Sam Carter lifted her fist and the rustling of the heavily armed men following her ceased, all sound vanishing from their positions as if they, themselves, had disappeared. Sam smiled slightly. The Pegasus teams were more adept at stealth than any others in the Stargate Program. Regularly hiding from life-sucking space vampires would teach you that, she mused. A quick glance at the group behind her revealed that Ronon had, in fact, vanished and she suppressed an eye-roll with difficulty.

The effort became even more difficult when scuffling and muttering reached her ears from the very back of their search party.

"Shut it, doctor," Lorne hissed with an annoyed twist of his shoulders to throw the comment back at the trailing McKay. The shuffling stopped, but Rodney's retort pierced the gloomy forest in an equally annoyed stage whisper.

"Sheppard's only 90 meters ahead of us. The blood we found where he was abducted pretty much indicates that he either really got carried away slaughtering a local forest creature or he's injured and needs our help."

Sam could almost hear Lorne grinding his jaw. She sighed and dropped her fist, releasing the group from the command of silence – if only so Lorne wouldn't lose any teeth. McKay barged forward, rustling noisily past the bushes that still clung to their dead, dry leaves in this part of the forest.

"Sam?" McKay's question was much closer to a demand.

"I know we're close, McKay," she interrupted firmly, taking a page from Sheppard's book on managing the volatile physicist. "That's exactly why we're going to slow down and be even more careful. This whole situation reeks of setup, and I'll be damned if I'm going to walk into another trap without spotting it first."

McKay immediately deflated and took a nervous step closer to Lorne. "A trap? Why are we suddenly thinking this is a trap? No one said anything about a trap back at the village."

Sam just shook her head. She couldn't exactly explain it. Ever since Sheppard's transponder had miraculously reactivated, a feeling had been growing in her mind that she couldn't shake. Lorne met her eye and nodded firmly.

"This was too easy," he agreed. "Someone carries Sheppard a hundred clicks away and then just leaves him behind before they jump off the planet? And why isn't Sheppard looking for us? He's been just sitting there for an hour.

"Easy?" muttered McKay and then, "wait. Another trap? Oh…you think Sheppard was set up in the first place. I get it. But how -."

"Zip it, McKay," Lorne snapped and Sam backed up the command with a glare that Rodney obeyed, though his look said he was only postponing the outburst, not forgetting it. With effort and a renewed sympathy for Sheppard's long-suffering patience with Rodney, Sam turned her attention back to the matter at hand.

The closest landing spot big enough for a jumper was a klick away, so they were approaching Sheppard's (she hoped) location on foot. She wasn't about to put the jumper down next to the signal, sight unseen – these kidnappers had proven themselves well able to hide technology from the jumper's scanners and she didn't want anything of that sort to jump out at them.

"What are we looking at, Rodney?" She tapped the scanner in his hand to direct his attention.

"I'm reading a small clearing on the scanner, about 50 meters diameter. Sheppard's transmitter is sitting in the middle of it."

"Alright. Stay close. Lorne, when we reach the clearing, send your team around the perimeter and clear the space."

"Yes, ma'am."

They moved forward again, the footsteps of Lorne and his team almost unheard as they passed over dry leaves and around scrubby bushes. A stiff wind began to whistle around the tree trunks, covering even the noisy steps of McKay and Sam shot a look at the overcast sky that was darkening to shades of charcoal in the west and blotting out the cheerful sunshine that had warmed the morning.

They reached the edge of a small grassy meadow just as a gust of wind whipped over the forest and bent the tops of the trees back and forth like so many upside-down broomsticks. To no one's surprise, Ronon was waiting for them, crouched behind a patch of thick scrub bushes. Sam thought he looked rather like a wild west sheriff in his long, leather coat as he peered into the clearing beyond.

He acknowledged their arrival with a fierce look and a jerk of the hand at the meadow. "I can see him."

