AN: Thanks a bunch for the reviews and what's really bad, I didn't even think of that last chapter ending as a cliffhanger, but you know, what's the fun if I don't leave you wanting more?
Thanks again Gaffer for the beta, it's helping more than I imagined possible!
Chapter Five
Fur and Spice, and Everything Nice, That's what Major's are Made of
Rodney poked his head back out from under the DHD, sliding his body forward enough to stare at the tree line in the same general direction of the animal cries. His eyes scanned for movement before he turned to look at Major Sheppard, who was also searching for the cause.
"Do they sound nearer?" McKay asked Sheppard. He remembered thesimilar sounds from their night spent huddled under the same tree, though neither knew the other man was near.
Sheppard held up his hand, signaling McKay to be quiet. He got to his knees; one hand braced on the spongy ground, the other holding the P90, and cocked his head to listen. The baying sound erupted again from all around. John was trying to pin a location on the animals but it was like the cricket effect. You can hear them cricking and rubbing those legs of theirs together, but you can never quite figure out where the insects are. They sound as if they are behind, in front, and to the side, depending on which way you turn your head.
"Beckett," Sheppard whispered. He waved for the Doctor to get closer. Rodney followed. He wanted to get everyone together until he knew the situation was safe. Whatever it was out there, it sounded like there was more than one. Following that supposition, he couldn't help but think of a pack of wolves. He wasn't ready for any of them to become dinner for alien canines.
Beckett was glancing at the area in front of him, where the thick-forested trees came together and created a shadow of a threat when coupled with the unknown yipping. "Major, I think I see something."
Sheppard followed Beckett's gaze and stared hard, trying to pick out the slightest movement or sound with his senses fully tuned. There, he thought he saw a slight change in the thicket low to the ground, no more than you would chalk to a slight breeze, except there wasn't a slight breeze.
The animals must have realized he saw them because as soon as his eyes had picked out the incoming intruders, they erupted from the forest in a rapid burst of muscle and rippling gray and black fur.
"Stay together!" Sheppard shouted, aiming his weapon towards the sky above the animal's heads, and pulling the trigger. The echoed retort of weapons fire gave the alien wolves pause, and they hesitated, breaking mid-stride, but only slowing. "Fire, McKay!" John hollered. He hoped the continued loud sound would frighten the beasts away.
Both men emptied their clips and it didn't take long before the wolves broke off their attack and headed for the safety of the woods, like a stampede of bulls making way around an obstacle. They weren't gone but they were too scared to approach. For how long, that was the question.
"Do you think we're safe?" Beckett croaked. He was white as a sheet and out of his element.
"I think we're on the lunch menu," Sheppard retorted.
"Oh, wonderful," Rodney swore, tilting his head up towards the sky. "As if we didn't have enough trouble!" he shouted as if speaking to some deity.
John was running scenarios through his mind and what he was coming up with wasn't good. There were too many of those things, and while the noise may have worked once, it probably wouldn't work twice. When their buddies started falling to the bullets it might buy more time, but the likely effect was they'd continue around their fallen compatriots and swarm them faster than the three men could shoot them down. The animals would be back, and his bet was sooner rather than later. He knew they were hanging just beyond the tree line, waiting to regroup.
Sheppard's mouth thinned with his decision. "Pack it up," he ordered.
Rodney gaped at John. "What do you mean, pack it up? In case you don't remember, the gate is broken. We could end up who knows where," McKay's voice was rising with the increased adrenalin. "And that's if we're lucky. We might wind up going splat against a blocked gate, or choke to death in vacuum."
Beckett was inclined to agree with McKay. Going through the gate always gave him a momentary fear that he'd never rematerialize on the other side, especially since that lecture Grodin had spouted when the Major and his team had been trapped in the event horizon. It was bad enough when you knew what to expect on the other side, but this was an unknown. He'd rather face the danger they knew over the danger they didn't know.
Sheppard stepped towards McKay. "They're going to come back, McKay, and when they do, they'll overwhelm us, and then there won't be any bodies left for Atlantis to retrieve. Out there, we have a chance. We stay here, we die." John didn't feel like mincing words, or easing McKay into the reality of their predicament.
McKay didn't back down. "You don't know that, Major. It might be hours before they attack. I could have the gate fixed, and we'd be long gone before they come back."
Sheppard's lips tightened even more. "Are you close to fixing it?" he asked abruptly.
