Simpson hadn't been kidding about the storm.
If Sheppard had thought the wind had fought him before, trying to ride it now was like trying to ride a bronco. A forty-foot bronco, on steroids, with a saddle full of spikes.
The controls wrenched at his hands, as the storm tried to wrest control of his ship away from him. Trying to divide his attention between flying and reading the LCS was a nightmare. He kept having to take the ship up as high as he could go and still pick up readings -- the wind was no better at 3000 feet, in fact it was worse, but at least there weren't so many things to run into, so he could actually look at the screens long enough to read them. Then, because he still had no way to sort out the life signs except by visual confirmation, he would have to dive back into the maelstrom, relying on the altimeter, the collision detectors and his own quick reflexes to save him from one near-crash after another. As visibility grew steadily worse, he had to come down below treetop level to get visuals on the LCS readings -- he'd lost count of how many times he'd clipped trees with the jumper's undercarriage. At least most of the animals on this world, in typical Arctic fashion, were large and therefore easy to see.
He kept telling himself he should go back. Telling himself it was hopeless, that he couldn't find anything in this, that the risk wasn't worth the cost.
Knowing that he never would, that he'd die before he'd return empty-handed.
Caldwell wouldn't have done it for him. "Not a good risk-reward situation," he would have said. Maybe that was why Sheppard had to be out here now. One reason why.
Oh hell. May as well be honest with himself. He wasn't staying out here because of Caldwell. Not that he wanted to see the man die, not that he wouldn't do everything in his power to save a fellow soldier's life -- he'd gone onto a hiveship for Sumner, and he hadn't even liked the guy, whereas he did actually like Caldwell most of the time. But ... if Rodney, Caldwell and a busload of nuns were on fire, he'd put Rodney out first. That was just how it was.
A mountain peak reared up in front of him, looming out of the clouds. Sheppard yanked the controls, felt an instant's panic when he thought he was losing control as the jumper plunged a few hundred feet and spun to the side, missing a rocky outcrop by what had to be inches. He wished he dared take his hands off the controls to wipe the sweat from his forehead, but a moment's inattention could be fatal.
It was crazy to be out here in this weather. Crazy. If any pilot in any unit he'd ever commanded had tried something like this, Sheppard would've grounded him for weeks ... after buying him a drink.
He glanced at the LCS, and dropped downwards through the featureless whiteness. The bottom fell out of his stomach as the jumper plunged -- he still had the inertial dampeners dialed most of the way down.
Imminent collision. He veered wildly, knocking the snow off the tops of a stand of pine trees that he almost hadn't seen at all. The jumper skimmed over another little herd of those yak critters, so close Sheppard fancied he could smell them. Then he was pulling up into a hard climb, the jumper bucking in the wind, nearly impossible to keep steady and -- SHIT. Mountain.
It filled the screen. Hell, it filled the whole world -- a vast cliff coming up to smack him in the face. There was no way on Earth or any other world that he could avoid this, even with the puddlejumper's incredible ability to maneuver in three dimensions. But still he tried, hauling back on the controls so hard that the muscles in his back and shoulders screamed in protest. There just wasn't enough time to respond. He'd finally cut it too close. The most he could manage to do was turn so that rather than smacking into the peak head-on, he'd hit it at an angle.
Every pilot who keeps flying eventually makes their fatal mistake.
His, apparently, had been going out in a storm that he had no business flying in.
Strange how much time he had to think, in that split second as the mountain came up to meet him. And the thought he couldn't shake was that if he had to do it all over again, he'd do the exact same thing. Sitting warm and comfortable on the Daedalus while Rodney froze to death in a lethal storm ... it wasn't something he could do and still look himself in the mirror.
He just regretted losing the jumper.
------
Caldwell helplessly watched Rodney fall, and realized in that same moment that he'd just given away the advantage that Rodney had sacrificed his life for ... given it away in a futile attempt to help someone who was already dead. But he couldn't have stood there and watched a man die, not without trying to do something. Maybe Sheppard was rubbing off on him.
As Rodney's body vanished through the ice on the river -- perhaps still alive, even now, but not for long, not once that bitterly cold water got hold of him -- Armstrong spun around and fired in Caldwell's direction. The Colonel threw himself flat and then rolled over the side of the ravine, dropping to the brush-choked frozen stream, thinking Shit, shit, shit!
"I might have known he was lying!" Armstrong's voice drifted down to him. "But let's face it, old man -- I've got twenty years on you, and I spent my boyhood hunting and tracking things in the woods. You can't hide from me out here."
He was going to survive this, if only to make the bastard pay for that "old man" crack. And for McKay. He never would have believed he'd miss that stubborn, irritating ass. Keeping to the side of the ravine, Caldwell started running.
Luck was with him for a change. The ravine that dropped off into the river canyon was not just the product of one creek, but a number of them, all coming down from the hills and braiding together. It was virtually a maze, especially with the blizzard to help confuse sight and sound. Caldwell took turns at random, fighting his way through and over log-jams and tangles of brush. For the most part, the streams were frozen solid and covered with snow, but behind one snarl of dead trees he stumbled into actual, standing water. Reflex sent him stumbling backward at the sound of the first splash, and only that saved him from lethally sodden feet. He stood for a moment, staring at the water blocking his path and spreading out into the trees on either side; then he climbed the bank up into the trees, crunching through a shelf of yellowish ice and sinking into knee-deep snow under the trees.