Sam just nodded. She pointed to the meadow and signaled to Lorne, who, in turn, flashed a set of instructions to his team. In a moment, they were gone, vanishing around the edges of the meadow in both directions, swallowed up by forest colors and wind-whipped leaves. Only Walker, Lorne's corpsman, remained behind with her and Ronon and McKay, his medical bag bulging at his back.

McKay crowded close. Sam swallowed irritation as he followed her into the clump beside Ronon. She dropped to one knee and pulled out her field binoculars. Walker followed suit.

"Is that him? By the boulder?" McKay hissed, tapping her shoulder.

She scanned the entire meadow carefully before answering, unable to keep the tension out of her voice. "Yeah. It's him. I can't tell if he's tied to the rocks or just unconscious, but…it's Sheppard."

"Let me see," McKay snapped, and Sam handed the binoculars over. She'd already seen as much as she needed. More than she'd wanted. Sheppard was propped against a large outcrop of rock about two-thirds across the clearing from where they squatted. His head was slumped onto his chest, and the left side of his face was slick with a sheen of red that trickled from a cut at his hairline. Even through the tiny binoculars, Sam could see that he wasn't in good shape.

"Head laceration could account for the blood," Walker reported quietly, as he peered at John through the binoculars. Sam almost allowed herself to feel relieved until Walker squashed the hope by adding a soft curse and, "but the penetrating wound to the upper right quadrant is probably the more serious injury."

He lowered the binoculars and gave her a worried look. "Colonel, I'd like to get over there."

A cold, burning knot of worry and fury fought for space in her chest. Concern competed with caution and McKay was already turning, no doubt about to blunder ahead, before she found her voice.

"Wait, McKay. Until Lorne gives us the all-clear. I don't want anyone else to get hurt." Rodney's eyes went wide, then determined, but he nodded. They didn't have to wait long. Her radio clicked only a minute or two later, then crackled into life.

"We're clear as far as I can tell. Jumper 2 also confirms no rogue life signs." Sam could hear the shrug in Lorne's voice. "We're positioned around the meadow. I recommend we send one person in first so the rest of us can keep an eye on whatever…pops up."

Sam nodded, having already thought the same thing. "I'll go," she said.

"I'll go, too, ma'am. He needs immediate medical attention," Walker added quickly.

Sam thought for a moment, then nodded with an abrupt jerk of her head. Rodney twitched, and Sam pointedly ignored him, recognizing the signs of a McKay fit close to the surface. And that reminded her…

"Ronon, you stay here." She lifted a hand to cut off any retort, "I need you to watch our backs from this position. And since you're the only one with an energy weapon, I want to keep that advantage in reserve until necessary. We still have no idea who we're dealing with. Stay here, keep an eye on Rodney, and you can join us as soon as we clear the meadow."

Sam looked away to indicate that her command wasn't up for discussion and turned to Walker, hoping the large man's agitated shuffling was agreement.

"Walk in a straight line and check the ground on every step. Don't put your foot on anything other than grass and don't step on any freshly overturned dirt. If anyone takes a shot at us, hit the ground and get back to shelter."

"Yes, ma'am."

Sam touched her radio. "Lorne, Walker and I are going to approach Sheppard. Stay on your toes. The problem may be at the…source." She finished with a glance at the still sagging John.

"Now you think they booby-trapped Sheppard?" McKay exclaimed, the fit finally bursting past the man's already-limited restraint. "What possible advantage could setting a trap at this point serve? And even if someone was able to think hard enough to come up with a booby-trap that Sheppard couldn't wiggle out of, unconscious, then I really think I should be the one to go and, you know, diffuse it."

Sam blinked, surprised by the sharp turn McKay's rant had taken. It took her a moment to regroup her argument, and she checked her P-90 as she did so, unable to stifle a small grin. Rodney had come a long way since she'd first met him at the SGC.

"Thanks anyway, McKay. But I'm sure I'll be able to handle whatever might be there, and if there is a firefight on the way, I'm a better shot than you." She smacked the cartridge into the weapon for emphasis. Rodney glared back.

