Chapter 4
The weather was remarkably pleasant but if you looked in the distance you could see this sunny day was rapidly turning to one with a sky filled with roiling black clouds. SG – 1 and their guest general had stopped for a bite to eat after a rather exhausting three hour walk from the gate. The spot was perfect, by some walls of eroded loose shale that was filled with fossil shells. It was obviously once the bottom of a sea, pushed up over time and then scoured by time and the elements to create six foot high fingers of rock and shale. The walls felt warm on their backs as they ate their lunch and up a hill side not 300 yards away was a monument inscribed with runes. Sam and Daniel had a distraction while O'Neill rested his weary bones. He felt pathetically out of shape and old. Flying that damned desk would make an old man of him yet. After lunch Sam and Jack stayed by the fossil rich wall and Daniel and Teal'c went off to investigate the worn carvings.
Jack was happy. His kids and he were on an adventure, the sun was shining, no one was shooting at them and they all seemed content.
"Look at this!" Carter said while holding up one of the largest shark's teeth that O'Neill had ever seen. He was holding a rock that split to reveal the imprint of a fern and another that was a riot of tiny clam shells.
"You could wear that around your neck."
"I don't know about that. It's still sharp, serrated like a great whites."
"Megalodon? Hey don't look so surprised I watch the Discovery channel too."
Sam smiled and then excused herself to take a quick bathroom break. O'Neill was glad for the privacy it afforded him. He couldn't get up from the sitting position he was in and had to roll onto his knees in order to stand. This humiliated him and he didn't want an observer, least of all Sam.
On her return the wind began to pick up. Sam suggested that they put on their jackets and have their raingear close at hand for the afternoon trek to the meeting place with the natives of Stord. Sam had finished zipping her jacket and vest and was busy trying to get Daniel's attention on the radio but was unsuccessful. She thought this was due to the static interference from the threatening electrical storm. O'Neill had his arms raised starting to slip back on his armored vest over his jacket when all hell broke loose.