When It Snows (part 12)

The lone set of prints from the wounded animal soon vanished under wind driven drifts, but Mathis appeared certain in the direction they were going. He'd been silent ever since climbing back on the front seat, his set determination driving the team onward in hopes of finding the missing men alive. When the animals suddenly balked, one emitting nervous sounds of distress; he pulled them to a stop and hopped over the side, the Atlantis men at his side while Johan took control of the reins.

Sheppard gripped his sidearm tightly, his eyes scanning the vast grey surroundings. "What is it?"

The villager remained quiet, stepping to the lead animals and giving them encouraging pats to the nose before he trudged forward in the unblemished snow. He'd only gone a few meters when he stopped and kicked at something large buried from view. With several swipes of his hand, he revealed the bloody, decimated carcass of another raboo.

"Cravits," Ronon remarked, hunkering down for a better look at the deep claw marks raked across bone. "Two, possibly three, and they're big."

Mathis peeled off a glove and rubbed his hand wearily across his face. "We can't be far from the men." He returned to the sled and took a bag his son handed down from beneath the seat. Removing a long slender object, he shoved its sharp point into the frozen ground, snapped off the top, and quickly stepped back. A stream of bright light arced across the sky before dissipating in the snowfall.

Sheppard leaned sideways, getting Ronon's attention before climbing back in the sled. "Keep an eye out for those cats."

Blaster in hand, the runner nodded, climbing over the side and taking his position once more, standing behind the colonel.

Mathis sat on the edge of the seat, straining to see through the storm as he urged the raboo forward past the fallen animal. "The other teams will have seen the signal," he called out to no one in particular. "There's a small quarry that isn't far from here. It's the only place they could've gone to find shelter."

"Any chance those cats would've followed them?" Sheppard called back.

"Can't say. If it's a hunting pack, they could still be around. If it's just a few animals like your friend said," he shrugged, leaving the statement unanswered.

The terrain began to shift from flat plains with no foliage to a gradual slope upwards, with an occasional heavily laden fir becoming visible. Eventually a forest grew thick around them and the open path, that had to have been cleared long ago, became cluttered with downed branches, only to become impassable, blocked by the twisted remains of several large trees.

"Shandit!" Mathis swore loudly, causing Johan to look up in surprise from the back.

It was easier to hear each other speak, protected from the fierce wind by the surrounding tall trees. "Couldn't have said it better myself," Sheppard cracked dryly. "How much farther to the quarry?"

The older man gestured angrily in front of them. "The edge of the forest."

"Okay then…."

"Sheppard," Ronon interrupted, not giving his colonel the chance to suggest anything. "I will go with Mathis."

"And I'll just stay here and protect the animals?" Sheppard's words barely concealed his irritation at the thought of staying behind, but he knew the larger man was correct.

Relief flooded Mathis's face as he glanced back at his son.

Johan, on the other hand, looked as annoyed as Sheppard at the thought of being left behind. "Poppa, I know the quarry better than…," his argument cut off when the older man merely stared at him. Dropping to the seat, he crossed his arms and scowled, looking much younger than his twenty four seasons, "I will stay here and guard the raboo with the colonel."

Mathis gave his son a pat on the shoulder before jumping off the sled. He then grabbed his bag of supplies from under the seat and drew out a second signal flare as well as a small sort of handheld weapon. Giving them both to Johan, he nodded, "You know what to do."

The younger man took the items and nodded. "I'll watch for your signal."

Mathis paused to look at Sheppard and then to the surrounding forest.

Sheppard tapped his radio attached to his coat. "We'll call if we need anything. Don't worry." When Mathis walked away, he tossed a snowball at Ronon to get his attention. "Radio contact at all times."

The larger man tried to hide his grin as he turned to follow the villager down the trail. A second snowball nailed him square between the shoulders and he raised his hand, threatening future retaliation.

SG: A

Small talk was never his forte, and after fifteen minutes with Johan, Sheppard was more than happy to sit in silence. The younger man chose to ignore him, his attention focused on the animals, so the colonel decided to try a different tactic. He picked up the flare to study it closer, and was surprised when Johan plucked it from his hands. "Hey!"

"Be careful."

"I was." Something about the way Johan watched him; Sheppard looked closer at the device and then the 'kid'. "You make that?"

Johan nodded as he set it carefully back on the seat between them.

"Well, that's cool. What else can you make?"

The younger man shifted to study Sheppard's face behind the deep hood. "I like to make things."

