Realized there were some formatting errors that got through so fixed those. Nothing has changed otherwise in this chapter…

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Chapter 2

"Are you ready for this?" Rodney asked as John stepped into the gateroom zipping up his tac vest.

"This isn't my first mission since being back on duty, McKay," he griped. He clipped his P-90 to his vest.

"No, but those other missions were simple cake walks, checking in with people we already know. This one is a new planet."

"Are you nervous?"

"Why would I be nervous? I'm not nervous. We've done this a hundred times before."

John smiled, having successfully turned the conversation away from himself and back on McKay. Not that that was a difficult thing to do, but it still gave him an inordinate amount of pleasure. Ronon and Teyla joined them, and they waited for the stargate to engage.

"How's your radioactive leg?" Ronon asked, grinning.

John rolled his eyes. For whatever reason, the Satedan had found the fact that the creature that had injected John with venom had also injected him with some weird chemical that emitted something—he hadn't actually followed all of Beckett and Lane's explanation. Something that was like radiation but wasn't really. It was also barely detectable but entirely unique. Once it was established that this chemical was not harmful, Ronon had decided it was hilarious and had taken to asking him about it every chance he got.

"Is your leg still glowing in the dark?" McKay had also found it entertaining.

"Ha ha, Rodney. You're hilarious."

"Doc said it would be another month before that stuff leaks out completely," Ronon stated matter-of-factly.

"Too bad it didn't come with a superpower. Usually you get superpowers with exposure to strange, radioactive chemicals."

"Are you sure you can't run really fast on just your right side?"

"Super Sheppard—runs really fast, but in circles," Rodney grinned.

John closed his eyes, resisting the urge to groan. "Did you two not have this exact conversation last night at dinner?" he griped.

"I believe they have had this same conversation at every meal for the last three weeks," Teyla responded, and she seemed as exasperated by it as John. At that moment, the stargate kawooshed to life.

"Colonel, your team is clear to go. Be safe," Elizabeth announced from the balcony. John gave her a quick wave before leading his team through the stargate. The sound of Rodney and Ronon giggling—giggling?—cut off abruptly for a few seconds as he emerged on the other side.

He really needed to talk to them about this giggling thing at some point, but he shook it off for the time being and walked toward the MALP sitting on the other side of the DHD. A stiff breeze blew through the small clearing, smelling like rain, and he searched the sky for clouds. A thick canopy of trees swayed overhead, and he was grateful he'd worn his long-sleeved shirt.

The stargate was set at the bottom of a stone cliff, and John could just make out mountains towering up behind the cliff through the thick foliage. The bits of sky visible through the canopy were blue, but the ground was damp and he wondered if it had rained recently. The other three emerged from the stargate and the wormhole shut down. Dense woods surrounded the small clearing, but there was a small path leading away from the stone cliff.

"McKay? Anything on the scanner?" John asked.

"Uh, nope. Nothing actually," he answered. He and Ronon had stopped laughing—all business now that they were offworld—but John could still hear the hint of a smile in the physicist's voice. "Something's messing with these scanners." He shook the Ancient scanner for a second then stared at it again. "There we go. Just the four of us—wait, now we're gone again." He looked up at John. "I don't know if this thing is going to be much help to us on this planet."

John nodded. He didn't like planets that messed with Ancient scanners, but it wasn't the first time and it probably wouldn't be the last. Teyla and Ronon had already turned the MALP around and were in the process of sending it back to Atlantis.

"Guess we're on our own, kids." John watched the MALP disappear back through the event horizon, subconsciously pressing his hand against his right leg. He still felt a little bit of a rush that he had, in fact, not suffered any permanent damage. That had been a little too close for comfort for him.

He shifted his weight, letting his right leg hold all of it as he tested its strength. Beckett had been convinced from the beginning that he would recover completely and had put John through some vigorous physical therapy to keep his muscle tone and strength. John was grateful for it now; it had meant a quick return to active duty.

"We ready?" he asked as the gate shut down. The others nodded and John led the way down the small path through the trees without so much as a limp.

This world was huge. Ronon glanced around the woods they'd been walking through for the last two hours, surprised at the size of the trees. Sheppard and McKay had chatted about something called sequoias back on Earth for awhile, but all Ronon had gathered was that that place had very large trees as well.

