I'm putting this fic under AU now since I read up on season three spoilers
Ties That Bind
Chapter Six: Not much of an Intergalactic Waste of Time
"You know, I'm starting to think is an intergalactic waste of time. Astarea's a good person, don't you think?" John looked at Teyla and Ford. They exchanged glances. Atlantis One had been walking along the tree line for one hour and they still hadn't found anything. There wasn't really much to be seeing too. It was basically trees, trees, oh look a flower, more trees and grass.
"Well sir, I'm not so sure." Ford was unsure if it was the wisest thing to say.
"Not you too! Teyla?"
A sigh was heard. "There is indeed something peculiar about that woman."
It was John's turn to sigh. "Fine. Well, there's nothing here so we might as well head back and save our CMO from the clutches from 'Mr. Invulnerable'. Lets hope they had no more luck than-"
John paused when he heard a click and at the same time, felt something under his shoe. He looked down and saw that it looked like a mine detonator.
"Aw hell. Um, Lieutenant! A little help here!" John called out to Ford and Teyla who were ahead. They turned their heads to see that John was standing awfully still.
"Major, what's wrong? I thought you wanted to leave." Ford laughed.
"Ha, ha, very funny. I think I'm on a mine." If the situation weren't so serious, John would have laughed at Ford's expression.
"It's either 'I am on a mine' or not! It can't be an 'I think I'm on a mine'!" Ford took out his knife.
"I'm on a mine then but what are mines doing on this world?"
John's question remained unanswered as Ford tried to reassure him. "Just hold still, sir."
He bent down and carefully slid the knife between John's shoe and the mine, whilst applying pressure to hold the mine down.
"Okay sir, slowly step back. Slowly."
John did as he was told and they all sighed in relief.
"Now, we need something real heavy," said John looking through his pack to see if anything inside would do.
"Would this be heavy enough?" Teyla held up a heavy looking laptop and John just stared intensively at the laptop in question.
"Teyla, why do you have a laptop in your bag?"
"Dr. McKay took my pack instead of his so I took his and his has a laptop."
"You know that he'll be pretty pissed off if it blows up."
"There's more on Atlantis, he could get a new one." Ford's voice was strained. "Just put the damn thing on! I can't hold down the knife like this forever!"
They carefully placed the laptop on the knife and John and Teyla backed away.
"Put that large stone over there in case it isn't heavy enough," said Ford, through his gritted teeth.
Teyla ran to the stone, picked it up and slowly put it on the laptop. Ford carefully slid his knife out and the trio backed away. When it was evident that it would not blow up, they sighed in relief. They started to walk calmly back to the Stargate, careful they didn't step on anything they shouldn't, when the rock slipped off. It looked like the laptop wasn't heavy enough as the mine blew up and knocked the trio on their backs and backsides, meters away.
They lifted themselves up so they were in a sitting position. Teyla massaged her shoulders as the other two got up and walked over to the hole in the ground while coughing and dusting the sand out of their eyes.
"Well this is unexpected," commented John.
Teyla quickly got up and walked over to their position to see what was so interesting. There in the ground was not a hole but a stairwell, heading down beneath the planet.
Teyla exchanged glances. "So it would seem."
Carson and Rodney were heading back to the gate when they heard a large explosion and hoped that none of the villagers would pay attention to that.
"It's a miracle how any of you are even alive," muttered Carson as he clicked on his radio. "Major Sheppard. Is everything alright?"
"Yeah, sorry 'bout that doc! Just a little trouble with a mine!" Over the radio, John coughed.
"Do I want to know how it came to that?"
"No, not really. You're better off not knowing, especially McKay."
Rodney perked up at his name. "Why? What happened?"
"Lets just say that you'll need to swing by the supplies closet to get something when you're back at Atlantis." Carson didn't know who to feel sorry for, Ford or Rodney.
"You took my pack?" Rodney screaming into his radio made a couple of villagers glance at them.
"You took mine first Doctor." Rodney gritted his teeth. How can Teyla be so calm?
"You destroyed my laptop!"
"Ah yes, but if we didn't, we would be short of a person or people." John could almost hear Rodney grit his teeth over the radio. He laughed at that.
"Are any of you hurt?" Carson butted in before Rodney could yell something profane.
"Nothing serious! Little bruises, here and there. Well the good news is that we're alive and we found a staircase under the mine, which we are now walking down. Dial in and let good ol' Dr. Weir what we're doing then come to our position. Shouldn't be hard to find, it's smouldering!"
