AUTHOR: Wraithfodder
See PART ONE for disclaimers, copyright and other notes.
3. BOB BITES BACK
Ford hadn't done very well in covering his own laughter while Major Sheppard stalked back to the prone target with grim determination. Darned if he knew why it kept falling over. The sand was the same everywhere all around them. Just like an endless beach, gentle ripples of tiny grains, which your feet sank into so easily, except that there was no water anywhere. It was really annoying that there they were on Atlantis, surrounded by just so much water, and no one could take a simple swim. But at the rate they were going, they could start their own beach with all the sand that was accumulating in their clothing.
McKay, who had finally stopped laughing after Sheppard's inadvertent 'erect' remark, was standing there with a very smug expression on his face. Ford saw that the target Sheppard had just stood up had fallen over again. Teyla laughed at the miserable expression on Sheppard's face. Ford hadn't realized she had such a nice laugh, but hoped she never laughed at him like that.
The Major went back to the board, this time exhibiting none of the patience he had shown beforehand. Sand flew around his feet as he kicked out a deeper depression in which he jammed the wood down. The Major then placed both hands on top of the board and threw all his weight on to it. Surprisingly, the wood sank down a lot deeper than it ever had before.
"Never did that for me," said Ford.
McKay stared, his grin evaporating. "Maybe he hit a pocket."
"Of what?" said Teyla.
"Air?" suggested McKay. "It doesn't look like there'd be any kind of volcanic activity around here."
Ford gazed curiously at Sheppard, who looked over at him.
All hell broke loose.
The board ejected violently from the sand, striking Sheppard in the jaw and propelling him backward to land spread-eagle in the sand like a broken rag doll.
"MAJOR!" All three team members ran toward Sheppard, desperately trying to reach him before the board, which had landed precariously on its bottom edge, could fall over. Too late. The wood landed with a sickening thud right on top of Sheppard.
Ford and Teyla reached the Major at the same time, yanking the board off him and tossing it aside.
Blood streamed from Sheppard's nose, and there was a raw mark on his chin where he'd been struck. Ford quickly checked for a pulse.
"He's not…?"
Ford looked across at McKay, who had knelt down next to Teyla. Worry etched deep lines into the man's face.
"Got a pulse." Ford took in a steadying breath.
"What happened?"
"How should I know?" Ford shot back at McKay. He quickly surveyed the surrounding area. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary – as ordinary as it could get on an alien planet – and he had no idea what could have caused the board to shoot out of the sand like it had. He diverted his attention back to Sheppard. "Must be a concussion. Hopefully nothing worse."
"Worse? What? Broken neck? Fractured skull?" worried McKay.
"I have seen much worse," said Teyla. She began carefully checking Sheppard's neck. "One of our people was once struck by a tawan on a hunt. It lifted him up over its head, threw him 15 feet into a tree, yet he survived with nothing more than a headache and a healthy respect for the animal."
"Tawan?" said Ford.
"A large animal, four legs, with antlers that stretch across as its head as long as you are tall," she explained.
"Sounds a like big deer," said McKay.
"Or moose," said Ford.
A moan of pain broke the dialogue. "He is awakening," said Teyla.
"Major?" said Ford hopefully.
Sheppard didn't seem capable of coherent dialogue. During his career, Ford had seen people with concussions so he didn't expect much of any conversation in the first minute, but he did worry that the board's impact could have easily cracked the Major's jaw.
"I can't detect any damage." Teyla knelt back when Sheppard, still groaning from the pain, put his hands to his battered face.
"Should we move him?" asked McKay.
"I'd rather wait till we know what's wrong," said Ford.
"Look, I can go back through the gate for help. Get Beckett and a medical team," McKay suggested quickly. "Or we can put him on the board and, uh…."
Ford shifted his gaze from his prone commander to McKay, who had abruptly stopped talking. He hadn't thought it possible for McKay to look more worried than he had a minute ago, but he was surprised. Following McKay's troubled gaze, all he saw was an endless vista of orange sand.
"What?"
"Where's the board?"
"It's right over—" Ford stopped. Both he and Teyla had tossed it past Sheppard's feet, landing just a yard away. Now, it was gone.
"Did it sink in the sand?"
McKay turned to Teyla. "Sink? That doesn't make much sense."
"Neither did what the board did," she replied sharply.
