Author's Comment: Thanks for the reviews, always nice to know someone's reading my stuff. :) And what made me think of Goa'uldosaurs in the first place: I just wanted to write an SG-1 story with dinosaurs. So, I started figuring out what might happen in one of those, and why the dinos came to survive on some far away planet anyway, and the idea just came up. The survival of the dinos, by the way, is a mystery that won't be solved in this story either, so, I'll need to do a third one, some day. ;)
The strangest team Sam had ever commanded arrived on P4X-215 just in time to prove yet another sunrise of the very Sun-like star that the planet orbited. They saw no sign of O'Neill and Daniel, and no clue as to where those two might've gone, so they decided to go where their friends had been supposed to go. The Tok'ra-dinosaur, the dinosaur, the Jaffa and the human marched into the jungle again. Barney lead the way, with Denver jogging along close by.
They reached the rebel camp in an hour, and found that it was completely empty, abandoned. It didn't look like anyone had been there in a while. All the fireplaces were filled with mud mixed with ash, courtesy of last evening's rain. There were things, like food and cups, lying randomly on the ground. To their dismay, they also noticed that SG-1's tents had been partially torn apart, and a few tables had been turned around, the things on them spread out on the ground. It looked as if something, or someone had been wreaking havoc, turning the place upside down, for some reason.
"Okay, what's happened here?" Sam thought aloud.
Teal'c had already put his nose near the mud to look for footprints, but it was no good. The rain had washed away whatever tracks there might've been, so they couldn't be sure Daniel and O'Neill had been here at all. Of course, the lack of recent footprints said that no one else had been here either, not since the previous evening's rain.
By the look of it, they had more than just two people missing. Aside from the fact that a campful of rebel dinos had left their dwelling and disappeared without a trace, Leo Ramsey was nowhere to be seen either.
"Barney, any ideas?" she called out to the Tok'ra-dinosaur, who was examining the entrance to the camp between the two boulders, together with his younger dinosaur friend.
Barney had already learned to respond to the name the humans had picked for him. He turned around to face Sam, and gestured with his hand that she should get closer.
"It is quite obvious, and this here confirms it," Barney began, pointing at a particular spot on one of the large rocks. To Sam, it only looked like a random darker patch, but apparently, it meant something to Barney. As Sam gazed at it, she realized it wasn't natural after all, but painted, with some kind of a dark paint, or maybe drawn with charcoal.
"The others found out that the ruler's guards were approaching, and fled," the Tok'ra-dinosaur continued.
That, of course, explained why the camp looked like it had been abandoned in haste, and turned upside-down. The ruler's guards must have found it. SG-1 and Denver had run into a party of guards just the other day, during their dino safari. Maybe the guards had somehow found their tracks. This could be all their fault. But Barney didn't seem to think about that at all, didn't seem to blame anyone. And the good thing was, at least the rebels had been able to flee. They wouldn't have put that mark there if they'd been caught. And O'Neill, Daniel and Leo had probably followed the rebel dinosaurs.
"We have known this might come to pass, so we planned our escape routes well. There are several hideouts in the rainforest." Barney tapped the dark patch with a claw, "This here is a sign, a code symbol, that lets us know which one they have retreated to. I can take you there."
"This is good news, Ghhrrwuaghr," Teal'c said, making an effort to use the dinosaur's true name. "Yet, it does not explain why Colonel O'Neill and Daniel Jackson have failed to answer our calls."
"It does not, and there is much else it does not tell. It merely says that the other rebels attempted to escape to a particular site. They may or may not have made it. The only way to find out is to go there. Come, I shall lead the way."
The dinosaurs ran ahead, out of the camp, through the passage between the boulders, into the jungle--two small dark shadows fleeting between the trees and bushes. The humans followed, far clumsier, less at home in the thick green forest, but doing all they could to keep up with their agile guides.