"I'd rather go with her," Walker agreed mildly and Rodney just added him to the glare.

"Thanks for the backup," he spat. Walker just shrugged.

"Shouldn't you be going?" Rodney snapped at last. "Sheppard's bleeding out while we're chit-chatting!"

Sam rather agreed. With a determined step, she broke cover and entered the clearing. Nothing happened. Sam kept her eyes on every inch of the meadow at once. Goosebumps rose on her arms and neck when then wind whipped up once more, then passed over the treetops, leaving behind a thick mugginess. Walker appeared behind her and together they walked further into the meadow with slow, careful steps.

It seemed to grow more still, the closer they got to Sheppard. It wasn't until she was standing at his feet and Walker was carefully crouching beside him, that Sam allowed her P-90 to drop from firing position. She touched her radio.

"Lorne, we're clear so far. No signs of anything nasty in the meadow. Caught a few tracks, though. Keep the perimeter clear while I check Sheppard."

With that, she crouched to kneel beside John, opposite Walker who was unzipping his bag and touching John lightly at his wrist and throat. The Colonel was still slumped and her estimate of his condition didn't improve any upon closer inspection. He'd been stripped of his Kevlar vest and his uniform shirt had been ripped open and hung loosely over his t-shirt that clung to his chest in a wet, sticky mess.

Tearing her gaze from his bloody, pale face, she carefully scrutinized every inch of the ground around where he was propped. She saw no fresh earth, no wires, no rope, no…anything. She blew out a breath in frustration. It still felt wrong.

"Why go to the trouble of an elaborate abduction if you're only going to dump the guy in a field for us to find an hour later? It makes no sense," she muttered to herself.

"Maybe the point was for us to find him dead," Walker answered grimly, his movements increasing in urgency. "He's in shock and his vitals are off, depressed. I'm no expert but I suspect he's been drugged or poisoned." He pointed to a pair of puncture wounds on John's neck and held Carter's gaze until she nodded.

"I need to get a better look at the chest wound. Can you help me get his shirt off? We need to lie him down."

"We need to get him to Atlantis," Sam correctly firmly.

"Yup," was Walker's fervent reply.

John's arms were twisted behind him in an unnatural angle, so she assumed they were tied behind his back. She caught Walker's eye and together they leaned John forward far enough to see the rough simple rope that bound his wrists. Sam quickly drew her knife and cut through the dry, prickly fibers.

"They tied him with rope? As advanced as they appear to be and they use rope?" Nothing seemed to make sense and Sam felt her confusion growing into almost suffocating frustration.

"Help me get the top shirt off." Walker repeated, his focus entirely on John.

Sam spread the fabric of his uniform shirt, then worked gently, to wrestle his right arm out of the sleeve. She almost had it off when she saw a tiny pinprick of light peeping through the hole in John's t-shirt. She froze, then snatched for Walker's hand that was just about to begin cutting the t-shirt open.

"Stop! Sergeant, sit back for a second and let me look at…that."

Walker froze at her sharp tone and did as she asked while Sam brushed her fingers over the torn edges of the hole, then carefully peeled the sticky t-shirt away from John's chest to roll the hem above the wound. Once the shirt was pushed up, they could just make out the dart or arrow or whatever had pierced John's shoulder. The point was embedded deeply and the wound was still oozing blood in a thick trail. Even Sam knew there was a major artery that traveled along the collar bone and into the arm and the continued bleeding couldn't be a good thing.

The shaft of the dart - Sam decided to call it - tapered to a very fine wire with a tiny, glowing blue light at the tip. It looked something like fiber optic thread and was buried to the edge of torn flesh. She thought of several very unladylike words she'd like to say, but only allowed the simple, "Well, damn." to escape. "Walker, what do you make of that?"