They reached a break in the trees and found a large clearing. They had yet to see any sign of people, or even animals, although the sounds of birds in the distance had been with them during their entire trek through the trees.

He watched Sheppard walking ahead of them. As much as he'd given his friend a hard time, he'd been just as relieved as everyone else when Sheppard's leg had finally healed. The thought of never being able to walk—let alone run and fight—made him shudder. That was something he would never wish on anyone except maybe the Wraith.

They stopped on the edge of the clearing, and Ronon heard McKay flop to the ground behind them. He turned around to see the scientist red-faced and sweating. Teyla and Sheppard stood off to the side, breathing no harder than if they'd spent the last couple of hours sitting in a meeting, and an endurance training plan began to form in his head. It was almost personal now—he would get McKay in shape.

"What are you grinning at?" the physicist grumbled.

"You," Ronon answered. "You're all sweaty and breathing hard."

"Hello? We've been trekking through the woods for the last two hours without a break. Of course I'm sweaty and breathing hard."

Ronon grinned. "Yep. We're going to have to work on that."

McKay sputtered slightly at that last bit, lowering the canteen of water he was about to guzzle. "What do you mean, 'We're going to have to work on that'?" His eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"Don't worry, McKay. I've got a plan."

Sheppard laughed at that, probably knowing exactly what kind of plan Ronon had in mind. He walked away from the group, scanning the clearing. Ronon looked around as well, but other than the distant sound of chirping birds, the area was quiet.

After a few minutes, they pulled McKay back to his feet and headed out across the large clearing. They made it about halfway across the clearing when Sheppard suddenly stopped, looking around. The others paused too, and in that moment, Ronon heard what had caused Sheppard to hold up a fist.

"I hear something," Sheppard said.

"Some kind of pounding," Ronon responded. It was faint, but it seemed to be growing louder. He, Teyla, and Sheppard spread out, looking for the source of the pounding. The yellow grass in the clearing was tall, though—higher than their waists—and nothing visible was moving around them. McKay slapped the side of his scanner, trying to pick up whatever it was that was approaching.

Because something, or many somethings, was approaching. It was clear now. Sheppard waved them forward, and the four of them began jogging toward the tree line at the opposite end of the clearing. Ronon wondered if they would make cover before whatever was heading their way arrived.

"There!" Teyla yelled a moment later. Ronon turned and could see a small cloud of dust spiraling in the air. There was a breeze blowing through the clearing, causing the long, yellow grass to flutter, but as Ronon peered closer into the approaching cloud of dust, he noticed a different kind of movement.

Animals. Their fur was the exact same color as the grass and almost impossible to distinguish, but the pounding of their feet was getting louder and the cloud of dust and dirt they were kicking up was growing. The team broke out into a run, still at least a couple hundred yards from the trees. Despite Sheppard's and Beckett's assurance that his leg was fully healed, Ronon looked up to make sure his friend was moving as fast as the rest of them. Sheppard ran without a limp, glancing back occasionally to check on the progress of the animals and to make sure his team was still running with him. Teyla was only a few steps behind him.

Satisfied that Sheppard and Teyla were okay, Ronon turned his attention to McKay. The physicist was breathing hard, but he was running almost as fast as the rest of them. Ronon grabbed his arm as McKay stumbled a little and kept the man upright.

"….Think…it's a…stampede…" McKay shouted between deep, panting breaths. Ronon glanced back at the animals, noting how quickly they were catching up to the four of them.

He could hear their yells now—the bellowing cries of panicked animals. The pounding hooves were causing the ground beneath his feet to vibrate. Another glance behind him told him they were directly in these creatures' path.

They were larger than Ronon had first assumed, and he felt a surge of adrenaline course through him. They were less than fifty yards from the trees. He pumped his legs harder, keeping a hold of McKay and forcing the man to run faster. He glanced back and caught a glimpse of a large, manic black eye set in a rough, yellow furry face. Its mouth opened in a terrorized cry, it teeth white against the blood red color of its lips.

