Author's Note: I'm sorry for the long wait. At least this is a long chapter. And no,I still can't promise I'll get the next chap up any faster. My life's a bit crazy these days. Though people still keep telling me to get one. Weird. Luckily it'll be Christmas holiday time soon. Then, I'll probably be able to write more. Yay.
"Daniel, come on!" Jack shouted furiously. Daniel obviously hadn't got the slightest idea of what they were facing, and how near the creature was. He was struggling to get his pack on. And they really hadn't got the time for that.
"Run! Carter, Teal'c, get the hell out of here," Jack yelled his orders at the other two members of his team.
He reached for Daniel's hand, and pulled him towards the door flap. They got out just in time to see Carter and Teal'c disappear into a thick bush.
The huge dinosaur stood right in front of them, its roaring so loud that it was impossible to think, let alone speak. Daniel had frozen on his tracks, eyes wide with fear and disbelief.
Jack shot a round at the dino, just in case. It only seemed to annoy the thing. The dino lunged towards them. Right. They'd not be able to kill it before it ate them. So, plan B.
"Daniel, run!"
Jack's words were lost in yet another deafening growl, but Daniel seemed to have caught the meaning. He turned his back to the dino and ran. Jack followed right on his heels.
Some plan this was, really. Just run. It did feel like the natural thing to do, in this situation, anyway. The best choice there was when facing a bullet-proof enemy about ten times as big as you.
Since it was that big, it had to be stupid. Dinosaurs were supposed to be stupid, just in general. They could probably lose it in the jungle. And it might not be all that fast either, since it wouldn't fit through all the thickly growing trees and bushes.
So, they ran, without thinking, without any clear direction, the continuously pouring rain obscuring their sight, mud sloshing at their feet, Daniel first, Jack following him.
After a quarter of an hour or so, Daniel started to slow down, and finally stopped to lean on a tree trunk.
"Did we lose it?" he asked breathlessly.
"Hope so..." Jack answered.
They waited silently, listening for any signs of the beast--and there it was again. A shiver running through the ground, like a tiny earthquake. The footfalls of the dino closing in on them. And another growl. They hadn't lost it, not yet.
"There's our answer. Keep going."
Daniel nodded. He looked pretty tired. Just the way Jack felt. They'd already marched a good distance today. They should've been asleep by now, gathering strength for the last stretch tomorrow, the walk to the ruins. They really hadn't got much choice, though.
They ran on.
Jack found himself considering their options. What would they do when they got rid of the dino? They'd certainly get rid of it, sooner or later. When they'd get too tired to run, they could always search a nice little hole to hide in, too small for that stupid big lizard to find.
They were already lost in the jungle, pretty hopelessly too, but at least they had their radios. The folks at the SGC would probably be able to locate them. Their next communication was due early in the morning. Surely Jack and Daniel could hang on until then. On the other hand, maybe it wasn't such a bad thing Daniel had wasted a moment fighting with his pack. At least they had something. A bit of food, water and medical supplies. Just in case.
Daniel stumbled on a thick root and fell to the muddy ground with a splash. Jack helped him up.
"You all right?"
"Yeah... Just... Give me a moment."
He didn't look as if he'd hurt himself, but didn't look like he was up to running on right away, either. Maybe they could do with another break. Jack stared at his watch, and could hardly believe what it showed. Half an hour had passed since their first stop. It'd felt like an hour.
Thump. The ground shook again. And again, followed by that sound of twigs and even small trees snapping as something huge fought its way through them. The dino was still right on their tail. Not the least bit farther away.
Either the dino was smarter than Jack had thought, or then it could smell them, or hear them, or both. But just how long would it keep up this chase, anyway? Jack didn't know a whole lot about animals, and even less about extinct prehistorical creatures. Still, this was weird. Why would it keep on chasing something as small and difficult to catch as the two of them? Unless... It was like a cat, toying with its prey, and they were acting just like it wanted them to, providing it with more entertainment.
The dino roared again. Way too near.
"Let's go," Daniel said softly. Jack nodded.
Jack took the lead, now. They weren't really running anymore, just wading on wearily. Knee-deep in mud. Soaked through and through. And every now and then, they heard another roar from behind, or at times, from their side. As if the dino was guiding them, driving them somewhere. They were playing by its rules.
