Sheppard target

by Mission Reporter

Rating: T (to play it safe)

Type: General/Action&Adventure/Humor

Spoilers: Storm/Eye, Irresistible and Sateda

Timeframe: Some time after Sateda

Synopsis: Sheppard takes Ronon's place for a transgression that the Satedan unwittingly commits and pays a dire price when he becomes target practice for armed natives.

Disclaimer: Not mine, except for original characters and story line. No profit has been made of this, it's all just for fun.

Chapter 1: Beware of slugs

(Sheppard's POV)

Do you know what's the worst part about target practice? When you're it, the target that is, and you know damn well that one slip up could cost you your life. Yeah, so that's me, one Lt Colonel John Sheppard, why don't you paint a big bullseye on my chest that just says 'Shoot me'. How the hell did I get myself into this mess in the first place, you ask? Wouldn't you like to know. Well, as Rodney had not so politely reminded the Fuzzies in his typical McKay fashion, it wasn't Ronon's fault that he had accidentally stepped and squashed on the Fuzzies' sacred blue slug. And it sure damn well wasn't mine either. Did I just say 'Fuzzies' and 'sacred blue slug'? You betcha I did, and to tell you the truth, I wished I never encountered either one, nor visited P7N-583. It would have made life a whole heap simpler and saved me a heck of a lot of grief and pain in the process.

So, there we were, on P7N-583, and I had been furthest away taking point, when a blasted blue slug decided at that moment to come out from its little hidey-hole to get underfoot of one tall and heavy Satedan warrior. Now, if you ask me, it was a damn stupid thing for it to do, and I'm sure Ronon would have agreed with me there. Of course it was going to get squashed by our tall and friendly Satedan, for come on, do you know how far his eyes are from the ground? How do you expect him to spot a little tiny worm amongst all those blades of grass? And I haven't even mentioned about his weight—all those muscles and raw brute power, how could a slug to survive that? No wonder McKay calls him 'Conan' or the 'Caveman' behind his back. But I understand Ronon better than McKay does, because we're both soldiers, warriors, brother in arms so to speak, and sometimes it's better not to wear our hearts on our sleeve. See, I'm a very private sort of guy, the one who values not having his privacy invaded, and if Ronon chooses not to speak much, I'll respect him for it.

As far as I know, Ronon Dex wouldn't have seen that little blue slug through the blades of grass, and if even if he did, I don't think he would have given it a second thought. Who would have guessed that one small, ugly alien slug could cause so much trouble. But just as Ronon flattened it, there was a soft high pitched shriek followed by a sizzling sound, which was what brought our attention to it in the first place. By the time I had tracked back to look at what happened, there was only a small blue glutinous smear on the ground and some spread under Ronon's boot of course. The sight oddly reminded me of squashed blue Jello that McKay so often liked to leave behind at the mess hall table. However, that was when the other blue slugs started to erupt from the ground before us and that was when I said "Crap", not liking what I saw. Pretty soon there were literally hundreds, maybe thousands of squirmy blue slugs rising out from the field, lifting their wormy little bodies vertically up towards the sky. They almost looked like quivering blue blades of grass as they stretched out longer and higher than the grass itself, but a dozen times creepier.

At this stage, I took a careful glance at my team mates not knowing what to make of this. I saw distaste in Teyla's normally reserved features, horror and nausea in Rodney's, and curious amusement in Ronon's. As for me? I don't know what emotion I displayed then, perhaps wariness, for at that every moment, my spidey sense started to tingle like crazy and I knew that I wasn't going to like what was about to happen. I warned my team to stand still, to not make a move, for I did not want any of us accidentally squashing another one of these damn alien slugs again. It was always best play it safe rather than sorry in situations like this. I suppose it was a good thing that I did, otherwise it would have been my entire team out here with me now, instead of just me.

I have heard the saying that there are such things as small graces in life, although I have to admit, I couldn't see any grace to be in this predicament right now. The only good thing out of this, was the fact that the Fuzzies had agreed for me to take Ronon's place for his transgression, not that I had believed even for a second that Ronon did anything wrong, just to make that part clear. It could have easily been any one of us who stepped on that damn blue slug, the fact that it happened to be Ronon was just plain bad luck.

