Sorry for the delay! Thanks for all the reviews I've got to far. I really apreciate them, keep them coming!

Jamie: Good point, but I didn't think of that! It's a bit late to add it now, so lets just say the life signs detector doesn't work on this planet. For some reason!

The Weapon

Chapter 7

The team that stepped through the gate was made up of Ford, Teyla and eight military people, none of whom Ford of Teyla knew well, but all of whom had volunteered for the mission.

The area around the Stargate was empty, there was no sign of the events of less than an hour ago. The men from the village had all left, although it was possible that they were hiding in the forest, watching. Even the arrows that had been fired at them had been moved. Probably it was easier to collect them than make new. The only sign that anyone had been there recently was three broken arrows and tracks in the field.

The tracks showed where people had walked. The majority, the widest line of squashed plants, came from the direction of the forest that they had passed through on their way from the village. This was the way that they had half walked, half ran, trying to make it through the Stargate before they were recaptured. It was also the way that the villagers had come when they followed them. Teyla looked at the tracks. The sun was just beginning to rise and they were now much more visible than they had been in the darkness. The amount of light made her think back to the time that they had first stepped though this gate, with no idea of what was to come.

There were also tracks leading in the direction of the city. Teyla looked at them and frowned. There were many more indentations in the crops in the direction of the village than the city, and it was possible that the few that did not go to the forest were made when they had first arrived. But it seemed to her that the trail of crushed crops was too wide to have been made by just the four of them. It looked as though more people had passed that way recently.

She pointed this out to Ford, who sighed. "Do you think Sheppard and McKay were taken to the city?"

Teyla nodded, "It is probable," she said, "It is the morning, perhaps the villagers wish to use them to search the city once more. Or perhaps they believed that they could better hide them there. They must have known that we would return."

Ford looked at the tracks, every second they wasted was a second that Sheppard and McKay could be moved further away. The villagers already had a thirty-eight minute head start; they didn't need to give them any more.

He switched on his radio, "Major? Are you there?" There was no response. He hadn't expected one really, but it had been worth a try. After all, the villagers had given them back their radios before. Now though, it looked like they had realised what they were for.

"They may have made extra tracks in order to fool us." Teyla said.

Ford swore. "Okay Teyla, which do you think is most likely, the village or the city?"

The looked at the tracks again, "The city," she said, smiling. She walked several steps along the trail in the crops and knelt down, "Dr McKay left us a clue," she said as she picked up an unopened chocolate bar and showed it too them.

It had been almost half an hour, and McKay was tired of sitting on the floor. Unfortunately, even trying to adjust his position was painful, so standing up was out of the question. Staying still wasn't really working for him though. The hard floor was making parts of him go numb. On top of everything else, he was bored.

This was the first opportunity he had had to be bored during the last few days. He had gone from searching the city, to too tired to think, to asleep, to searching the city again. He knew he should be grateful for the chance to relax. But that was the thing. He couldn't relax. Not while he was still being held prisoner. And so he lay on the floor, trying not to move, or even tense the muscles in his injured leg, wishing he had managed to get through the Stargate. If he had, neither he nor Sheppard would be here. It was his fault. It was his fault that they had been kidnapped in the first place, and it was his fault that the two of them were still there. To do it once was forgivable, he wasn't sure about twice.

Thoroughly fed up, he turned his mind to ideas for attracting the attention of Ford, Teyla and whoever else they brought with them to find them. He could think of nothing. Every idea he came up with depended on the guard not noticing, and as he was standing in the doorway, watching their every move, that would be difficult. They couldn't even discuss ideas. Not that Major Sheppard was likely to have thought of anything better than he had, but you never knew.

All this worrying was making him hungry.

He reached into his pocket, taking care to neither move his leg or draw attention to himself from the guard, and felt around for his chocolate bar. It wasn't there. "Did you take my chocolate?" he asked.

Sheppard turned around from the window where he had been standing, "What? No. Of course not."

He checked again, it definitely wasn't there. "It's gone. I put it in my pocket as we were leaving and it isn't there any more. And the pocket is open." He stared accusingly at the guard, who was now watching them with interest.

"He didn't take it either," Sheppard told him, "I was there the whole time you were unconscious. No one took anything out of your pocket. Maybe it fell out while they were carrying you."

"Oh great. So it's just lying out there in the middle of a field! I was looking forward to that."

Sheppard turned back to the window to hide a smile, "You get cranky when you're hungry, don't you?"

"Well, as a matter of fact…"

"Hey," Sheppard called to the guard, "got any food? We missed breakfast."

The guard shook his head, "We were more concerned with recapturing you than feeding you," he told them.

Sheppard nodded, "Yeah, about that. What was the point? Now the others got away, they'll come back and find us. Wouldn't it be easier to just let us go?"

The guard glanced out of the door into the rest of the building, then stepped further inside. "I know what Daynen did," he said, dropping the level of his voice to barely audible, "it was foolish, but understandable. He does not believe in the weapon of our forefathers. In truth, neither do I. But you must understand, Jareil had no choice but to take you prisoner, and he has no choice but to keep you here now."

"No, we don't understand," Sheppard told him, remembering at the last second to speak quietly. "Keeping us here will only make more trouble for yourselves. When our people come, and they will, they're going to take us back. And some of you might get hurt in the process."

The guard shook his head, "That does not matter. The idea of the weapon still gives us hope that one day we will be free of the Wraith. If Jareil simply let you walk away, he would publicly turn his back on our oldest beliefs. He would appear weak."

"You're kidding!" said McKay, "You mean Jareil did all this just to save face? He didn't even believe there was a weapon?"

"In our hearts, we know there is no weapon," the guard explained, "and that is why I will not tell Jareil what Daynen did. But make no mistake, Jareil is my leader and in order to keep you here I will gladly fight to the death." With that, he returned to his post outside the room.