"This is it," Jack announced, stopping on his tracks. "Doesn't look like we're going to get rid of it anytime soon. Let's start looking for a hiding place. You know, a hollow tree trunk or a cave or something. Anything. Move on, but keep looking."
Finding a suitable hideout proved to be a lot more difficult than Jack had imagined. It was so dark already that they could hardly tell a tree from a bush, let alone find a hole to hide in.
After they'd pushed their way through an area of particularly thick plant growth, Jack noticed there weren't all that many trees around them anymore. They'd emerged out in the open, in a clearing in the jungle. Not good.
"Fall back-" he began, but it was already too late.
With another of those ear-splitting roars, the dino leaped out from the trees on their right, and jumped towards them.
What happened then was--Jack's mind had some real trouble processing what he saw.
The huge lizard had picked up Daniel, just like that, and shook him, and tossed him away--Daniel was flying across the air in a completely absurd arc--until he hit something, another dark patch in the darkness--and fell down to the ground, a small, unmoving figure, a vague gray shape against a black background.
The dino closed in on Daniel and nudged him with its snout. He wasn't moving. Was he dead? No, he couldn't be. No way.
The dino would so pay for this.
Jack dug his boots into the mud and raised his gun.
"Come on, you stinking sonuvabitch of a lizard! Do your worst!" he shouted at it.
It turned its huge, ugly face away from Daniel, and stepped towards Jack.
This was stupid. Really, really stupid. Every cell in Jack's body told him to run, to flee for his life. But he had run enough already.
The dino moved really fast for such a huge thing. Jack was afraid he wouldn't be fast enough.
It was right in front of him, bowed its head in a quick sweep, trying to pick him up like it'd already done to Daniel. But Jack was ready. He fired. Right into its open mouth. It backed away, closed its mouth. Its head was still near enough. Jack aimed at its eyes instead. Its nose. Anything that might be vulnerable. There had to be something. Some way to hurt the damn beast. To kill it.
The dino stood up straight and roared at him, but he didn't care. Roar all you will, he thought, and kept shooting, just at random, round after round.
There it came again, lunging towards him. Once its head got nearer, lower, Jack saw he'd hit it in the eye. Better than nothing. He'd get the other eye, too.
He concentrated so hard on shooting that he didn't realize what was going on. The dino wasn't trying to pick him up. It was falling down, crashing towards the ground. Losing consciousness. Maybe even dying. Hopefully.
Jack tried to back away, but now, he really wasn't fast enough.
Tons of stinking dinosaur flesh fell on his feet, knocking him off balance.
Pain blazed through his feet, and he felt something snap in his left leg.
He landed flat on his back, his head hit the ground, and the lights went off.
Someone was cursing. Loudly.
Daniel figured he might be doing it himself. He definitely felt bad enough to warrant some really colorful language. The voice turned into a groan. He had every reason to groan, too.
His entire right side felt like one huge bruise, all the way down from his shoulder to his thigh. And he was lying on it, which didn't help at all. Breathing made it feel even worse. Moving would probably be a bad idea. He still had his pack on, and it, and his back, rested against something. His face lay on something wet. That wasn't really surprising, since he felt pretty much soaked all over.
He decided to risk opening his eyes. Or at least an eye. Just his left eye, because his right eye was in the wet something, which he took for mud. He had apparently lost his glasses, too.
He peered at his surroundings with one eye. Lime-green. Everything was lime-green, except for the ground, which was covered with different greens, and some dark brown mud.
Pale green light, the first rays of the sun in the rainforest. It wasn't raining anymore. So, he'd been out all night--because-
He couldn't put together what had happened. He and Jack had been running, fleeing from a dinosaur, a really big and angry one. Probably a Tyrannosaur or some such. They'd come out at an opening, and the dino had been there, and it had caught him. It had probably lifted him by his pack, since it hadn't hurt at all. Good thing he'd taken his pack. So, the T-Rex hadn't eaten him. It'd just thrown him away.
There was that voice again. Swearing. "Oh, goddammit!"
It was Jack's voice, of course. Jack was alive, but he was probably hurt, considering the way he sounded. Daniel couldn't see him. All he saw was the edge of the forest, trees, leaves, lime-green light and mud.
"Jack?"
"Daniel! Daniel, you're... I thought you were... Are you all right?"
"Still in one piece, I think. You?"