After the first round of taunts, Armstrong had not said anything else, and Caldwell had no idea where he was. Seeing how quickly and silently Armstrong had circled around them back at the river, though, he tried to be alert to the possibility of attack from any direction. Based on Armstrong's record, the man's wilderness skills were second to none, and it had actually been one of the deciding factors in approving him for transfer to the Daedalus -- Caldwell remembered thinking that a man like that would be a good one to have around. Now he was kicking himself, remembering more details of Armstrong's files that now seemed like danger signs: a loner, keeping mostly to himself despite his apparently gregarious personality; a man who preferred the wide-open cold spaces to the company of other people. Caldwell could sympathize with the need for solitude; he was like that himself. But after serving on the Daedalus crew for months, Armstrong hadn't really made any friends, at least not that Caldwell could remember -- and that was something he needed to watch out for in the future.
If he got out of this.
The pines began to thin, and he crested the top of a rise, looking down into a valley. At least he presumed it was a valley -- all he could see was the slope underfoot, fading away into a white haze of blowing snow. Below him, something moved in a direction counter to the driving snow, and Caldwell jumped, wrenching his broken arm painfully as he brought up the gun. Then he relaxed, seeing that it was some kind of large animal. For a moment, he stood and watched it; the beast was the size of an elephant, and reminded him vaguely of the woolly mammoths at the natural history museum he'd seen as a child. Or maybe more like a giant woolly rhinoceros, or moose or something -- it had a long upper lip, but not long enough to really be considered a trunk, and branched, spreading antlers. Its fur was thick and shaggy, hanging in long, tangled hanks to brush the snow.
Watching it browse on brush in the valley, Caldwell realized that he could use it to his advantage. The snow around the animal's legs was churned up by its huge tracks. Between that, and the damage it was doing to the landscape as it searched for food, he could possibly confuse his trail enough to throw Armstrong off. At the very least, it might slow down Armstrong enough to let the storm do the rest of the job of hiding his tracks.
The wind slammed into him as he left the shelter of the trees, nearly knocking him off his feet. Lowering his head, Caldwell slogged down the hill, keeping the gun ready. Not that he had any illusions that a 9mil would do anything against a creature the size of a house ... but if it did make any aggressive moves in his direction, the noise might help.
It didn't show any signs of attacking, though -- just rolled one large, bloodshot eye at him and went back to grazing on snow-covered shrubs. Caldwell couldn't help a slight thrill of elation as he crossed its path, no more than twenty yards away. Of course he'd read the SG teams' reports, and the Atlantis reports as well ... but this was still the first time he'd been this close to an animal on an alien world. Knowing that other worlds existed was not at all the same thing as actually walking on them. Despite the desperate, dangerous circumstances, his heart lifted. He could see why people like O'Neill and Sheppard were willing to risk their lives exploring beneath alien skies.
The snow behind the beast made for even more difficult walking than the hill -- punched full of giant hoof-holes, pushed into heaps and ridges as high as his waist where the animal had pawed it away from the bushes. It was all to the best for his purposes, though; the more confusing for Armstrong, the better. Caldwell picked his way through the trampled snow, breathing quietly through the pain on the all-too-frequent occasions when his arm got jolted and jarred as he negotiated the rough terrain.
A sudden loud, wet-sounding snort from the animal made him look over his shoulder. He'd either come farther than he'd realized, or the storm was getting still worse, because he could barely see the thing's great, shaggy bulk through the blizzard. He could see enough to tell that it was moving around, looking agitated.
Armstrong? But it hadn't reacted to him that way. Then he caught a glimpse of something moving through the blowing snow with slinking grace.
Caldwell froze in his tracks. It was the mega-wolves -- maybe the same ones that had attacked them earlier, maybe a different pack. He could see at least three of them now, circling the lone herbivore, stalking it. Praying quietly that they had not seen or smelled him, he backed away. Their attention seemed to be consumed with the grazing animal; its presence had surely drawn them, and maybe they had been following it for a while, waiting for it to grow tired and lower its guard.
If he could get away, this would be yet another layer of protection from Armstrong. Caldwell didn't have much hope that the guy would get himself caught by wolves, but at least he would have to detour and avoid them, leaving Caldwell's trail to do so.
The herbivore made a loud grunting noise, and broke, charging off into the snow at a ground-eating gallop. High, shrilling cries rose from the throats of the wolf creatures, and they fell in behind it -- not just the three he'd seen earlier, but at least a half-dozen or so of them. Taking advantage of the distraction, Caldwell turned and ran. He followed the animal's backtrail at first, but when it turned out to be too hard to move quickly over the broken terrain, he left it and struck out through virgin snow.
Pausing to catch his breath, he looked over his shoulder. The shrill cries had died away, and he could see nothing but the curtain of snow, concealing everything from view. Then he caught sight of something dark and large, moving among the pine trees off to his right. Shielding his eyes with his hand, he made out the large shape of the herbivore, having slowed from its run to a brisk trot. It quickly vanished from sight.
The wolves' hunt had failed. Which meant they would be hungry, and seeking other meat.
"Oh God," Caldwell whispered, as the first pair of golden eyes gleamed out of the driving snow.
He turned and ran.
He knew you didn't run from predators, knew he couldn't possibly outrace them. But out in the open like this, if they caught up to him, he was going to die. His only chance was to try to get to somewhere that he could make a stand -- get rock at his back, find a tree and climb it.
The snow hampered him. He fell, tried to catch himself instinctively with his bad arm because the other was fumbling for his gun. Instead his face smacked into the snow and he just lay there for a moment, letting the pain fade to bearable levels again.
Armstrong had been right, after all. He was too goddamn old for this. He'd put in his time in the field, and then some. At his age, he should be comfortably behind a desk, not running through the snow with a broken arm and alien wolves on his heels.
Awkwardly, he climbed to his feet, the gun in one hand, the other clamped against his chest. As he started running again, he heard the shrieking howls begin, as the predators closed in around him.
------
TBC
At this point, I don't think it's really possible for things to get worse ...