As ALIMOO1971 so eagerly pointed out, there are HUUUUGE mistakes in the story, so count on them...What I'm really trying to say is, enjoy the story and don't ask stupid questions, please? :D

Chapter 13

Jack was humming nervously as he tried to ease the tension that had been built up around the three of them. He was mostly watching the life sign device in his hand to determine whether they were still going in the right direction. If there was any that could be called right. They all knew no matter what road they took, they would face the creatures anyway. With each step they came closer to a huge group of blue dots. It was only a matter of time they spotted the wraith.

Besides watching the enemy fife signs Jack always kept an eye on Daniel and Mitchell. They too were moving slowly in the direction of the mass of life signs, only they were closing up from a very different direction.

'Would you please stop that?' Sam suddenly asked. She was aiming the question at Jack and neither him, nor Teal'c missed the uncovered gruffness in her tone.

'Jack?' She called after she received no response from the general. She hoped that calling him by his first name would catch his attention.

The plan worked. 'Excuse me?' He asked as he stopped and turned towards his former 2IC.

'Could you stop…' Sam started but she was cut off by the strays of the radio. 'Never mind.' She sighed. At least she made him stop humming.

A second later Cameron's voice shot out from the speakers. 'General, come in.'

For a couple of seconds Jack ignored the colonel and kept staring at Sam, waiting for her question. She just said a silent nothing and nodded towards the radio. Jack knew she wanted something but he knew her too well to know that once she had decided not to speak, nobody could make her do so.

'General?' Cameron repeated again.

Jack reached for the radio and answered. 'Go on.'

'I've got a handful of good news.' Cameron said.

'It's about time, Mitchell. So, what happened?' Jack asked for details.

Sam and Teal'c stood by silently, listening to the conversation.

'Major Lorne's alive. We just ran into each other.' Cameron started.

'That's really good news.' Jack said appreciatively.

'There's more. He has the ancient gene that can make the life sign detector work. We're now able to track down the beasts too.'

'Good. Check in in ten minutes.' Jack told them. 'O'Neill out.'

From the looks of Sam and Teal'c, Jack could tell they heard the conversation.

'Good news indeed.' Teal'c made sure to O'Neill that they heard Cameron.

'Lorne's a great soldier. It would be a great loss if he died.' Sam added her own thoughts.

'Now that we've discussed this matter, shall we go on?' Jack asked with a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

The events of the next few seconds happened so fast that Jack could hardly follow.

As Teal'c was looking at O'Neill, he could see two glowing eyes appear in the trees behind Jack.

'O'Neill, get down!' Teal'c shouted as he raised his staff weapon.

Jack didn't argue; he knew there was something wrong. He threw himself on the ground just a moment before an orange blast crossed the air where he stood a second before. Jack couldn't see but he could hear the familiar cry of wraith beasts just as he hit the ground. Familiar it was to him but still it sounded different. It was more distorted than the sound of the beasts they had heard before. Lying on the ground Jack looked over his shoulder to see what Teal'c was shooting at. He couldn't see anything behind him but he knew the Jaffa wasn't shooting the air. He turned back to Teal'c but before he could have reacted the Jaffa ran into the trees. Jack heard Sam calling after Teal'c but their friend didn't seem to care. He didn't shout Teal'c's name, he was too stunned. Whatever Teal'c saw, he must have recognized it, otherwise he wouldn't have left them. Seconds passed as Jack lied on the ground taking in the events of the last couple of seconds. Sam must have been doing the same because she stood stunned too, staring into the trees.

Jack slowly stood up from the ground and turned in the direction where Teal'c left, hoping for the Jaffa to return. He didn't. He quickly checked the life sign detector, hoping he would find Teal'c with it. Jack could see as two lonely dots moved slowly towards the frame of the screen. Fortunately they weren't moving in the direction of the other wraith.

'Crap.' Jack groused. He watched as the two dots, probably Teal'c and his attacker disappeared from the radar.

He was about to turn back to Sam when she suddenly stormed past him towards the way Teal'c left.

'Carter, what are you doing?' Jack asked sharply after he grabbed her arm and prevented her from disappearing like Teal'c did.

'Sir, we have to go after him.' Sam shouted desperately.

'No! He had already disappeared from the detectors' screen and we have no idea where he might have gone.'

Sam couldn't accept Jack's reasoning though deep down she knew he was right. She kept fighting against Jack's grip but the general wasn't letting her go. Slowly she started to calm down, and when she was no longer trying to get away, Jack released her arm.

'Teal'c is a big guy. He can take care of himself.' Jack told Sam calmly, trying to not show the apprehension he felt.

'I sure hope so. Losing Vala is hard enough itself.'

'We're gonna find 'em.' Jack said trying to sound positive but he wasn't sure he had done a good job.

Sam just silently nodded and waited for Jack's next order. Instead of telling her what their next step would be, Jack reached for his radio.

'Mitchell, come in.'

A couple of seconds passed until he received a response from the colonel.

'Yeah. Go.'

'We have bad news. Something tried to attack us and Teal'c kind of disappeared.' Jack explained and ran his free hand through his silver hair.

'Are you alright?' Cameron asked, dread permeating his voice.

'Yes, Carter and I are fine. As for Teal'c, he went after our mysterious attacker. We don't know where he is now, he has disappeared from the life sign detectors' screen.'

'Dammit.' Jack could hear Cameron cursing silently. 'First Vala, now Teal'c. This is getting worse and worse.'

Cameron reacted quite differently than Sam. Probably because Teal'c was closer to Sam than Cameron and she also knew his Jaffa friend better than the other colonel.

'What now?' Cameron asked after a brief moment of thinking.