"That's great. Guys like you come in pretty handy in a tight spot." Picking up the small handheld weapon, Sheppard turned it over in his gloves. "Did you make this?"

"No. But I did upgrade to its power source so that can hold a charge for a longer period of time."

The colonel's brow canted up. "You get a chance to talk to McKay while he was in the village?"

"No. Dr. McKay spent most of his time working in the warehouse."

"The warehouse?"

Johan frowned. "The power unit to the cold storage system was malfunctioning and he attempted to fix it."

Sheppard leaned forward on the seat, his gaze meeting Johan's. "What went wrong?"

"It wouldn't hold a constant temperature and items began to defrost. Some of the goods brought in from off world, that were found to be contaminated and were being kept frozen until they could be disposed of properly, began to thaw."

"What kind of contamination?"

"A foreign bacteria. One of Dr. Nex's assistants brought it back from Brune without permission."

Sheppard didn't like where this conversation was headed. "Why in the hell did he bring back bacteria?"

The younger man shrugged.

"Shit." Rubbing his temple, Sheppard pondered the new information. Only Rodney could fix a refrigerator and get deathly ill over it.

"Sheppard?"

Snapping to attention, he pressed his radio. "Find anything?"

"Yeah. They are both here and going to need to be carried out."

"Alive?"

"Affirmative."

"Need any help?"

"No. Mathis has some type of canvas to bring them out on."

He glanced over to Johan and saw the young man listening. "How much longer before you think you'll make it back?"

"Twenty minutes, tops."

"Good. We'll keep the motor running until you get here." Tucking the radio back in his front pocket, Sheppard sat back on the bench with his sidearm on his lap. "Tell me more about these cats. What do they look like?"

Johan spread his arms open wide. "They are very large, with a small head and no tail."

"Really? No tail?" The colonel tried to picture a mountain lion without its long sweeping tail. "What color?"

"Black or dark brown in the summer. Their fur grows thick and light in color during the winter."

Sheppard's gaze shifted over the surrounding forest, realizing the animals could be almost anywhere. When one of the raboo stomped its hooves nervously in the deep snow, the other three jerked hard in the harness, their large antlers knocking against each other. Drawing his flashlight from another pocket, he rested it on top of his gun hand and aimed the powerful light into the shadows.

The golden reflection of three pair of eyes stared back at him.

"Oh, shit," he mumbled the same time he heard, "shandit", cursed behind him. His thumb ticked off the safety and he fired a full clip into the trees, before ejecting it and stuffing another into the magazine.

Angry screams of wounded animals pierced the air as well as the bellows of the agitated raboo. Ronon's voice erupted over the radio, demanding an answer, but Sheppard and Johan were too busy to reply. Entirely focused on the area with the three cravits, they were unprepared for another large beast that sprang into the back of the sled from behind. Its sharp claws swiped at Johan, knocking the young man off the sled and into the snow before it turned on Sheppard.

He turned to fire but the cravit grabbed his arm between its powerful jaws and ripped the sleeve from his parka, filling the air with soft feathers as his gun tumbled beneath the bench. Dodging to the side as the animal lunged towards him for a second bite, he lost his balance when the team of raboo jerked the sled, and he found himself almost face to face with a maw of deadly fangs.

The cravit grabbed him by the thigh, shaking him like a rag doll as he attempted to grasp anything large enough to use as a weapon. The long cylinder of the flare rolled from beneath the seat to rest against his head. Swallowing the pain from his leg, he used the adrenalin rush to his advantage and shoved the cat with his other, pushing it away for a mere second…enough time to rip the cap off the flare and send the burning light into the side of the beast.

The smell of burnt fur and flesh filled the air as it tumbled over the side of the sled.

Sheppard lay gasping hard on his side, his chest heaving in an attempt to suck in enough air to calm his pounding heart. The image of Johan going over the side caused him to grab his gun from the floor and pull himself to his knees, using the bench for support. He shoved back his hood and glanced over the side, not finding the younger man in sight. "Johan!" he called out.

Another angry scream erupted from the woods as a second cravit leaped from trees. Blood colored its front shoulder from a bullet wound as it bounded awkwardly onto the sled. Leveling his 9 millimeter at the animals head, Sheppard wasn't prepared to see it drop as a burst of energy zapped it from the rear of the sled. His gun still pointed in the air, he blinked in surprise to see Mathis's son standing, wide eyed, with his handheld weapon smoking in his grasp.

"You alright?" Sheppard wheezed, looking for signs of blood and not seeing any.

Johan swallowed and stared down at his body before looking back up and giving a short nod.

