb into the trees."
"Sounds more like someone in their history had a strong enough fear of heights that they pushed it off on the rest of their people." Rodney looked annoyed.
"They fear offending their Guardian," Teyla insisted.
"Do they know where Kremer and Bowen went?" John asked.
"They believe that they were called to the Guardian."
"Called? What does that mean?" John asked. They had been on this world for two hours, most of it talking or waiting around and they weren't any closer to finding their missing people. If Kremer had really left to gain an advantage among the political or scientific community, he would have to come back to take the credit. Which meant something had to be preventing him from coming back.
"The Guardian protects those who are preparing to pass on from this world." Teyla replied. "None who seek The Guardian has ever returned."
Great. "So they're saying they're dead?"
Teyla shook her head. "They did not say that specifically, no. My feeling is that it is an expression that is commonly used when ones go missing. They did agree to send scouts to accompany us should we desire to continue a search for our missing members. We may go where we wish as long as we do not go beyond the Guardian's boundaries."
John had no trouble translating that. The scouts would make sure they didn't go where they weren't supposed to go this time. He pierced Woolsey with a look. "I suggest we take them up on their offer with a slight modification."
"What sort of modification would that be, Colonel?"
John cocked an eye back toward the mountain before answering. "Well, the way I see it ..."
She thought of Torren each time she went through the ring with her team. In a galaxy full of uncertainties, there was always the possibility that she would not return. Yet her decision to remain with the team felt right. Her team would always find her should something occur. Just as they were now searching for Doctors Kremer and Bowen.
"Flight, Jumper One is cloaked and ready." John spoke calmly into the radio. A small green indicator lit on the jumper's left control console, indicating that they were in manual mode. The city's automatic systems would not control the vessel during the departure.
"Jumper One you are cleared to proceed." Chuck's voice sounded over Teyla's radio as well as the rest of the team. At the command, Rodney punched an address into the central DHD and looked back upward as the jumper began to move.
They descended smoothly through the opening into the gate room proper. Teyla caught a glimpse of Lorne and his team standing well back from the area in front of the activated wormhole. Having experienced the nearness of an active yet cloaked jumper, she knew that they could hear the low-level hum that ship emitted before John nudged the yoke, sending the ship through the event horizon.
The period that Rodney referred to as transit passed in the blink of eye and then they were soaring into a brilliant blue sky. John hovered high above the puddle as Lorne's team passed through after them, agreeing to return to the gate by Lorne's next scheduled check-in in 12 hours. He then turned the vessel smoothly and headed off toward the village and the dark mountain rising up from the surface of the earth behind it.
"One thing's for sure, we won't need navigation. Our destination is pretty hard to miss." John's comment was directed toward Rodney and was spoken half under his breath.
Teyla quietly agreed. Locations, in her experiences, could have a feel to them—be they evil or benevolent. This mountain had a feel unlike any she'd ever felt—as if it was waiting.
She shook the feeling off and allowed Rodney's reply to waft over her. "Not needing navigation is a good thing, because there isn't any." She noticed peripherally that he never looked up from the data displayed on his tablet. He had been tasked with trying to boost their sensors in the hopes of getting better range to assist in finding the scientists.
The HUD popped up, but the usual clearly delineated symbols were missing. There was a grid with limited information display. "Damn," John muttered. "Not even a terrain map. And the range sucks."
"Remember what I told you about scans not working the closer we got to the mountain. Well, this is worse. We're almost on top of the giant source of interference. We're lucky we're picking up anything at all."
"I suppose we're going to have to do this the old fashioned way, then," John announced, tilting his head over his shoulder to include Ronon and her.
"What's the old fashioned way?" Ronon asked.
"We're going to have to look out the window. And when that doesn't work, we land and look around. They shouldn't have been able to get far. We should probably start over near where their signals disappeared."
Teyla leaned forward to get a better view around the seats so that she could do her part in assisting. There were still many hours left in the day. Perhaps they would find their missing members before the darkness came.
He took them in slowly around the side of the mountain nearest the village, before crossing over the wall far below. As they village faded out of sight, Teyla began to look in earnest, trying to distinguish any signs of human passage. The terrain beneath them looked rugged. Should John need to land the jumper, they would have to be very careful.
In the distance as they moved farther upward along one of the slopes, mists obscured a portion of her view, but she thought she saw something glimmering faintly. Was that water? Perhaps a lake?
"Doesn't that look like one of those tower things like on Atlantis?" Ronon's deep voice drew her attention.
"Where?" Both John and Rodney spoke at once.
Teyla glanced toward Ronon and then tracked the direction he was pointing. It seemed to be in the direction of the body of water she thought she saw. She focused more intently. There, barely visible above the mists, she saw it. A spire.
"He's right!" Rodney's voice wavered with excitement as he went to work at his keyboard. "I might not be able to scan, but the communications may have fared a little better. If there's anything down there even remotely operable, the jumper should pick it up." He tapped several keys and a separate smaller section of the HUD appeared on the viewer in front of the copilot's chair.
"Good eye, Ronon," John said over his shoulder, then looked toward Rodney's display. The scene out of the viewer tilted as he changed course. "I'm going in."
The jumper descended easily into the deepening mists, white wisps billlowing quietly across the screen. As they moved farther, her guess was confirmed regarding the body of water. It was a lake, placid against an inset area along a large sloping side of the mountain.
"I'm getting something," Rodney announced. "It's erratic. I can't localize it, exactly. Damned sensors. It's jumping around."
"What is it?" John split his attention between flying and watching Rodney's screen. He dipped the jumper deeper beneath the mists.
"I don't know. It's ... weird. Give me a second."
The tension was palpable as they continued, John making minute adjustments as he leaned into the controls, flying in a manner that she had heard him call 'slow and low'. They reached the near side of the gray tinged waters and arced in toward an irregular incline grown over with spindly green shrubs. The spire rose up in the distance amid the greenery.
"There she is," John almost whispered, caressing the controls as he made minor adjustments that kept them above the level of large rock formations which grew up out of the lake on one side.
Teyla gazed at the overgrown area beyond the lake and imagined the pristine lines of Atlantis beneath nature's infringement. It was so easy to see. Even Rodney was drawn away from his computer screen, staring through the forward viewer.
"Are you getting anything yet?" John tilted his chin toward Rodney, but kept focused on the screen. "We're getting close, now."
"No ... just that ... Wait a minute ... Oh crap!"
Teyla didn't have time to process Rodney's exclamation. She heard ... no, felt a scream. It tore through her body, shot down her spine. Then a powerful thump sounded from the pilot's side of the jumper. Through the viewer she could see the sky tumbling as the jumper flipped out of control through the air.
The inertial dampers worked to compensate, but she felt much of the vessel's roiling in the pit of her stomach. She could hear no sound, though she could see her friend's mouths moving. John was working frantically, trying to get the ship back under control while yelling something to Rodney.
Rodney was doing what he could while trying to hold on to his computer and the console at the same time. Ronon was just holding on.
There was nothing she could do as the rocky side of the mountain filled the viewer. John fought it, but in the end, it didn't matter. Sound returned with stunning force. She caught the barest sound of something being viciously ripped from the jumper, before another more pressing noise intruded. On its heels, everything abruptly slammed to black.