Sheppard ran through the jungle, making no effort to be quiet as he dodged the wraith stun blasts, occasionally returning fire. It was really only a matter of time and luck before he got caught or stunned.
He fired back at the wraith again, realising he could see light in the dense jungle ahead. A clearing?
He found out soon enough.
Sheppard burst out of the trees and only just stopped in time to prevent himself going right off the cliff, that was now infront of him. Now he was cornered on the very edge of a cliff. Perfect, just perfect. The wraith burst out of the trees.
"Um," grunted Sheppard. "I…uh…I have a whole army of people on this planet, they...errm…they out number you by about… 10 000! If you do anything to me they'll…um…they'll kill every single wraith on this planet and destroy all the ships around it with their…errm…very, very advanced weapons!"
The wraith just stared at him, and pointed their stunners at him.
"Bugger," muttered Sheppard.
One wraith fired, Sheppard was hit in the shoulder and sent spinning over the edge of the cliff. The wraith left without bothering to look over the edge, if they had, they would have see Sheppard in a tree that was growing out of the cliff face, about twenty meters down from the top of the cliff.
McKay woke up in a prickle bush.
"Ouch! Ow!" he grumbled as he rolled out of it.
McKay took out his scanner to check that it was working and to look for life signs big enough to be wraith. As he did so he pulled prickles out of himself, grumbling angrily.
The scanner was working and there were no life signs big enough to be wraith near him.
McKay got to his feet, putting the scanner back into his vest…and his right leg promptantly collapsed from underneath him.
"OW! Ouch! Ow, ow, ow!" exclaimed McKay, clutching his leg and accidentally pushing a prickle further in to it. "Ow!"
He scowled. He was bruised all over, he had a splitting headache, and now his leg felt like it was on fire. Just when he'd thought a day couldn't get any worse than being stuck on a wraith planet with a broken DHD things suddenly manage to get a whole lot worse. McKay could only think of one good thing about what had just happened and that was; at least he hadn't been caught by the wraith… yet.
McKay tried to try to get back to the gate and fix the DHD. He started to limp back up the hill… and fell back down again.
"Ouch! My frikkin' leg!" yelled McKay.
It was unfortunate Teyla and Ronon had gone the other way because they would have found him easily with all the yelling he was doing.
McKay sat up. His leg hurt like hell, but he needed to fix the DHD if he wanted to get himself, Sheppard, Teyla and Ronon off the planet. He started back up the hill. This time McKay got about half way up it before accidentally brushing his arm against a tree and discovering that he still had a prickle in it.
"Ow!" complained McKay, pulling the prickle out of his arm. "Ouch!"
He was just about to continue when a nearby tree dropped a large branch on him.
"Ouch!" McKay cried out as he rolled down the hill (again) with the large branch. He landed hard at the bottom, narrowly avoiding landing in the prickle bush again, the branch landed on his leg, trapping it.
"OUCH" Ow! Ouch! Ow!"
McKay discovered that he couldn't move his leg at all whatsoever. Oh brilliant. Now how was the DHD gonna get fixed? McKay could only hope that the four of them could stay alive until they were late back so Atlantis sent a Puddle Jumper. Puddle Jumpers were handy, they had their own DHD. However, it was expected to be a very long mission, because when they'd left Atlantis they hadn't even known if there was a wraith base, and if there was they hadn't known whether it was right next to the Stargate or if it was on the other side of the planet. To McKay it seemed that everything was going against them.
McKay had picked up five main things that had gone wrong so far.
They had been discovered by the wraith.
The DHD was broken.
They had got separated.
They'd been hunted and chased by the wraith.
He had injured himself and gotten his leg trapped.
McKay had absolutely no idea what he was going to do about it.
He didn't want to use his radio because he was sure the wraith could pick it up. Meaning he couldn't find out if the others were okay, or even still alive. At least it wasn't certain that the wraith knew that Ronon and Teyla were on the planet. But Sheppard…
McKay's guess was that Sheppard would be in big trouble.
What McKay didn't know, and hadn't guessed was that Sheppard's main problem at that time actually didn't have anything to do with wraith.
Teyla and Ronon heard the wraith pass by their hiding place, heading back towards the Stargate. The wraith disappeared out of sight. Teyla and Ronon stayed still for a little while longer.
"They are gone," Teyla finally announced. "No more are coming at the moment."
"Good," replied Ronon. 'Where d'we go now?"
"I see light in the trees not to far ahead," Teyla told him. "It could be a clearing. We can take a look and if there is still no sign of Major Sheppard or Doctor McKay we will turn around and try the other direction."