"Some kind of electronic device is buried in there. I'm worried about the bleeding, though. The artery may be compromised and pulling out this…whatever it is, may damage the artery further. I can't remove it here. Dr. Keller will have to do it on Atlantis."

"I was afraid of that. McKay?" Sam called, with only a small glance over her shoulder.

"I'm here," McKay answered, sounding breathy as he did when nervous or when he'd had to move more than 10 meters. He flopped to one knee next to Sam looking guilty and a bit surprised that she'd noticed him, but Sam had heard him coming long before he announced himself.

"You were supposed to stay under cover." Her words were for Rodney, but she was looking at Ronon who'd also appeared to crouch next to Walker, his hand on John's leg and his eyes troubled as he studied John's bloody face.

"There's nothing else here," Ronon answered with conviction. "The tracks are the same as I saw in the forest where Sheppard was abducted. They lead away from this rock to where a ship rested. Grass is dead. It sat here for several days or weeks, but not long enough to wear down to bare earth."

Sam jerked her head in a nod, more impressed than annoyed. Sheppard's people were skilled, she had to give them that, despite their seeming inability to wait for orders. "Rodney, you recognize the technology? I'm getting very low level energy readings from the wound, but I can't quite pin it down. It seems familiar, somehow, though."

"I don't know about familiar. It's not Ancient. It's not broadcasting anything at the moment, either, so it's not a homing device."

"At the moment," Sam repeated pointedly, bobbing her scanner up and down as she thought.

Walker had already hooked an IV into John's opposite arm, and had returned to cutting open the soggy t-shirt. He'd already slapped a quick bandage over the deepest cut along John's brow. From the spatter of scratches and cuts, Sam guessed that John had been hit by flying debris or shrapnel. Walker's expression grew more fixed, the longer they sat there. Blood continued to ooze down John's exposed chest in thick red globs, carving fresh trails through a smeared crust of the stuff.

"Ma'am, can I at least treat the wound?" Walker blurted at last.

"Treat the wound to the best of your ability, Sergeant because, for now, we can't take him to Atlantis." She felt the words like a pronouncement of doom.

"What! He just told you he can't take the dart out except back at home." Rodney's voice was sharp.

"I know that Rodney. But we can't take this thing to Atlantis. For all we know, it's programmed to go off when it's removed."

"We don't know that!" McKay sputtered. Ronon was glaring just as fiercely.

"We don't know it's not and it fits. Why kidnap a guy, then leave him for us to find?" She answered her own question, "To get your targets to take the guy home where the trap will do the most damage. Walker may even be right that we were expected to find him dead and take him home without inspecting the wounds thoroughly."

McKay opened his mouth to argue, then froze, thinking. "You could be right. The signature we're seeing is consistent with a battery. It does have enough power to transmit a signal or interface with another device if it wanted to."

"And I really don't want to find out why it wants to," Sam finished harshly. Rodney slumped, defeated.

"We take it home, the device activates, sends a homing signal, or uploads a virus or something and then…"

"Something bad," Sam finished.

There is was. The other shoe. She'd felt it hovering over her head since Rodney saw Sheppard's transponder reactivate.

"What about the Daedalus?" Ronon snapped, sounding as frustrated as Sam felt.

"Halfway to the Milkyway."

Walker was flapping a field compress open. "Help me lie him down."

Sam reached for an arm, then grabbed a shoulder when John suddenly groaned and shuddered against the rock.

"Hold still, Colonel," Sam soothed as John groaned and twitched again. His chin bobbed off his chest and then his head jerked up and his eyes snapped open in sudden consciousness, if suspect alertness.

"Crap!" John growled and Sam found herself clutching his other shoulder, too, to keep him from sliding sideways as he writhed.

"John, you're OK. Ronon and Rodney are here with me," she soothed. There was a flash of recognition in John's groggy eyes, but he was clearly not fully awake yet.

"Colonel?" he panted, then writhed again. He raised his arms as if to bat away their touch. "Bullet…hit me. No! Let me go!"

