A/N: Hi, I'm back and hopefully will finally finish this little story at some point – a few more chapters to go still. Sorry about the delay, life has an annoying habit of getting in it's own way sometimes.
A few notes – thanks for the reviews, I appreciate them.
LanaJoy – LOL – I think I'll stay away from unicorns.
As far as Jack or Sam riding Rover – he's still a bit small for that at the moment. I'm not sure if and when that might happen.
This chapter is dedicated to Darth Tater, who reminded me to work on it. :)
And now without further delay...
Chapter 32 – Of Rocks and Swamp Muck
Jack and Sam continued to walk through the woods climbing the hillside to get to the top, where, hopefully, they would see some sort of sign of other inhabitants on the planet. The afternoon was getting late and the golden sunlight was slanting through the trees, with dappled shadows playing across Sam's face every time Jack looked back at her to confirm she was still following. She was beautiful - he still couldn't believe she actually loved him.
He heard a crash of branches above his head and assumed it to just be a bird they had startled from it's perch. No such luck.
"Ow! What the..." Mistaking the fallen rock for an attack from the trees, Jack immediately dropped and rolled, readying his P-90. Sam saw his actions and also dropped, readying her weapon. When a large gray form next dropped through the trees, they both trained their sites on the gray scales that looked similar to jaffa armor. Then they relaxed their hold on their weapons as Rover landed next to the rock and picked it up.
"Rover! Did you have to drop that on my head?"
The dragon crouched in a stance that looked appropriately sheepish, not because he understood what he'd done wrong, but because Jack yelled at him. He knew he wasn't supposed to let the rock fall, but it wasn't really his fault he hadn't gotten the hang of the thing yet. He wagged his tail once and leaped back into the air as Jack rubbed the sore spot on the top of his head.
Sam cautiously got a little closer. "Are you ok?"
"Yeah, just got beaned pretty good." He swept his arms around the area. "You'd think with all this space, the odds of him hitting me would be pretty slim. Do you think he aimed for me on purpose?"
Sam couldn't help smirking. "Jack. Do you really think he would have thrown a rock at you? It's your own fault, you know. You had to juggle for him, didn't you? He's been up there all afternoon, throwing that rock in the air and trying to bounce it off his nose while flying. I'm surprised you haven't been hit more often."
He opened his mouth to respond, but instead just shook his head absently and started walking again.
About an hour later they came to a very small clearing that was close to the top of the mountain, but would provide some cover from wind. They decided to camp there for the night. Sam got the campfire ready while Jack scouted to the top of the mountain to see if he could see anything in the waning light.
It took Jack about 20 minutes to reach a point with a panoramic view in all directions. Before he had left, he made sure Rover would stay with Sam, so he felt reasonably comfortable leaving her for a couple of hours. He carefully surveyed the surrounding countryside. He was looking for several things. Smoke might indicate someone's fire in a house or factory. The last rays of the day's sunlight might reflect off of a metallic or glass structure. A nice city skyline would be great at this point. Something in the air might indicate someone who had advanced to at least air flight, if not space flight. Or it might indicate goa'uld ships. Another thing he was concerned about was the possibility of seeing another dragon. Somehow he had the feeling they might not all be as friendly as Rover. He also didn't want Rover accidentally flying into a fully grown dragon's territory, he didn't want anything to happen to the little guy.
He had his binoculars out and was carefully scanning the land and air to the west. It was starting to get dark, but that was ok. After traveling all over the galaxy, he had learned more than one 'universal' trait among people. One of which was, if you wanted to see how many people were on a planet and how advanced their civilization was, you looked at how much light they gave off during the night. When in orbit around a planet, you could rarely see man made things on the day side, while the night side usually revealed decent sized cities just by the light they gave off. Here, he'd accept finding a single light or fire to guide him in his search. So far he saw nothing and slowly turned. Taking his time to view everything he could see for any sign of light.
When the air started to chill and he had done two complete circles, not seeing any lights or anything else of note, Jack decided to head back to camp for the night. In the morning, he would return with Sam and see what the daylight might display. As he quietly entered the clearing, he saw Sam with her back to him, crouching in front of Rover, speaking to him and pointing to his snout. "So, you see, your best option is to catch it right here at the top where it's relatively flat and won't hit at an angle."
As Jack walked up to them, he saw a drawing in the dirt of a curve and lines bouncing off of it at different angles, reminding him of an old science class he had where he'd learned about the reflection of light on curved surfaces.
"Sa-am? Whatcha doin'?"
She smiled as she turned to him. "I was just talking to Rover, Jack."
"You weren't teaching him physics were you?"
A hint of blush colored her cheeks as she looked down at her drawing he must have seen. "Well, I thought it would help. He's still trying to figure out how to bounce that rock off his nose to juggle with it."
He looked over at Rover who was playing with his rock again. He was doing a slightly better job now. While he still didn't have control and never got to a second bounce, the rock wasn't flying too far away from him whenever he hit it with his nose now. Jack grinned at him and chuckled. He leaned down to pick up one of the rocks Sam had pulled out of her bag and walked over to try to show his buddy the fine art of juggling with just one object.
While in another part of the galaxy...
"DanielJackson, I have already told you that there are no shower facilities on this vessel and water storage capacity is minimal. You should refrain from washing until we reach our destination."
Daniel slumped over the sink he had been unsuccessfully using to try to wash some of the dried, stinking swamp muck off his face, hands and head. "Teal'c, I know you said that, but don't these things have hidden reserves somewhere? I have to get some of this stuff off of me."
Teal'c opened his mouth to respond when there was a large bang and the ship they had finally acquired lurched violently.