Rodney frowned. "No," he answered truthfully, and with a level of irritation, "but that's not the point."
"You're right, that's not the point. The point is, those wolf-things out there are thinking they'd like to have a little Shep snack, or maybe even the McKay meal, do you want to give it to them?" Sheppard snarled. He was getting more than weary of arguing every decision with McKay.
"Are you implying that I'm fat?"
Sheppard paused, confused by Rodney's question. "What?"
"You said Shep snack and McKay meal, implying I would be more filling."
Sheppard threw his hands in the air. "That's it," he turned to Beckett. "He's certifiable, this is proof. We're about to die and he's asking if I think he's fat." Sheppard said incredulously.
"It's a perfectly normal defensive reaction." Rodney defended.
Beckett's head was turning back and forth from Sheppard to McKay like a ping-pong ball, and he was feeling a little like Goldilocks must have felt when confronted by the three bears. "You both realize we are about to be eaten?" Beckett interjected.
"I know!" Sheppard shouted at Beckett before rounding on McKay. "There is no more discussion, pack it up. I'm not going to see your half-chewed remains in my nightmares for the rest of my life."
Rodney raised a finger and opened his mouth to start a reply before Sheppard gritted his teeth and gave him a look that would peel the skin off an onion. "Fine, fine." he gave up and started reluctantly tossing tools into his pack. "If we all die wherever the gate deposits us, do not complain to me."
John didn't reply because he was busy watching for the return of the animals. Carson had begun stuffing his supplies in his pack, and helped Rodney finish the last of his gear. John heard nothing, and that bothered him. There's a certain absence of sound when predators are nearby. The smaller animals in the food chain scurry for cover, underground or in the trees, and they go absolutely quiet, hoping they will go unnoticed by the bigger fish in the sea, and the big fish were converging on their location.
"Ready?" Sheppard hissed. He was getting a very uneasy feeling.
"Yes, but-" Rodney began, only to get cut off by the Major.
"-No but, just dial the gate." Sheppard ordered.
McKay shrugged but it wasn't a shrug of 'whatever', more along the lines of 'it's your death warrant'; Sheppard only hoped he was making the right choice. Beckett slung his pack on his shoulders and grabbed an armload of supplies. Sheppard had his pack on his shoulders, but he'd have to rely on McKay to get the rest of their gear. He had to keep his arms free to cover their exit. He wasn't going to take any chances, not even for a minute.
No sooner had McKay depressed the first symbol then the trees erupted in a crushing wave of movement speeding directly towards them. "Dial faster!" Sheppard hollered. He gathered his aim and started pelting the creatures, no longer bothering shooting above their heads. He knew the noise wouldn't deter them this time.
He turned in a half circle, spraying death upon the front-runners of the pack. Bodies crumpled to the ground, their momentum rolling them forward despite a lack of life left in their legs, tripping up their friends that were close behind. The wolves were gaining ground fast even with the growing barrier of corpses, and Sheppard realized they might not make it.
"Faster, or we won't have to worry about dying on the other side of that gate!" he urged above the echoes of the machine gun.
"Almost there." McKay said, concentrating on the DHD and not the approaching danger. "Got it!"
Carson had taken the GDO from Sheppard earlier and now punched in the code, silently hoping the gate would deliver them where it was supposed to this time. "It's clear!" he called, fighting to keep his voice steady.
"Go, go!" Sheppard instructed, continuing to take down as many of the wolves as he could, while backing towards McKay and Beckett.
They all ran for the gate, Sheppard covering their backs. It was going to be close. The animals were within jumping distance when McKay and Carson breached the event horizon. Sheppard turned and dived, hoping like hell the things wouldn't follow them through. Most of the pack didn't, but just after Sheppard had made his jump for safety, the nearest alien wolf made a leap for Sheppard, and connected against the Major's back, plunging both into the wormhole. Sheppard barely had time to register the events before the breathtaking cold of wormhole travel sucked him into its chilling embrace. He was in trouble.
Rodney and Carson had stumbled through and found they were not back in Atlantis (again), but they were also not in the desert world that Sheppard and McKay had been taken to the first time. Before they had time to take in their surroundings, Sheppard was thrown forward, out of the event horizon, straight into Rodney, along with an alien wolf that was as scared as it was mad.
