Author's foreword
This is set in Season 4, between Missing and The Seer. It's really my apprentice piece, though it follows Michael's Chair which was an idea that popped up when I was three quarters of the way through this and got stuck in a plot hole.
I've erred on the side of caution and rated this as T. One later chapter might be considered violent. And there are a couple of minor adult references.
Dead Man's Shoes
Prologue/Chapter One
They were everywhere. Fleeting glimpses of black figures and silvery hair in the tall scrub. Moving fast. Left and right. Outflanking. Seconds and they'd be in range.
He could nothing more than yell at the others to get back to the Jumper.
Too late.
Too late even to organize covering fire.
An insane scramble up a gravely ridge in full view. Damn! He had lead the men into the proverbial trap.
Wraith stunners. High odds one of those would find their target soon. Loud explosions of dust and rocks at their feet, throwing debris into their faces that stung and blinded.
Scott twisted round to return fire. Sheppard grabbed him and pushed him on upwards.
"No time!" he hissed.
Onto level ground. Weaving left and right. But still with no cover, and another ridge fifty or sixty metres at eleven o'clock. Above which the tree line began. There, a degree of safety. And - the Wraith had no cover either.
"Lorne! Thomas! Go! Scott with me!"
Scott and Sheppard turned and knelt and aimed their P90s at the top of the ridge they'd just ascended.
Two Drone heads appeared over the summit and took the full impact of a dozen rounds, blood spurting from their masks. Scott and Sheppard rose in an instant and ran low for twenty metres. Backs exposed, they should have been as good as dead by now. They snaked round and dropped down again as before. Another four Drones already over the ridge. Automatic fire from the pairs' weapons quickly finished them. Others followed fast, closing the gap in frenzied running. Thankfully Lorne and Thomas were already up the second ridge and safe behind trees, providing covering fire. Scott and Sheppard let off a few rounds and sprinted for dear life.
But the miracle was over.
Stunner beams all round. Scott took a full blast in the back, arms flayed out and fell backwards down the ridge they'd half climbed. Sheppard instinctively clambered towards him setting off an avalanche of rocks grinding against boots and grabbed the marine's vest.
Out of the corner of his eye, Sheppard saw that only two Drones remained. Great. But he still couldn't believe he was doing this. Attempting to drag Scott up the ridge with one hand and firing the P90 from the hip with the other. It was hopeless. The loose stuff beneath his boots met no traction, and he slid back down, taking Scott with him. A stunner blast hit Scott again and as Scott now lay across Sheppard, saved the Colonel from the full force.
Sheppard grabbed his gun with both hands now and emptied his magazine at these last two Wraith, hitting one repeatedly and fatally through the breastplate. The other he wounded in the hand, wrecking the Wraith's stunner and sending it flying through the air. Slowed but maddened and grunting, the Drone continued to advance.
There was nothing Sheppard could do. He had to leave Scott behind.
Lorne and Thomas, he noted, had ceased firing. At the bottom of the ridge, this last Wraith was out of their field of sight. He tossed the P90 aside and madly thrust up the ridge again, grappling for his handgun out of its side holster. Not easy when the ground began sliding away beneath him. He fell to his front and slithered back down the slope, the rocks and stones tearing and grazing at his hands as he attempted to reach for a hold.
Then… somehow… he dropped his gun.
And helplessly watched it roll and career down to the bottom of the ridge.
Hell, why didn't he just hand it over nice and polite to the bastard?
He frantically threw himself over onto his back, grabbing at the knife from its sheath at his hip. The Wraith had already bent down and picked up the gun that had come to rest at his feet, sniffing and snarling at it, soon realizing the weapon's use and potential.
Now or never. Sheppard sprung up at the Wraith, ready to plunge the knife deep into its neck. The creature, however, had clumsily wrapped its talon-like fingers around the trigger.
And squeezed.
At the very instant Sheppard's knife sunk into the ugly folds of flesh above the breastplate, spewing out the dark oily blood, a single bullet hit the approaching Lorne between the eyes.