Title: Eye of the Beast

Tagline: The team explores a new planet, but it turns out the planet is not so uninhabited as they first thought.

Tags: Adventure/Angst/Hurt/Team
Characters: Weir, Sheppard, Teyla, Ronon, McKay, Beckett
Rated: T
Chapters: 9, but complete and all posted
Words: 8,460

Eye of the Beast

Chapter 1

The swirling sound of the engaging wormhole echoed through the control room. The blue light reflected on the walls and people there.

"Send the MALP through." Doctor Elizabeth Weir stood behind Chuck the technician as he ordered the MALP to enter the event horizon. Slowly it made its way through the gate.

"MALP arriving at destination in five… four… three… two… one. Receiving MALP telemetry."

Weir turned around towards the screen hanging on the Atlantis wall. Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard, Doctor Rodney McKay, Teyla Emmagan and Ronon Dex stood next to her watching. This would be their next mission, so they wanted to see what lay ahead of them.

"MALP seems to have trouble moving about, M'am. I can't make it shift forward. Seems the surface or those trees are blocking its way." Chuck continued pressing buttons on the panel.

"That's a lot of trees," McKay was a star in stating the obvious. "We won't be able to manoeuvre a Jumper on that planet." And he was practical.

The MALP showed a dense forest. All they saw were branches, leaves and trunks, all around. They could hear the MALP scrape trees and branches as it tried to move forward, to no avail.

"Can you show the sky?" Sheppard wanted to know how far those trees reached. A jumper was big and heavy. It might get through.

Chuck let the MALP's eye turn upwards. Sheppard didn't like what he saw. The tallest trees seemed to grow far into the sky, and they were really quite large. On earth they must have been registered as one of the largest trees around. "There's no way we can explore the planet by Jumper. We'll have to walk."

Behind his back, McKay rolled his eyes, but Teyla and Ronon got more excited.

"I'm afraid you're right," Weir concurred. "I'm going to let our botanist department take a look at those trees and plants. We can never be too careful." With that she turned around and made her way to Kleinsmann at another panel to call for the botanists. "What about the other readings?"

"All inhabitable. Normal earth temperature and breathable air."

"I bet with all those plants and trees." McKay didn't look comfortable.

TBC