'We keep on going. Teal'c's gonna be fine.' To a stranger Jack might have seemed to be heartless leaving Teal'c alone but those working at the SCG knew that they never left anyone behind.

'Yes, sir.' Cameron knew the motto as well, that's why he could accept the order without thinking twice.

'One more thing, Mitchell.' Jack added. 'We're now getting close to those things. Impose radio silence for indefinite time.'

'Understood. Mitchell over and out.' Cameron replied and turned off his radio.

Jack did the same and turned back to Sam who had been waiting patiently next to him.

'You ready?' Jack asked.

'Ready as I can be.' She replied resolutely but Jack could still felt the uncertainty in her voice.

'Good. Now let's go, reap some wraith heads off.'

Sam nodded in accord and the two comrades and friends headed for the closest group of alien creatures.

oOo

As they got closer to the wraith the fog started to thicken and the range of their visions narrowed until they could only see a couple of feet in front of them. They tried to help themselves with the lamps on their P-90s but even those lights weren't strong enough to make their way through the fog. Major Lorne checked the life sign detector and registered that they were only about a couple hundred feet from the beasts.

'We're almost there.' The major informed the others to get ready.

'Don't you find this strange?' Daniel asked as they moved on.

'What?' Cameron asked as he had no idea what the archeologist was talking about.

'Lorne said we're almost there and they haven't attacked us yet. We haven't even heard any noises. This is not like them.'

'As if they were waiting.' Lorne added. He too had discovered the strange behavior of the wraith. When he and his team were on the way to O'Neill's, the creatures just appeared out of nowhere and attacked them. From what he knew, it wasn't like them to just sit around and wait. There was something else going on.

'Waiting for what?' Cameron let out the question but he and the other two knew that the answer to that was obvious.

'Us.' Daniel answered. He didn't like the sound of that but someone had to say it out loud.

'Mitchell, come in.' The sudden sound of the radio gave all of them a jump.

'Yeah. Go.' Cameron answered O'Neill, giving him a green light.

Daniel and Lorne stopped as they heard Jack on the radio. They stood by listening to the conversation. They could hear Jack telling that they had been attacked and that Teal'c had gone after the attacker. As both Daniel and Lorne were worrying about Teal'c they didn't listen to the end of the conversation therefore when Cameron turned off his radio in the end they both got quite surprised.

'What's that for?' Lorne inquired.

'Radio silence. We're getting close. We don't want them to hear us.' Cameron explained.

'What difference does it make?' Daniel said negligently. He didn't believe that silencing the radio would help them much.

'Probably not much.' Cameron agreed and lifted his P-90 as a signal. 'Ready to go, guys?'

Daniel took a deep breath. He wasn't keen on the idea of fighting but in case he wanted to save Vala he had to do it. He exhaled his breath and nodded to Cameron. The colonel looked to Lorne to see whether or not he was ready, but the determined expression on his face gave him the answer he needed.

'Alright. Let's go.' The colonel ordered and led the way into the fog in front of them. They felt as the cold got more chilling as they were making their way across the fog, right into the arms of the ruthless beasts.

oOo

Teal'c ran as fast as he could. Though it was hard to maneuver among the trees with his staff weapon in his hand he couldn't lose the Goa'uld. The moment he saw its glowing eyes in the shadows, the hatred for those creatures he quelled a long time ago appeared again, overwhelming every other emotion in his heart. For almost two years he had thought the Goa'uld had disappeared for good and he just couldn't let even a single one of them live.

He was a couple feet behind the Goa'uld but every time Teal'c seemed to catch up to him, it got farther away. Teal'c was starting to tire but he kept running, forcing every muscle in his body to work on maximum capacity. He jumped over a fallen trunk and fell behind a couple feet again. He never looked away from the Goa'uld to not lose sight of it. For a split second the moon's beams lit the area around them and Teal'c could see the long white hair shine in the dark. He couldn't believe what he was seeing and involuntarily slowed down a bit. For a moment Teal'c lost concentration and couldn't react as a wolf beast suddenly jumped at him from sideways. He lost his balance and fell on the ground. The staff weapon flew out of his hand and as the weight of the beast pressed Teal'c to the ground he couldn't move to get his it back. When he saw there was no chance getting his staff back, he turned back to the beast on top of him. It was biting the air, trying to reach Teal'c but before it could have wounded him, the Jaffa pushed it aside using both his arms and legs. The wraith flew across the air and with a huge thud, hit the ground. It gave enough time for Teal'c to get up and run to his weapon. He picked it up from the ground and turned towards the wraith, which had stood back up by then, growling loudly.

Teal'c waited for the beast to make its move. It didn't hesitate and with a sharp cry, it shot itself ahead in the direction of Teal'c. The Jaffa was waiting exactly for that to happen and before the wraith could have lifted a leg from the ground the orange blast of the staff weapon hit its head, deforming its features permanently. Life vanished from the creature's eyes and the dead body fell on the ground as a huge punch bag.

Teal'c breathed heavily as he lowered his weapon and watched the body on the ground intensely. While he was fighting with the beast, the Goa'uld had more than enough time to escape. Teal'c cursed silently, not wanting to accept his failure. He should have stopped it. He never should have let the Goa'uld get away. Teal'c tried to calm down, inhaling deeply, clearing his mind. There was no use in self-pity. He thought over his situation but the conclusion he came to wasn't as good as wanted it to be. He didn't know where he was and didn't have anything to help him find his way back to his team. He was lost.

No matter how hopeless his situation might have seemed he couldn't just sit around and wait. He had to at least try and find the rest of the team. He could approximately determine the direction the wraith showed up. It was his best chance.
He looked at the body one more time before he slowly walked away into the trees, slowly disappearing in the thick fog.

~TBC