Space Pirates

Chapter 9

Teyla could feel the branches slapping her face, the occasional thorns scratching her skin as she stumbled over roots and stones on her way into the forest. Her shoulders were aching from the heavy weight of Major Sheppard, whom she was dragging with her, doing the only thing she could think of to protect to two of them from the Wraith. They could not leave the planet, there was no where to run from the Wraith. Going into the forest was the only chance they had of possibly hiding from the Wraith. But Teyla was without sight since the crash, moving even in the rather light underbrush was difficult. She kept walking into tress and bushes and the uneven forest ground had sent her falling to her knees more than once already. At least she couldn't sense the Wraith coming closer at the moment. She had felt them approach back at their camp at the lake. Now that she and John had fled into the forest, she could still feel their presence, but they were getting further away. Teyla harboured no illusions, the Wraith knew that they were there and they would not leave until they had located their prey. She could only hope that Aiden too had noticed the Dart flying over them and had not returned to the lake where he was sure of running into the Wraith.

Teyla's foot bumped into something solid. Feeling forward, she recognized it as a fallen log. When she made a bigger to step over it, she expected to step on solid ground on the other side, but instead, it was a rather steep downward slope. She lost her footing and as she tumbled down once again, she lost her grip on John. She only slip down a little bit before she gained a solid hold. As she tried to get to her feet again, determined to feel her way uphill and find John again, a sharp pain shot through her already injured leg. It had been aching all along, because the bite wound had become infected, but not like this. Teyla bit her lip and put most of her weight on her other foot. This time she tried to get back uphill with the help of her legs, but still she kept sliding down again while white hot pain shot through her leg. This had to be more than just the infected bite wound. Somehow she had to have injured herself more in the fall. It didn't seem like anything was broken, but beyond that Teyla couldn't tell. Still she didn't give up easily. She tried another two times to get up the fairly muddy hillside, before she had to conceded that she was not going to get there without help. This was going to have to serve as their hiding place from the Wraith. She had just to hope that they were deep enough in the forest. Her hopes were shattered soon. It could only have been minutes when the chilling wave rushed towards her anew, alerting her anew that the Wraith's presence was getting closer to them. Mercilessly, she could feel the Wraith come closer. At this time she cursed her ability to sense the enemy even though it had saved her life and that of her companies several times. This was it, she thought. She had been raised, prepared for that moment to come. She had always been aware that one day, she would not be able to escape. She had been lucky many times when her parents, her brother and many of her friends had not been lucky. It had not been a question, but a certainty that her luck would run out one day. The presence was close now, the Wraith must now by close by. She heard heavy footsteps even on the soft forest ground. The air carried a sharp hiss and a deep growl. Teyla was waiting for the touch and the unimaginable pain to come, but it doesn't happen. Only a scream punctures the night. The Wraith found John first.

The ship in orbit of the planet had shown up on their sensors almost ten minutes ago. Initially, they had been too far away to get any more details from their instruments, but even as they got closer, the ship turned out not to be familiar. The only thing they did know was that it wasn't friendly. Before the Puddle Jumper had been in weapon's range, the other ship had launched fire at them. Luckily, they were still too far away.

Stackhouse was piloting. So far they hadn't returned fired, but he had the weapons at the ready, should the other ship attack them again. Markham was studying the sensor for information about the planet.

"So far, I'm not getting much. Nothing on energy, it doesn't seem populated, but the signal we received back in the city, it's definitely coming from here. We have Zelenka's estimated co-ordinates in the computer…hang on. I'm getting something else…another ship down in the atmosphere."

"Can you bring it up on screen?" Bates asked impatiently. This was turning out more complicated than he had hoped for. He just hoped that they were not getting in the middle of some alien race's conflict here.

"Here it is. It's not a ship."

"No, definitely not." Bates said. They all saw it. It was a Wraith Dart.

"Can we get it from here?" Bates asked.

"No, it's down in the atmosphere, we are too far from the planet. We'd have to be down in the atmosphere itself to att-"

He was interrupted as a blast rocked the ship. The small, previously unidentified ship that had attacked, but not reached them before had fired at them again, in this time, they had been in range. Stackhouse immediately returned fire, hitting them, but not hindering them from continuing their attack. The Puddle Jumper pilot managed to dodge the next two blasts, but get caught by part of the third. They scored four solid hits themselves before the enemy ship ceased its assault and unexpectedly launched a Wraith Dart.

