Chapter 9 Unexpected Excitement

Mitchell and Vala turned without a word and ran as fast as they could back to Daniel and Sam.

Mitchell could barely speak when he arrived, he leaned forward, panting, gesticulating in the general direction of the Stargate.

Vala, slightly behind him, had enough puff left to squeak out "Sandstorm!"

In an instant they were all scrambling for tents and back packs – moving equipment, hiding monitors and grabbing whatever they could find lying about which belonged to themselves.

Daniel and Vala, argument forgotten, were piling up his books and bits of tat as fast as they could.

Mitchell – thanking God for whoever had designed Pop-Up tents – was whipping them out of their packs as quickly as possible and bashing the pegs in with his boot.

Sam's equipment was also sorted safely by the time she came crawling into the tent where Vala had just dumped a load of Daniel's precious bits and bobs.

"Wow!" Sam was panting hard. "Didn't see that coming!"

"I did!" Vala's eyes were huge and shining. She was ridiculously excited. "I could see it from the Stargate! I said to Mitchell, look – what's that? You should have seen his face! I thought he was going to cry for a minute – that would have been quite sweet actually, a boy crying, y'know. Although, of course, Mitchell is a man. I mean obviously. Not that I've looked closely. Well not very closely. Well, not often anyway. There was that time in the locker room when I was inside Daniel….."

"Aaagh!" Sam threw her hands up. This must be how Jack felt when she herself started lapsing into techno-babble. "Enough already! It's also rather annoying, and means we're stuck here until it's over."

Vala pouted. "No girls night then?"

Sam shook her head and pulled a face. "Not this week-end, I'm afraid."

"Stupid sandstorm!" Vala had forgotten that thirty seconds ago it had apparently been an exciting sandstorm. "Couldn't we have outrun it? Back to the Stargate, I mean?"

Sam shook her head again. "Too much equipment," she sighed. As if to prove her right, a blast of hot wind hit the side of the tent. Small eddies of sand worked there way in through any little openings in the material. She called across to the other tent. "You okay, guys?"

"Fantastic!" Daniel shouted back, and sneezed loudly.

Mitchell handed him a Kleenex and stretched out on his bedroll. It was going to be a long night.

- o - o - o - o - o - o -

The storm raged on until well after sunset. They managed to eat their MRE rations in the light from their torches – the swirling, marauding sand made it as dark in the tents as if it was night.

Vala had produced a pack of playing cards from her rucksack and the girls were playing a very sedate game of rummy. The alien had wanted to play poker, but after Sam had pointed it really wouldn't be nearly so much fun with just the two of them taking their clothes off she'd relented and was quite enjoying this new game.

Mitchell had fallen asleep and was snoring quietly.

Daniel was lying on his back listening to the girls' giggling and wondering how he was ever going to find the right words to talk to Vala.

"Daniel!" she shouted, almost on cue. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing!" he yelled back, over the noise of the roaring sand.

"Okay!" she replied.

He shook his head, smiling.

"What did she say?" asked Mitchell, sleepily.

"Nothing," Daniel answered. "she just wanted to make sure that we were more bored than her."

Mitchell snorted. "I give her half an hour before she's tearing down those tent walls in frustration." He turned onto his side. "Night, Jackson."

TBC...