"No problem," answered Ronon.
Teyla lead the way out of the trees and gasped as she saw that they were now standing on the edge of a cliff. Teyla was not happy with this, if either Sheppard or McKay had gone this way, they would have ended up backed up against a cliff. Not good, they hadn't checked if the passing wraith had had prisoners with them.
"I can see how that would become a problem," commented Ronon.
"Yes," agreed Teyla. "I hope neither Colonel Sheppard or Doctor McKay did chose to go this way."
Down over the edge of the cliff, sitting on a tree twenty meters from the top, Sheppard realised he recognised the voices. Teyla and Ronon!
Ronon was considering what Teyla had said.
"Lets go the other way," he suggested.
"I think that's a good idea," Teyla nodded.
"I don't!" came an indignant voice. "I think you should get your butts over here and help me!"
Both Teyla and Ronon jumped.
"Hello?" called Teyla.
"Yeah, hi. Good to hear you. Now you gonna help me?"
"Um…" started Teyla, then realised who it was. "Colonel Sheppard!"
"Yes, hi. I did say I needed some help you know," Sheppard reminded her.
Teyla looked around, "Where are you?"
"Try looking down."
Teyla glanced at Ronon and the two of them looked over the edge of the cliff… and saw Sheppard.
He had a scratch running from his elbow to shoulder on his right arm, but apart from that he looked unhurt. He was looking up at them.
"What happened?" Teyla wanted to know.
"I sort of got cornered by the wraith right on the edge of the cliff. One of them stunned me, I fell over the edge; I'm lucky the tree was here," Sheppard explained.
"Oh," said Teyla. "Are you alright?"
"Apart from this," Sheppard indicated to his arm, "I'm fine."
Do you know where McKay is?" asked Ronon.
Sheppard grimaced. "I dunno. We split up at the gate, I went left, he went right, more wraith arrived and they split up and followed both of us."
"I am afraid that we saw blood on the Stargate DHD," Teyla told him.
"And it was hit by P90 fire so it's broken," added Ronon.
"I know," grunted Sheppard. "I shot it. A wraith was just about to kill McKay, I fired at it, killed the wraith and hit the DHD."
"You destroyed it!" exclaimed Ronon.
Sheppard looked apologetic. "Sorry. Err… how bad is it?"
"Pretty bad," Teyla admitted. "We couldn't get any of the symbols to light up."
"Oops."
"How're we meant to get you back up here?" Ronon wanted to know.
"I dunno. Have any rope?" Sheppard asked.
"Nope," Ronon told him.
"I wish we had McKay here to help us," sighed Teyla.
"Alright," piped up Ronon. ""What would McKay do in this situation?"
"Um… improvise?" suggested Teyla.
"With what?" prompted Ronon.
"I do not know," admitted Teyla.
"What would McKay do? What would McKay do?" grumbled Ronon.
"I really don't care what McKay would do! What I care about is what your gonna do about me being stuck over this frikkin' cliff!" Sheppard retorted loudly.
Teyla and Ronon stopped in mid conversation.
"We haven't actually figured that out yet," explained Ronon.
"Not meaning to hurry you or anything, but I'm stuck over a cliff here, on a wraith planet, and in case you hadn't noticed the wind's picking up and my tree's starting to sway!" Sheppard pointed out crossly.
Teyla looked down at him. It was true, Sheppard's tree was definitely started to sway form side to side in the wind. She hoped it didn't snap.
"We could look for a strong vine and use that as a rope," suggested Teyla.
"That works," replied Sheppard.
Teyla and Ronon walked into the jungle again. They had only just started looking for vines when Teyla froze.
"Ronon!" she whispered and pulled him backwards in to a bush.
"Hey! Ow! That hurt Teyla!" complained Ronon
The wraith that had just walked out infront of them pointed their stunners at them.
"Ah, right. Wraith," observed Ronon sheepishly.
Ronon and Teyla dived out of the bush as it was fried by having ten wraith stun blasts hit it all at once.
"Run for it," yelled Ronon, shooting at the wraith with his gun as he and Teyla quickly got to their feet and made a run for it.
They crashed through the jungle as the wraith shot at them, avoiding bushes and low hanging branches. I was good that both Teyla and Ronon were very swift runners. As they passed a tree Ronon blasted it's trunk with his energy-powered gun and it succeeded in crushing a few wraith, as well as giving Teyla and Ronon more room between them and their pursuers.
Teyla shot her P90 at the wraith.
"I think all the wraith on the planet will know we're here by now, we really need to leave," Ronon yelled to Teyla.
"I know! But we can't!" Teyla called back.
They ran on silently.