"We know, John," Rodney interjected hastily, wrestling with the rest of them to hold John still from the drug-addled thrashing. "Do you know who sent the singing bullets? Who did this to you? Can you tell us about the device in your chest?"

Sam frowned at McKay, but realized that he was right – they needed the information. And she knew as well as McKay that John wasn't a man who needed sympathy to get the job done. McKay's grip on John's leg offered it anyway. Sam added her own fierce support around his wrist when she saw him glance down at his chest as if noticing the hole for the first time. His mouth twisted into a grimace and he rolled his head back against the rock.

"McKay?" he gasped, calming down.

"In person."

"Device…in there?"

"You have a small object imbedded in your shoulder giving off an energy signature. We were hoping you could tell us more about that."

John shook his head, took several deep breaths and when he opened his eyes again, Sam saw a little more life in them. His gaze flicked over the faces gathered around him then settled on her. She tried real hard not to look as worried as she felt.

"What do you remember, John?" she prompted.

"In the woods following bullets. Not heat seeking. Tracked…me."

"The darts tracked you? They came after you specifically?" She squashed a flare of anger. Her people were being targeted and that ticked her off.

"Yes. Saw them…pass Ronon on scanner."

"Do you know anything about what the device in your shoulder is supposed to do?" Rodney pressed.

John pursed his lips, then slowly shook his head. "No. Hurt like hell going in. Still does."

Ronon growled a feral curse at the admission but Sam leaned closer. "You remember that device being implanted? Did you get a look at who did this to you?" She gently shook John's arm to focus his attention on her face. "John, did you see who it was?"

John opened his mouth, then grinned a little, looking embarrassed. "Iron man," he whispered. Then, "…sorry. Drugged."

"Oh great. The guy's our only witness and he was hallucinating comic book action figures at the time," McKay chided, more gently than expected.

"Great…movie," John panted, then stiffened. A low growl rumbled deep in his throat, but he panted through the pain Sam could see growing in his face. A shiver rippled from his shoulders into his arms and then he sighed, sagging a bit more against the rock. Sam watched while Rodney tutted and Ronon tugged until John was more comfortable on his back. Walker started another IV in the other arm and packed gauze and anti-coagulant around the wound to plug up the constant seeping. When he was finished, the medic fixed Sam with a fierce gaze.

"I've done all I can do, here, ma'am. The bleeding is controlled, but I don't think I got it stopped. The Colonel needs surgery on Atlantis to get that damn thing out of there and stop the bleeding."

"Can't," John whispered before Sam could open her mouth to say the same thing. Even flat on his back and pale as a ghost, John had picked up on the danger, she thought, mildly impressed. Ronon and Rodney both threw her pleading looks, begging her to contradict what she knew they both understood.

"So what do we do? We can't leave him like…this." Rodney's voice had taken on a tone of desperation, and Sam followed his nervous glance at John's hands that had started to shake. She rose, brushed the dirt off her hands and planted them at her sides, unable to keep them from clenching into fists.

"We remove the device here. Jennifer is on standby and Jones is at the 'gate. She can perform the surgery in the jumper once the thing is out, we'll dash through and patch him up back up at home." Rodney looked agitated with skepticism that she understood all too well. She shared it.

"Then get Jennifer here," Ronon growled, almost frightening in his protectiveness. Sam returned the sentiment with a fierce nod of promise.

"Done." Sam touched her headset. "Jones, this is Colonel Carter. Contact Atlantis and have them bring Dr. Keller to my location with a jumper. Tell her to equip for surgery on site. Lorne, we'll set up shop around the jumper once it arrives."

"Got it," Lorne replied with easy professionalism. "We taking the Colonel home?"

"Not yet, Major." Sam looked at John who was beginning to shiver from head to toe and blew out a breath of frustration. A grumble of thunder rolled from the dark clouds over the trees. The deep rumble sounded like the sky itself was laughing at her. She sighed. "Not yet."