But back to what happened. I knew that trouble was abound as soon as the alien slugs started opening their tiny maws and emitting a strange high pitched keening sound. Hell, I didn't even know until then that the slugs had mouths, much less able to give out that creepy tune. The pitch got so bad that we even had to cover our ears in painful protest to what it was doing to our eardrums. If it went on for much longer, all of us would have probably passed out from alien sopranos gone haywire, but then that would result with us falling onto the grass and flattening more creepy blue slugs in the process, which was not a pleasant thought. Perhaps those little guys knew it for in the end it didn't come to that. Instead the slugs keening caused the entire ground before us to vibrate, like a mini earthquake, as if the very planet itself was resonating to their cries. This went on for approximately a minute or so, then the slugs lowered themselves back to the ground again and disappeared under the blades of grass, back towards their little wormy hidey-holes. When everything settled back to normal again, I heard McKay breathe a sigh of relief and said to Ronon, Teyla and me, "What the hell was all that about?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "Perhaps a Disney sing-along?" I quipped, giving the scientist a wry look as I put my sunglasses back on and looked around us. I indicated to the rest of the team that we should get ourselves out of the field stat. Yet, I also told them to watch their step, I didn't want us accidentally flattening anymore creepy blue slugs. If one squashed slug was enough to get a bad reaction from all the other slugs, I didn't want a repeat performance. Besides their eerie cries still echoed painfully in my ears. We were lucky that we didn't experience any burst eardrums. At the corner of my eye, I saw Ronon being extra careful to obey my orders. An amused smile twinged the corner of my lips. It wasn't everyday you got to see the tall Satedan warrior taking careful tip-toe steps almost like an awkward ballerina, which was totally uncharacteristic of Ronon and not an image that I preferred to use on the big guy. While the former runner didn't show it, I sensed that he was fairly disturbed by the other slugs' reaction to him accidentally killing one of their own. A good reaction to have because admittedly, so was I.

When we finally made our way out of that field, that was when trouble decided to pay us another visit and rear its ugly head back at us. There are some days when you just don't get a break, and this was clearly one of them. We soon found ourselves surrounded by a horde of approximately fifty primitive folk armed to the teeth with a variety of medieval weapons all aimed at little ol' us. Yeah, it was a pretty big welcoming party if you ask me, all there just to greet team Sheppard. If the situation wasn't so grim, I would have been flattered. The strange mini earthquake that resulted from the slugs keening had obviously alerted these people to our presence in the field.

We soon learnt that they were called Fuzzies and the planet that we had coined P7N-583 was actually called Fuz (with a single 'z'). Our resident genius, Dr Rodney McKay, enlightened us to that fact when they showed us the law of their land, written on an old scroll that they obviously carried along with them. Hey, don't ask me why they carried such things, perhaps they did that often, that is, catch people trespassing in open fields where creepy singing slugs resided. I had to hand it to McKay though, when they first mentioned their people's name to us, self-preservation must have kicked in, for he somehow managed to tone down the bark of his laughter. Well, actually it was more like a nervous snort rather than a full blown laugh, for having angry natives pointing crossbows, arrows, spears and swords at you can take the humour out of the situation.

But I agreed with McKay when he whispered to me that it was an absurd name for these not-so friendly folk to have. What kind of people called themselves Fuzzies anyway? It sounded more like the name of a soda pop drink; in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if there was actually a similar named drink back on Earth. Fuzzies also sounded like one of those cute furry teddy bears, the ones that kids liked a lot, or those Ewoks in Star Wars, or maybe even Furlongs, after all, hey, I've read some of SG1's mission reports, who wouldn't after discovering about the Stargate program? But these Fuzzies were nothing like any of the things that I mentioned. Gentle and fun were not in their nature, nor did they leave you with any warm fuzzy feelings. In fact, they were totally the opposite, with a mean sort of streak to boot. I knew, cos unfortunately I'd experienced some of their meanness first hand. It just goes to show that the name means nothing; just like how some people might find your joke hilarious, but say that same joke again in a foreign culture very different from your own, and it might very well get you killed.

Okay, so now we knew about the Fuzzies on P7N-583, also known as planet Fuz. And when you're surrounded by a large and unfriendly horde, all of them aiming nasty projectiles of some sort at you and your team, you know that even with your P90s you're going to be vastly outnumbered, and chances were, you and your team wouldn't make it out of there without sustaining a high casualty rate, some of them probably fatal. Besides, to open fire on these people without attempting to talk to them first would make us as cold blooded as Kolya and the Genii when they first attacked Atlantis during the Storm. I lost two good marines that day to the Genii's sneak attack, and it wasn't something that I would likely forget.

So, surrounded as we were, I ordered my team to lower their weapons. After all, Elizabeth had given us specific orders that this was meant to be a friendly meet and greet mission, to seek out new alliance or trade agreement. It's generally not our way for us to open fire on a populace just because they were pointing weapons at us, not unless they shot first, and at the moment, they were not shooting, just looking at us as if they wanted to rip us apart piece by little piece. Okay, granted, not a comforting thought, but our policy on first contact dictated that we still had to wait for them to make the first move. Sad to say, it wasn't long before we soon learned the true purpose of why they were there.

To cut a long story short, let's just say forming trade agreements or any sort of alliance were the furthest things from their minds. These folk were not willing to negotiate, listen or have any sort of friendly pow-wow. I almost wished then that I had given the order to shoot the bastards and for us to try to make a run for it back to the Stargate. How the heck were we to know that the field where the blue slugs lived were out of bounds to all, much less to off-worlders? Hell, if the horde didn't want anyone accidentally stepping on their precious blue slugs, they should have put up a gigantic warning sign, preferably in bright neon colours that said something like:"Warning - Do NOT step in field where crazy blue slugs reside else serious punishment is warranted, possibly death." But there had been nothing, no warning, no sign, naddah, zip. So yeah, basically we were screwed, well maybe not we per se, but more accurately, me, one Lt. Colonel John Sheppard.

-xo0ox-

TBC