"Roger that. Come on Rodney." Carson sighed and dragged Rodney, who was still whining about his long lost, and now smouldering, laptop.
"Well, now that we got that out of the way, let's see what we got ourselves into." John, Ford and Teyla all raised their P-90 and turned on the light. They walked down a corridor for a while and found that the place was void of anything that could light up the path. By the time they got to the end of the trail, they saw that they were at the entrance of a dimly lit large room.
Rodney's voice crackled over the radio. "Sheppard, please tell us that you're not down there."
"Then you better stop listening."
Carson looked to Rodney "This may be a problem,"
"Why? What's wrong?" asked Ford.
Rodney clicked over the radio. "Well, you know how there's that statue right smack bang in the middle of their village? Well there's actually a story behind it. The two Ancients that protected this place banished an evil enemy thousands of years ago and apparently there was a cave beyond the Stargate where the thing lived. We were expecting to actually find a proper cave but I think this is as close as they come. They fear that the enemy might come back if anyone venture there."
"And by the enemy you mean Wraith?"
"No, eight legged bunnies." A sarcastic remark.
"Okay, okay. Well then why don't they know about the Wraith?"
"Well they just called it the enemy…no specifics, no description. Only just that it was a horrible enemy. Just, try not to touch anything that would set anything off!"
"How can we do that if we don't know what does what?"
"We're coming down! Leave it to me!"
"Whatever." John clicked his radio off.
The trio sat down on the ground in the corridor and unpacked their gear while Ford took out cards. Teyla raised a brow.
"You never know when you need cards to pace out the time."
They proceeded to play a couple of rounds on the dirt floor of the corridor with only their torches as lights. Doubles. John was surprised to find that it wasn't just void of any proper lighting but also of insects and creatures of the like. Full House. Darn, Ford won again. Finally after loosing three times to Ford, John had enough of Poker, stood up and flashed the light of this P-90 into the room.
"Sir, the doc told us to stay put." Ford put down his cards.
"I'm not stepping in, just poking my head in to survey the room…sorta like recon." Ford smothered his grin behind his hand and begun dealing another hand.
The room was a semi-circular shape with a large podium in the middle. There were databases around the room with screens that indicted of ancient design. At the far back of the room, there was another corridor leading to a room further than where they were now.
"Royal Flush." John looked back and saw that Teyla had finished and won the game.
"Didn't see that coming," John commented.
"Yeah. I think I taught Teyla a bit too well." Teyla merely shrugged.
"You just don't like it that I beat you."
John grimaced as a bright light shone directly in his eyes. "Took your sweet time."
Ford and Teyla looked at Rodney and Carson only to see that they were puffed out with beads of sweat dripping down their side of face.
"I'm not used to this type of things!" Carson was huffing now.
"You know, you didn't have to run," Ford said now packing his cards away.
"But we knew that the Major here is an impatient little bugger."
Rodney cut in between pants. "You…blew…up…my…LAPTOP!"
"Oh please Dr. McKay. You can get a new one at Atlantis. You keep several spares, do you not?" asked Teyla.
"That's besides the point!"
"Could you stop yelling about so we can move on?" came and irritated reply from John.
"Fine, fine, fine."
"So then Mr I-know-everything, what should we do from here on?" John crossed his arms over his chest.
Rodney picked up a rock and threw it on the ground just beyond where they were standing. He picked up another rock and slid it along the ground. Still nothing happened.
"Ok, it's safe to enter," said Rodney proudly as if he had done something to truly to contribute. The rest just looked at him with an unimpressed look. "What?"
"Anyone could have done that," John said dryly.
"Ah yes! But no one did!" Everyone's response was shaking of heads and rolling of eyes.
"Okay, lets just get on with it or Weir will send another team after us." As soon as John stepped in, all of the screens turned on and the podium ejected a hologram of a star field of the Pegasus galaxy. Everyone stood around the podium to marvel at the glittery map of dots. Rodney went over to some of the databases near the podium but stood still when he heard footsteps. The others obviously heard it too. They swung around and flashed their P-90 at the empty corridor from the opposite side of the entrance.
When the lights hit the hallway, all they saw was a wisp of fog. Silence. Then the voice came. A deep male voice that screamed danger.
"What are you doing here?"
tbc...
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