And then they were out of the fields and in the trees. The animals kept coming, the sound of their feet echoing strangely under the thick canopy of the forest. Ronon and McKay dived behind a large tree and buried themselves into the trunk. Ronon closed his eyes, breathing deeply and praying the tree would protect them from the stampeding force of those animals. He opened his eyes in sudden alarm, looking around for Teyla and Sheppard, but any sign of them was obscured by the hundreds of beasts that poured through the woods around them.

John remembered reaching the trees, looking around for his teammates and a place of safety, then a blur of yellow flashing passed him on his left, and then an explosion of pain. He had opened his mouth to cry out, but something slammed into his back, then his chest, then his back, then his chest, over and over again, rolling him along the uneven ground. His arms and legs flailed helplessly around him, and he could hear nothing beyond the thunderous stampede of animal hooves and the screaming pain encompassing his body.

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When he opened his eyes, the first thing he noticed was the silence. He was laying on his back and staring up at sky that was much darker than he thought it should be. A twig from a nearby bush, with a single, perfectly shaped green leaf hung over his head. An animal moaned in the distance. He blinked halfway, but the energy required to open his eyes was suddenly too much, and he succumbed to the darkness.

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.

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It was a high-pitched twittering sound followed by something low and guttural and alien that brought John to full awareness again. The sky overhead was bright, and the leaf above his head was swaying slightly. He blinked his eyes a few times, trying to remember where he was and how he'd gotten here. The memory of the clearing, of his team racing toward the trees and the large, yellow animals stampeding behind them flashed through his mind.

He jerked his head up, intending to call out to Ronon, Teyla, and McKay, but sharp pain lancing through his head and chest stifled his cry. He moaned instead, curling onto his side. The pain that had been dormant when he'd first awoken wracked his body now, and John squeezed his eyes shut against wave after wave of onslaught. He could feel the tears of pain streaming through his closed eyes and down his face, and he coughed and gagged as he tried to keep himself from crying out.

The low, guttural sound was back, and closer. As the pain died down a little, John suddenly remembered the noises that had awoken him in the first place. He cracked open his eyes and gasped at the large, round face staring down at him. The alien had to be at least twelve feet tall. Its skin was sallow and pulled tightly across the bones, its face framed by a dozen brownish gray braids of hair.

The alien was poking John in the chest, and jerked back in surprise when it realized John was staring back at him. It took a step back, and John couldn't tell if it had a fur coat hanging on its tall, thin frame, or if it was some kind of fur-covered alien-animal. John scrambled backward, biting his lip against the wave of agony the movement brought. He reached for his gun, and noticed belatedly that his weapons, vest, and one boot were all missing.

What the hell is going on? he thought. The alien was cautiously moving toward him again, reaching out a long bony finger. John reached around to the back of his belt and breathed a sigh of relief when his hand wrapped around the hilt of his knife.

As the alien made to poke him again, John slashed at its arms with the knife. The blade cut deeply through the skin, drawing black blood. At least he assumed it was blood. It looked more like oil, but it poured from the alien's arm, and the creature screeched out in pain, tucking its arm into its side. John tried to scramble away, but his body hardly reacted through the pain. He looked up as the alien advanced again, caught a flash of anger or fear in its wide eyes, and had just enough time to turn his head toward the large foot swinging toward his stomach before his body exploded in pain again.

He wasn't sure if he passed out or not. Sounds filtered around, but he didn't seem able to open his eyes and look around. His mind screamed at him, warning him of the danger, but his body betrayed him. He felt rough hands grabbing his arms and legs and wrapping a thick rope around them. The rope was tight—too tight.

Hands around his chest and stomach forced him to open his eyes again. He screamed, hoarse and choking, at the pain. Something was carrying him around the middle the same way he used to pick up his dog when he was a boy. His stomach and chest burned at the movement, and it was all he could do to keep pulling in oxygen. He caught glimpses of arms and legs too large to be human, of a yellow animal the same color as the ones that had been stampeding through the clearing, of something that looked like a large pick-up truck filled with sacks and boxes. The twittering, guttural sounds floated around him, and he realized it was the aliens—all of them huge—talking and yelling. The arm carrying him flung him into the back of the truck bed, and the last thing he saw was the bright blue sky of early morning overhead.