Teal'c was not used to feeling slow and clumsy. He had run cross country on many planets and in very different terrains. The dinosaurs, however, were much smaller and lighter than he, and knew the ways of this jungle, knew which plants were pliable and gave way easily, which trees had large roots, and so on. Teal'c tried to imitate their movements, but it was not easy. Yet they were all making their way through the rainforest faster than ever before. That was why Teal'c could not exactly estimate the distance between the abandoned rebel camp and the hideout, which they found after an hour and a half of running.
This hideout was nothing like the original camp. It was far smaller, but more sheltered. They met several rebel dinosaurs at the shore of a wide jungle river. These were the guards patrolling the perimeter, as the hideout was on a long, thin island. They had to cross the river to reach it. Though the current of the surprisingly warm brownish water did not feel strong to Teal'c, the dinosaurs seemed to have a hard time with it, lighter as they were. Any attacking dinosaurs would be greatly slowed down by it, and the camp was also completely invisible to any onlookers on the shore.
There were hardly any artificial constructions in the hideout. Merely one large circle of stones with a continuously burning fire, and two canopies to provide shelter from rain to items that would not take it. As the rebel dinosaurs shared a smaller space than in the previous camp, it looked as if there were more of them. The one solitary human stood out among them, both because he was taller, and because his gray hair and pale skin almost seemed to gleam among all the green scales and plants.
As the dinosaurs gathered around Barney, eager to learn what had happened to him, Doctor Ramsey ran to Teal'c and Captain Carter. He seemed quite disheveled, his hair greasy and sticking into odd directions, his clothes covered with mud--but there was still a boyish look of excitement on his face.
"Finally!" Doctor Ramsey greeted them. "I was starting to think you'd forgotten about me, or just decided to get rid of me once and for all!"
"We did no such thing, Doctor Ramsey," Teal'c answered him sternly. "We only needed time to deal with Barney's injuries. The manner in which we did this was unusual, but now he is fine. But are Colonel O'Neill and Daniel Jackson not here with you?"
Ramsey frowned, expressing his surprise at the question. "O'Neill and Jackson? No, I'm all alone here. It'd barely been a quarter of an hour since you two left to go to the gate, when all the dinos suddenly went nuts, and started running out of the camp. A few of them dragged me with them, and we came here. I've been here ever since. I've got to say, I've gotten along with the dinos pretty well, and this location by the river is just perfect. You know, the things I've seen--I've counted fifty different species, can you believe it, fifty!"
"This must wait, Doctor Ramsey," Teal'c told him sternly, his words almost overlapped by those of Captain Carter.
The anxiety was clear on her, as she exclaimed, "No sign of the colonel and Daniel? None at all?"
"I thought they were with you! I haven't seen them ever since they left to take Barney back to Earth, what was it, not last night but the one before that."
Just as Teal'c and Captain Carter turned to exchange worried glances, Barney hurried towards them, pushing his way past the other dinosaurs. "We must make haste! I fear our friends are in grave danger," he growled in his strange English.
"What? You know what's happened to them?" Captain Carter asked impatiently.
"As they retreated, my rebel friends left a few scouts behind, to keep an eye on the camp. They were skilled enough not to get caught, and they witnessed a party of Rrragrathssh's guards enter our abandoned camp. They left it with two prisoners. Two humans."
"Rrrag..." Captain Carter tried to make out the name. "You don't mean, the ruler? The Goa'uldosaur?"
"Indeed," Teal'c clarified it for her.
"Oh, no," she uttered.
"The ruler has wished nothing as much as to get some of your kind in his claws again. We must get Daniel and Jack out of there soon! If Rrragrathssh has not killed them right away, then they are likely to suffer greatly."
Carter nodded, looking determined now. She knew that worrying would not get their friends out. "If they're in the temple, then we'll need a very good plan to get them out--but we don't have a lot of time to make plans, just getting to the temple will take up to ten hours."
"There is a plan, or the beginning of one," Ranys, the Tok'ra symbiote spoke up. "But it will require assistance from Earth, including a significant amount of manpower."
"Then we'll get that. The general will grant it. He has to. Let's get back to the gate right away, we can work on the details as we run," Captain Carter decided the course of action.
"This time, I'm coming with you," Doctor Ramsey added.