"Yeah, me too. It's just that the damn dino decided to die on me. ON me, literally. Can you move?"
"Uh..."
Moving would definitely not feel good, but he'd have to try it sooner or later. He couldn't just stay here in the mud all day long.
He decided to start with hands. His left hand felt perfectly all right, so he put his palm against the muddy ground and pushed himself up, to sit with his back against whatever that hard thing behind him happened to be.
Ow, ow, ow. Yeah, his right side was a mess. His right arm wasn't that bad, though. Nothing broken, as far as he could feel, just beaten and bruised. As for the rest, he probably had a broken rib, or two. Or three. Couldn't be sure.
All in all, he'd gotten away pretty easily. Survived an encounter with a T-Rex with just a few... all right, with a good few bruises, and some broken ribs. It still felt awful, though.
He checked his watch. 6 AM. Too early. Hours away from the next communication from the SGC. They couldn't contact the SGC on their own, either--unless they had run towards the gate last night, they were at least a day's march away from it.
"Daniel, you still there? Can't see you from over here..."
"Sorry, Jack. Still here, and I can move, too."
Daniel looked around. They were in a large opening in the forest. Not too far from him lay a huge, still, scale-covered thing. The Tyrannosaur. It was dead. But he couldn't see Jack.
His feet felt all right, so he stood up. Jack had said the dino had died on him. So, he had to be near it. Under it.
Daniel started walking, very slowly, since every step brought up new aches in his bruised side. He made his way around the huge corpse and found Jack. He was lying on the ground. What Daniel could see of him seemed to be uninjured. The rest, everything below thighs, was lost underneath the dead Tyrannosaur.
"Heyo," Jack smirked at him. "Good news, I killed the dino, and we're both alive. Bad news, we're lost, and I've got several tons of dead dino meat on my feet."
"So, we get the dead dino off your feet. Just that I really don't know how to do that," Daniel wondered aloud. What could he do to move that thing? There was no way he could just lift it with his bare hands.
He had a zat. Maybe he could zat the dinosaur away. It was already dead. Usually, one shot hurt the target, the second one killed it, and the third disintegrated it altogether. Now, what would happen if he shot at a dead dino? Did it matter that it was easily ten times as big as any humanoid target? And would it hurt Jack as well, since Jack couldn't help touching the creature?
Daniel pulled his zat and pointed it at the dino, raising his eyebrows at Jack.
Jack nodded. "Give it a try, I'm ready."
"Please work, please..." Daniel muttered under his breath, and fired.
The blue bolt hit the huge corpse, spread on in blue lighting flashes, enveloped the whole thing, spread on to Jack--but it worked!
The whole huge dead Tyrannosaur vanished into thin air, leaving just a suffering Jack. He groaned aloud once again. Then he fell silent and still, just lying there with his eyes closed.
Scared that something had went badly wrong, Daniel crouched closer to check him, but he spoke up soon enough. He kept his eyes closed, though.
"Thanks," he said hoarsely.
"Sorry."
"'Sokay. Really. Now, where are we?"
"Well, there's this rainforest, and these trees, and this opening, and-"
Daniel's gaze landed on the hard something he had been resting against. It was a wall, with a multitude of reliefs carved on it. It seemed to go on into both directions, disappearing into the jungle beyond the opening. And there was a dark patch in it near to the tree line. A doorway.
"-and ruins! Jack, we're at the ruins!"
"Yeah! Great! Safety and shelter, a nice hole to hide in, in case other big mean things decide to come for us before we get our call from the SGC. And some nice old writing and rocks for you, so you've got something to do while we wait."
"So, can you walk?"
"Well. I've got some doubts. I think that fat lizard broke my leg."
"It's not far. I'll get you there."
He did, though it wasn't easy. Jack couldn't land any weight on his right leg, so he had to lean heavily on Daniel, which of course doubled the agony in his bruised side. But they made it to the doorway and through it, into a huge stone hall.
They'd just sat down to rest for a while, when their radios crackled. It was way too early for the SGC, so it had to be-
"Carter here... Colonel, Daniel... Do you copy?"
"Carter! O'Neill here. Daniel's with me. We're all right, mostly. Found the ruins."
"We've found the ruins too, sir! We spent the night inside them. Teal'c's here as well, and we're both fine."
"We only walked in two minutes ago. So, just stay where you are, Carter. We'll find you soon enough."