Ronon scanned the woods. They looked the same as they had the day before after narrowly escaping the "rampaging horde of rabid buffalo," as McKay had so aptly described it. McKay stepped up next to him, holding the useless life signs detector.

"This is the tree, right? Where we hid?" he asked, pointing toward the large tree that the two of them had ducked behind at the last minute, narrowly avoiding the animals.

Ronon nodded, remembering how the backs of the animals had disappeared into the trees almost as quickly as they'd appeared. The silence that had followed them had been unnerving. He shivered slightly.

"You okay?" McKay asked him.

"Yeah."

McKay looked around, once again out of breath. His face was flushed from the hike, and he shook the life signs detector in frustration. "We should have gotten back here faster. If only we could have brought a jumper," he mumbled.

Ronon nodded again. He hadn't spoken much since the animal stampede. He moved forward again, deeper into the woods, and spotted the fallen log that had saved Teyla's life. When neither Sheppard nor Teyla had responded to his or McKay's calls, Ronon had plunged into the woods searching for any sign of them. He'd discovered Teyla lying behind the log, unconscious with a nasty bruise on her forehead and an obviously broken wrist. McKay had been right behind him, and his face had turned white at the sight of Teyla. Ronon, seeing how close to the edge of panic McKay had been, had put the physicist in charge of caring for his teammate, and he had moved forward through the trees searching for Sheppard.

To no avail. Ronon stood once again on the edge of a steep hill that tumbled into a narrow valley about a hundred yards below him. The trees and brush grew thicker here, and the path of destruction caused by the animals left no evidence of Sheppard's presence. He bit his lip at the thought of Sheppard tumbling down the steep, rocky slope under the pounding hooves of animals.

A Marine detail spread out around him, and they began climbing carefully down the hill. Ronon flashed back to those first few moments after the stampede, to McKay bending over an unconscious and bleeding Teyla.

"Any sign of Sheppard?" McKay had asked, even though he'd heard the silence on the other end of Ronon's radio calls.

"Nothing yet," Ronon had answered. "How's Teyla?"

"Not good."

He'd searched for another twenty minutes, finding a smashed up P-90 and one of Sheppard's boots but no discernible path that would give him any clue as to where his friend had ended up. A few spots of blood on a rock had twisted his gut, but he'd reluctantly turned back to McKay and Teyla. They had decided that they needed to get Teyla back to Atlantis.

"Found something," Major Lorne yelled. Ronon picked his way through the thick brush along the steep hill. Lorne was squatting on the ground, holding up the remains of Sheppard's vest. It was torn to shreds.

Ronon screamed in frustration. "We shouldn't have left him."

"It was a tough choice," Lorne said. "Teyla was seriously wounded and there was no sign of him."

Ronon forced the muscles in his hands to loosen. He had the sudden urge to punch the nearest tree, but breaking his hand would not help them find Sheppard.

"What's the progress on the jumper?" he asked instead.

Lorne held up a finger, checking with the team at the gate. Ronon listened with growing frustration at their response. The trees growing over the small area of the gate were thick, and cutting them down was a slow process. It would be days before they'd be able to create a hole large enough for a jumper to slip through.

"Got something," one of the Marine sergeants called out over the radio, interrupting the radio report.

Lorne and Ronon half-walked, half-ran down the hill, careful not to twist their ankles. The sergeant stood at the bottom of the hill. The narrow valley opened up on either side of him. In his hand, he held a knife covered in something black and crusted over.

"Standard issue," he replied, handing it to Ronon.

"Sheppard's," Ronon breathed. He took a few steps to the left, staring hard at the ground. There seemed to be a wide path of some kind through the center of valley floor.

"Another boot." Lorne, who had turned right when Ronon had turned left, held up the shoe. "It's got to be Sheppard's, but which way did he go?"

Ronon stared hard at the path, then the boot and the knife in his hand. The ground in the valley was covered in footprints in both directions, similar in size and shape to the animals that had stampeded past them through the woods. Any clue as to which way Sheppard had turned was gone. Ronon's hand squeezed around the handle of the knife.

Damn that rampaging horde of rabid buffalo.

TBC…