The three went rolling forward, and Sheppard was thinking if he got out of this alive, it'd be a miracle. He felt claws scrape his arm as the wolf tried to grab for leverage. They came to a stop and John was shoving off from Rodney, trying to separate from him before he got bit. He was largely successful, and McKay was rolled to his left with the wolf to his right. He cocked his hand back and punched the thing head on as hard as he could. It fell back, momentarily stunned.
Sheppard used that brief amount of time to unsheathe his knife and drive it into the wolf's belly. It started screeching like an insane woman, and writhing from the death throes. Soon the screeching settled into small irregular whimpers, before ceasing altogether.
"Bloody hell." Carson swore. "I don't want to do that again."
"You?" Sheppard stood up on shaky knees, and wiped a bloody hand across his face, trying to clear the gore that had sprayed him with the initial plunge of the knife, but only managing to smear it worse.
"You know what I mean, son." Beckett said. "Rodney?"
Both men turned to the limp form lying on the ground. Sheppard jogged to his side, and knelt down, searching for an injury and a pulse. He found a strong reassuring beat and couldn't find any sign that the wolf had gotten a hold of him in the initial struggle. "I think he passed out."
"Right." Beckett sighed, before turning his attention on Sheppard. "And what about you?"
"Scratches." John stood up, and studied his arms and legs not totally certain of where exactly the wolf had gotten a hold of him. "It sure packed a hell of a punch." he said, knowing that he would be sore for days to come from that hit in his back.
Beckett didn't take his word for it. He guided John to the ground beside McKay and retrieved his medical supplies. Sheppard tried to protest, but Carson had that look about him, and he wasn't going to take no for an answer. John figured he'd humor the doctor, and part of it was the fact that the scratches burned like hell. That thing had to have had claws the size of a Kodiak bear.
McKay stirred and his eyes flickered before gradually staying open. "We're alive?" he asked, somewhat dubiously. He then caught sight of Sheppard, covered in blood, sitting beside him. "Some of us are, at any rate. What happened to you?"
"I saved your hide, that's what happened to me." John said. As soon as the words left his mouth he regretted them. It wasn't McKay's fault the animal had gotten a hold of him before he'd made it through, or that Sheppard was beginning to feel so tired he could barely sit up, and it wasn't Rodney's fault that he'd agreed to come on this expedition in the first place. That was General O'Neill's fault, and he'd personally take the time to account for every single mishap the next time he saw the General hoping, of course, there'd be a next time. At the rate things were going in the Pegasus galaxy, that was looking like a long shot.
"My hide? That thing wasn't attached to my hide coming out of the gate." Rodney snapped. "You know, this is typical for you."
John raised an eyebrow. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Every time something goes wrong, you blame me!"
"That's because every time something goes wrong, it's your fault!" John shouted.
"Not every time, Major. You've gotten to enjoy that distinction as well, at least once that I know of." Rodney was talking about the incident when Sheppard had broke quarantine, and it was an incident that continued to be a sore spot with John.
"Shut up, McKay."
Carson had gathered up everything he needed and was now standing over the two men. "Both of you need to shut up; neither one of you has behaved spectacularly, and you'd do well to remember that. Major, give me that arm." Carson instructed gruffly.
Subdued, Sheppard held out his right hand, surprised to see it shake slightly from the effort. Carson took it gently, and eased it onto his knee, giving the Major some support. He cut his sleeve up to his shoulder and examined it critically. "These were just scratches?" he asked finally.
John looked down at the throbbing appendage and nodded. Beckett whistled. "I'd hate to see what damage his teeth would've done."
Sheppard was fighting against a rising wave of dizziness. The edges of his vision began to gray and he knew he was going to lose. He started to topple only to feel himself caught by McKay, and eased to the ground. From far away he heard Rodney ask, "Is he all right?" And then his world faded.
Rodney looked at Sheppard, surprised at how pale his face had become. "What's wrong with him?" he demanded.
Beckett gave McKay a reassuring touch. "A bit of shock to his system. He is going to be okay Rodney."
McKay looked again at Sheppard's face and was relieved to see some color returning, a small flush of life indicating that Beckett was telling the truth. He couldn't help the small crook of a smile as a thought hit him. "Looks like the wolf opted for a bit of a Shep snack over the McKay meal after all." Beckett's groan eased the last of his worries about Sheppard's health.
"Rodney, you would never make it as a comedian."
"Just fix the Major."