"It's a fuckin' Wraith Ship! Who knows how many Darts there are." Bates swore, now that they had to targets to keep them occupied.

The enemy had no clearly an advantage over them and got two solid hits at them before they had to chance to return fire. Alarms started blaring on the Puddle Jumper and Stackhouse's expression had a certain alarm to it. He fired another, as it turned out, fatal blast at the small Wraith ship.

"That's it, we are going to have to land." Stackhouse yelled.

"Now!" Bates yelled back. This mission was going downhill fast.

"Now, we are lucky if we aren't going to crash."

"There are probably Wraith down there."

"It's either landing as soon as possible are risking the engine core blowing up here."

"Do it!"

Ford was panting heavily. Almost drowning had taken a lot out of him. Far more than he was willing to admit, even to himself. He rested for a moment, bending down, with his hands resting on his knees. He greedily sucked in air, but still felt like he was suffocating. Another fit of coughing shook his entire body. He had no time for this, he had to go back to John and Teyla and warn them about the Wraith. He had to protect them. He had no idea how without any weapon more advanced than a stick. Teyla would be able to fight off a Wraith with a branch, but he needed a P90 to do it. Maybe he should take a leaf out of the major's book and ask Teyla for lesions in Athosian stick fighting or whatever they called that particular martial art. He straightened, suppressing a pained groan and started running again, towards the lake where John and Teyla were. Where they hopefully were. He could simply not be too late for them. The Wraith could not get to them first. He didn't think he would survive failing all of his team mates. In a way he already had. Rodney was probably dead, John might never wake up again and Teyla was blind.

His dark thoughts at least kept his focus of the pain in his body and allowed him to push himself to the limit as he ran back to the lake. He reached to edge of the tree line and stopped. Careful to stay hidden behind a tree to scanned the area. Nothing, there was nobody. No John and no Teyla. They were gone. Fear shot through Aiden. He was alone now. Something was moving in the grass by the far side of the lake. Two Wraith emerged, obviously searching the area for someone to suck dry. If the Wraith were searching, did the mean that John and Teyla had escaped. Maybe they were trying to hide. But how, Teyla was blind and besides she would have to drag John, she couldn't carry him. The two Wraith were still occupied search by the lake, but they were vaguely headed in his general direction, so Aiden slipped back into the forest. He didn't know where to go. There was no safe place from the Wraith and it was almost night now, not ideal conditions to play hide and seek with the enemy. It would impossible to find John and Teyla and this maze of trees and bushes, so a headed into a random direction, trying to put the maximum distance between himself and the Wraith. His body was burnt out. Running was no longer an option. He was panting now even when he was walking; he had to go more slowly. He walked until he couldn't make another step. To his discouragement he hadn't gotten very far before he had to rest on a fallen log. But when he finally sat down, he nearly fell so weak were his knees. The canopy wasn't very dense there, there was probably a clearing ahead. Not being able to move anymore, Aiden looked up at the stars. The stars reminded him of home. All the planets he had visited. He was living an extraordinary live, in another galaxy. Still, he would have loved to see the stars above Earth once more. But no, he was going to die on this nameless planet a galaxy away from Earth. If the Wraith didn't get him tonight, they'd get him tomorrow. They would not give up and eventually they would get him.

Glancing back at the stars, he wondered about his friends back at Atlantis. He had long lost track of how many days they had been gone. He only knew that he had not slept or eaten in several days. Where they still looking for them? Had they gotten their signal?

As if in answer to his thoughts, an object appeared in his field of vision. It was a ship. At the first glace, he panicked, thinking it was another Dart, but as the ship became bigger as it descended not too far away, he recognized that the shape was vastly different and the characteristic sound of the Darts was absent. In fact, the engines of the ship were quiet, too quiet and its descent was very fast as it quickly disappeared between the trees. A landing in a forest?

Against all hope, Aiden allowed himself to just consider the possibility of rescue. What if the ship was from Atlantis. It looked like a Puddle Jumper, even though it was dark. The spark of hope triggered reserves he didn't knew he had. He got up from the log. His body still protested in pain, but there was a new source of energy burning inside him. It was sheer desperation. If there was a chance that they were going to be rescued than he would not miss it. If it was not the hope for rescue than he had nothing to lose. With the Wraith after them, they were as good as dead. The Wraith would hunt them down one by one. So he pushed forward, one step at the time towards where he had seen the ship go down.

TBC