Ch. 2 "Discommodious Devils"

Malek had been taking the lead for the past several hours. It was a quiet and uneventful hike for the most part. Jack was busy wiping his sunglasses with his t-shirt. Daniel, had been bored out of his mind, there had been nothing of archeological interest so far in this mission. Teal'c and Aldwin walked stoically along. Anise and Sam were fiddling with their equipments taking various readings, oxygen content, radiation levels, etc. all of which were within normal levels… boring. Martouf on the other hand was quite enjoying his time taking up the rear, admiring his view of Samantha's… anyway, one thing was for certain, the planet was a beautiful tropical paradise.

He really should've been paying more attention to his surroundings. Suddenly he tripped over a tree root sticking out from the ground. Like a set of dominos, when one fell, so did the rest. He knocked over Sam and Anise, who in turn tripped the rest of the men. Malek and Jack quickly jumped back, realizing that they were too close for comfort to one another. They stared at one another in shock.

"We'll pretend that didn't happen." Jack said to Malek.

"What happened, nothing happened." Malek denied.

"Urgh. What just happened?" Daniel asked.

"Nothing." "Nothing." The two men stated. Everyone stared at them in confusion.

"I am sorry, I should have been more careful with my footing." Martouf apologized.

"It's ok. Ahhh… You know what Sam why don't you and I switch."

"Yes Sir."

"O'Neil, are you alright?" Martouf asked as they began walking again.

"Yeah I'm cool." He quickly responded.

Malek had led them to an area of hot springs. Upon reaching the clearing the team paused and stared in amazement at the beautiful waterfall before them. Steam came from the surface of the clear-blue waters, there were several areas of small pools the size of jacuzzi's, and colorful birds flew above them. The small lake gave way to a calm river that flowed ever so peacefully down stream. Malek just couldn't resist.

"What's going on, we just took a break an hour ago?" Jack complained.

"Perhaps, but surely we cannot pass up an opportunity to enjoy such paradise." Answered Malek, who had already began taking off most of his clothing. He jumped into the waters, leaving Jack unbelievably upset. 'Go figure,' he thought, 'leave it to a Tok'ra to screw over the mission.' Daniel and Teal'c walked up beside him.

"This… is…. Amazing." Said Daniel.

"Yeah well don't get too comfortable, we won't be here for…." He barely finished his sentence when he saw Daniel jump into the water in his boxers. Teal'c then followed suit. He sighed in defeat and began taking off his clothing as well, 'If you can't beat 'em…' Soon everyone was enjoying the hot waters of the isolated paradise.

After walking downstream for a few minutes, Sam and Martouf were able to find a small grotto for their privacy. They swam around and splashed one another like a pair of playful lovers. "Ahhhh!" the loud scream brought them out of their reverie. Quickly they began running back upstream to where their friends had been. Anise, Jack, Daniel, and Aldwin were ran right past them.

"What the hell?" Sam turned around to see the source of all the commotion only to see Malek running towards her, naked and covered with splattered fruit. She immediately moved out of his way, and he ran fast passing everyone who had been ahead of him. Teal'c was last to come running, as he was still making futile attempts to reciprocate the attack. Martouf turned his face in the direction they had come from, only to be hit smack in the middle of the face by the same fruit that had adorned Malek's body. It was then that Sam saw the cause for chaos. A family of large primate-like creatures were chasing after them. Their large sharp teeth exposed as animalistic war cries came from the top of their lungs. The creatures were very aggressively throwing random fruits at their direction.

Luckily they weren't the type to pursue their enemies more than necessary. Everyone in the team was able to outrun the creatures after some time.

"What… the hell?!" Sam exclaimed, out of breath and in shock.

"Everything was fine, until Danny boy here decided to mess around with them."

"What? I did not!"

"Yes you did!"

"Did not!"

"Did!"

"Enough! Someone please explain to me what had conspired?" Lantash yelled.

"All I did was try to take a piece of fruit from a tree. That's it."

"And?"

"Yeah, and?"

"And… I don't know. One of those things just crept up behind and started yelling and throwing."

"There is another issue at hand." Everyone looked at Malek, embarrassed, they turned their back when they realized he was naked. "I, I like swimming in the nude. It makes me feel free," he said in his own defense. "In any case, how do you propose we get our things back?"

Everyone remained silent.

"Ah crap!"