"Good. There's at least two more cravits somewhere close by. Get back in the sled."

"Sheppard!" Ronon bellowed as he stormed out from the trees, his long coat fluttering open behind him as he ran. With guns in both hands, he looked like some sort of rampaging superhero come to the rescue.

"There's two more," he yelled back, pointing to where they'd last seen the cravits.

Dex disappeared behind a tall tree but they could still hear him, and then the discharge of his weapon as he fired. Moments later he reappeared, his eyes raking back and forth over the surrounding area. "There was only one, and it was wounded."

"Where's Mathis?"

He nodded over his shoulder. "With the two men. One is strong enough to hold a weapon so Mathis sent me to help you."

"Go get them and bring them back. The sooner we head out of here, the better."

The runner paused, taking in the colonel's torn coat and blood on his pant leg. When Sheppard made shooing motions, he ground his teeth and stalked back towards Mathis.

Johan climbed back on the bench, helping the colonel to sit down and stretch out his injured leg. Hearing the man hiss in pain, he reached for one of the blankets from behind the seat and pulled it forward. "Is it bad?"

Sheppard grunted as he tugged the seam apart on his slacks and revealed several deep puncture wounds in his thigh. "Nah, it just scratched me a little," he said, re-covering his leg before it could be seen. Tugging the blanket over his exposed arm, he shifted to press his back against the seat, and then sniffed. "This trip just keeps getting better and better."

That got a chuckle from Mathis's son. "I wonder where the other cravit went."

Tapping his gun against his good leg, Sheppard shook his head and sighed, "Hopefully, somewhere to die."

The sound of men talking from nearby drifted through the air and the colonel recognized the deep rumble of Ronon's voice. "Glad you boys could join us," he called out as they came into view.

Mathis's gaze swept over the two large dead cravit and then to his son. A look of relief passed over his features before he took in Sheppard. "You offworlders aren't faring very well on my world."

Ronon snorted and Sheppard shrugged, both realizing this was one of those moments when it was better to remain silent.

With the missing team members in the sled, Mathis pushed the raboo backwards to the path and got them turned around to return to the lodge. The late afternoon sky was growing darker and they knew they needed to hurry to make it off the lowlands safely before nightfall.

By the time they made it back, the storm had coated them all in a blanket of white, and the warm glowing lights of the lodge looked like a godsend to the frozen team. Several villagers poured out the open doorway to assist the injured members while others took over the care of the animals.

Sheppard's leg gave out as he attempted top step down unaided from the sled, and he would have ended up face first in a snowpile if Ronon hadn't caught him first.

"Doctor," the runner grunted, pulling the leader's reluctant arm over his shoulder.

"What do you say we sit by the fire a few minutes first? It's not like I'm dying here, and I'd really like to get warm before the poking and prodding begins."

Dex couldn't fault the colonel on his request, for he too wanted to sit near the fire to get warm. "Five minutes," he said with a deep sigh and Sheppard smiled in triumph.

Finding a pair of vacated, overstuffed chairs in front of the blazing fire, they both dropped wearily to sit. Someone miraculously appeared with a footstool and propped Sheppard's wounded leg, while another arrived, carrying large mugs of steaming liquid and the news that their friends' conditions had not changed. Comfortable and knowing all were accounted for, the information about the bacteria temporarily forgotten due to exhaustion, neither man could hold off the demand for sleep any longer, and moments later were snoring away.

SG: A

News of the arrival of the final search team spread quickly throughout the lodge and Teyla hurried from the infirmary to see her missing teammates. It had been a rough afternoon for both of the doctors and she needed to speak with Sheppard. Directed through the crowd in the main hall, she was surprised to find both the men asleep.

Ronon's large feet were propped on the fireplace hearth, his head tipped sideways into the corner of the chair, while the colonel was stretched out with one foot on the stool and the other on the floor.

Chal stepped up to Teyla's side, for he'd heard of the cravit attack and needed to examine Sheppard. With a heavy sigh, he knelt down and carefully tugged back the ripped pantleg, exposing the bite mark in the colonel's thigh. The injured man never moved during his ministrations. With a bandage applied and antibiotics injected, the physician draped a blanket over each man and stepped back.

"Let them sleep, Teyla. You need to rest, also. Tomorrow will be another long day for you and your friends."

She remained standing still as he walked away, back towards the infirmary. When the fire flickered due to a sudden downdraft from outside, she frowned. She never wanted to see snow again.

An empty chair beckoned to her and she tugged it closer to her friends before settling in to wait.

TBC