Ford looked around, his own senses on full alert. Had all the sand drifted in the short time they'd spent next to the Major? Or was there someone else on the planet with them? But where would they hide, and why wouldn't they have seen them? A glint of reflected sunlight struck him in the eyes. He spotted a pair of sunglasses several feet away. He retrieved them, stuffing them in a vest pocket. If there was one thing he knew he'd remember from this incident, it would be watching those glasses fly off the Major's face in a bizarre slow-motion fashion, just twirling up in the air. A friend who had been in a car accident said he'd seen the headlight sheer off his car in just the same manner, as though he'd been trapped in a freeze-frame in a movie.
Sheppard uttered his first lucid word. "Dark."
"Yes," replied Teyla. "You have your hands over your eyes." She gently pulled his hands away, a task easily accomplished, as he was still weak from the shock of the blow. Ford doubted that Sheppard would make it back to the gate under his own power.
Blood from his damaged nose had smeared across half of his face, making him look far worse than before. Opening his eyes, Sheppard just stared blankly at the sky.
"Major. Can you see?" said Ford.
Sheppard squinted, then shut his eyes again.
"Major?" asked Teyla.
"Yellow?"
"Yes, the sky is yellow and the sand is orange and we're on an alien world," added McKay.
Sheppard groaned at the explanation and put a hand over his eyes again, trailing the blood even further. "Head ... hurts."
"You got hit pretty hard, sir."
"What?"
"That board you named Bob shot right out of the ground like a piece of bread ejected from a toaster," said McKay.
There was dead silence for a moment. Ford realized that was a pretty accurate description of what had happened, although he wouldn't have put it that way.
"Who's Bob?" moaned Sheppard. "And why'd he hit me with a toaster?"
McKay shook his head in mock disgust. "Well, there's a few million brain cells gone."
"Give him a break, doctor." Ford began checking through his vest for any medical supplies, which was basically antiseptic packs and Band-Aids. All pretty worthless in this situation. "Have you ever been concussed?"
"No."
"One is often confused after a blow to the head," added Teyla. She shifted her position, using her body to cast a shadow over Sheppard. A good idea, Ford realized, as the sun's heat would just escalate Sheppard's misery.
Ford might have been worried at the bizarre remark if hadn't known about concussions and that, even when Sheppard was fully alert, he'd already made strange remarks. Comments like that had definitely irritated Colonel Sumner, left some of the career military personnel on the base wondering just who was in command, but it wasn't anything out of the ordinary.
However, McKay had made sense. That wood would make a decent stretcher. Lying prone, even if he was being carried, was the best way to get the Major back to base with a minimum of misery, or inflicting more injury.
"Teyla," said Ford. "Keep an eye on the Major." She nodded. "McKay, you're with me. We need to find that board."
"And where do you think it is?"
"Under the sand." Ford couldn't understand how any person could maintain such a degree of sarcasm all the time, but McKay could do it. It seemed to be his normal personality. Pushing that thought aside, Ford continued poking around in the sand. It couldn't be buried that deep. He noticed McKay wasn't helping.
"Doctor?" he said in best authoritative tone.
"While I realize that we've done no scientific surveys on this world, because the first excursion was purely military, we have no idea of what lies underneath the surface." McKay crossed his arms across his chest in a less than defiant gesture. "I don't think it's very smart to stick a hand into whatever sent that board flying."
"You said something about volcanic activity?" Ford found a small rock. Not at all useful, unless he wanted to toss it at McKay's head to knock some common sense into him.
"Well, yes, in some instances you could hit a vent of superheated steam, like a geyser, and that could have propelled the board."
"The Major doesn't have any burns," noted Ford. "So that discounts your geyser theory. I've seen Old Faithful."
McKay stared down at the sand, seemingly reconsidering his position on helping. "And that leaves us with … what?"
Ford's hand wrapped around another small rock, but just beneath he felt … "Found it!" Ford crowed triumphantly as he hefted the board out from underneath several inches of sand.
"Must be some abnormal sand shifts around here," surmised McKay, grabbing the other side of the board.
The two men began to drag the board when Ford yelped in pain. The wood was ripped from his hands, leaving several nasty splinters in its wake. It maintained its upright position, pulled several feet away as though something invisible was dragging it and then, with a thundering crack, split into two separate pieces.
"Not steam." McKay's panicked voice filled the air.
Ford watched anxiously as the two pieces of wood almost seemed to dance with each other, moving forward, then back, then away. One piece violently submerged in a golden shower of sand, while the other pulled in the opposite direction, moving quickly, and deeper into the fine grains, almost like a shark fin immersing into an ocean's wave, until it disappeared from sight. "We're leaving," said Ford.
"I'm perfectly fine with that," agreed McKay quickly.
Ford knelt next to Sheppard. "He's unchanged," said Teyla. She cast a worried glance at the distance between them and the Stargate. "Do you have any idea what creatures might be beneath the sand?"
Creatures. Teyla had nailed it right on the head. It wasn't volcanic vents, steam geysers, or any geologic abnormality that had done what they'd just witnessed. Ford knew for a fact now that something resided beneath the surface, and it wasn't such a far-fetched idea that once it was done playing with the board, that it might decide people would be fun to rip in half as well.
"Not a one," Ford replied to Teyla. He hated to do what had to be done next. "Sir, you're going to have to get up."
"No." Sheppard made a feeble attempt to swat Ford's hand away when the lieutenant reached for his shoulder.
"Teyla, grab his other shoulder," ordered Ford. Teyla complied, bringing Sheppard's left arm over her shoulder. Sheppard felt like dead weight, which made sense as he wasn't helping much in the effort. They'd just gotten him to his knees when Sheppard turned deathly pale, elicited a loud groan and pitched face forward into the sand.
"Major!" Teyla was first to roll Sheppard over on his side. Sand stuck to his bloodied face as he coughed blood from his mouth.
"Don't move…sick," he said.
Ford couldn't help think that Sheppard looked like a roadkill found alongside a highway. The orange sand adhered to the blood made it look as though someone had taken a cheese grater to the man's face. Ford could feel slick wetness on his own neck from where Sheppard's bloodied hand had passed by. He just hoped that the Major didn't decide to throw up. So far he hadn't, but his pasty complexion definitely screamed that he was nauseous.
Ford gently rolled Sheppard onto his back. "Sorry, we've got to move you, sir. Once we get back to Atlantis, Dr. Beckett will give you a nice soft bed."
Sheppard managed to open his eyes, staring at Ford with a glazed expression. "You've been shot."
"Uh, no, sir," replied Ford. "That's your blood. From your hand."
Sheppard stared in confusion at his own blood-slicked hand. "McKay shot me?"
"I didn't shoot you!" protested McKay. "You got smacked in the head with a board."
"Major, what is the last thing you remember?" asked Teyla.
Sheppard shut his eyes, which seemed to alleviate some of his misery. "McKay… P-90… aimed at me."
"That was over half an hour ago," pointed out McKay.
"Amnesia," Ford said, wondering if McKay had paid any attention in the first aid course all the scientists had had to take before going to Atlantis. "Common in concussions. McKay, just keep an eye out for .. for whatever's out there."
"That's what I have been doing!"
"Does he have to talk so loud?"
Ford gave Sheppard a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder. "No, Major, the doctor does not have to talk that loud." He made sure McKay caught his disapproving eye on that last statement. McKay just turned away and went back to anxiously surveying the landscape.
"Okay, Teyla, let's try it again."
"Wood, wood," repeated McKay in worry
Sheppard groaned and rolled over, covering his head with an arm.
Ford and Teyla stood up, their rapt attention focused on a triangular edge of wood that scored its way through the sand not ten feet from them. It did look like a shark fin as it cut quickly but erratically through the dunes that undulated from whatever was pushing the wood forward. It vanished again.
Ford quickly checked his P-90 and took off the safety. "Dr. McKay." The scientist turned around, startled to see Ford grasping his gun in a combat-ready mode. "Help get the Major on his feet. If whatever that is out there tries something, I'll shoot it."
"What if it grabs one of us and pulls us under?" said McKay.
Then they'd be in really serious trouble, thought Ford, although he was not about to voice that sentiment. For now, the creatures hadn't shown any overt hostile action toward them. Knocking out Sheppard might have been a defensive reaction to a perceived threat. The wood, well, he wasn't even going to begin to guess, but if that wood hit one of them in the feet while they made their way back to the gate, that could definitely be dangerous.
There was nothing he could see that was an impediment to the gate, and that was the problem. While there was no place for any enemies to hide, there were also no rocks or boulders that could have been handy to climb on top of if they needed to seek safety.
"We're ready."
Ford turned at Teyla's voice. McKay and Teyla had managed to get the Major to his feet. "Just follow me," said Ford. "Whoever gets to the gate first, dial."
Ford took the lead, his P-90 aimed down at the sand. In a way, he almost wished the pieces of wood would surface – at least then he'd know the creatures' location. He forced himself to tune out the muddled conversation he heard behind him. The Major definitely wanted to stop, lie down and curl up into a ball until the pain went away. Ford couldn't blame him on that account. McKay was busy trying to be helpful, but his constant assessment of how many feet they'd traversed, and how many were left, was grating, to say the least.
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