No excuses, I'm just slow. Sorry. And, if anyone's interested, I finally found out the name of the short story this is loosely based on. It's called The Most Dangerous Game, by Richard Connell. (Thanks again, tosakuai)

Stargate, the universe, and it's characters belong to MGM and not me. I'm just playing in the sandbox a bit.

They found out a few things in that first hour stuck in the tree. The first, and most obvious was, you can't do much while stuck in a tree. Second, their large friend below wasn't going to go anywhere anytime soon. It seemed convinced that it had them exactly where it wanted them. The third and most dramatic discovery was that zat blasts just seemed to piss it off. That led to them learning that, on its hind legs, it could reach really high. They'd had to do an emergency relocation to some higher branches. The trunk of the tree now bore several marks in the way of bites and scratches from the beast's displeasure at being zapped.

But, thanks to Sam, they also now had something to call it.

"It looks like a Infernal Hellhound. At least it can't breath fire."

Vala looked at her blankly, but Daniel had an idea of what she was talking about, and chuckled.

Sam glanced at him indignantly. "What, you never played D&D in college?"

"Sam, I was on a fast track through college. I didn't have time to play anything, though it was pretty popular when I was at UCLA."

"What are we talking about? Samantha, you have seen these creatures before? Wait, they can breath fire?" Vala peered down at their captor in alarm. She then narrowed her eyes as both her companions started laughing.

"It's alright Vala," Daniel soothed. "Sam's talking about a game. I'm reasonably sure that this hellhound doesn't breath fire."

Vala didn't look like she was quite ready to believe him, and moved up to a higher branch.

Now they had been up in the tree for the better part of two hours. The hound lay at the base, seemingly asleep, but glancing up at them every time they made a noise. Daniel, for lack of anything better to do at the time, had made it his mission to get his captured boot back. He had cut a long branch into a somewhat hook like shape, and was trying to snag the laces. This was proving difficult as the hound had decided to lay practically on top of it. He had already retrieved his pack, but the hound, in a very dog-like way, seemed to have taken a shine to his boot. Every time he got the stick close, the animal shifted or batted it away.

"Damn!" Daniel grunted after another failed attempt. "Why does everything always have to be so hard?"

"Could be worse, " Sam said. "Could be your glasses. That would be 123."

Daniel snorted. One day, in a rare fit of boredom, he and Sam had sat down and figured out just how many pairs of glasses he had lost over the years. He had been unsurprised at the number. The longest he had kept one pair without losing or breaking them had been four months. Not to mention every time he was taken captive the first thing his captors did was take his glasses, as if he would be crippled without them. Jeeze, he was farsighted, not blind. "Yeah? Well I could have ended up like Mitchell always does and lost my pants."

He regretted saying that, both for the way Sam's face clouded over for a second, and the way that, a moment later, she seemed to feel the need to defend Cam in his absence. "No, you tend to lose everything. You would think someone good enough to ascend twice could manage to come back with clothes on."

"Aht!" he barked at Vala, who had opened her mouth at that last statement, her eyes glittering with glee. "I don't want to hear about it from you. Either of you. Jack gives me a hard enough time about that as it is. In my defense, it's not like I had a whole lot of choice the first time. And the second time, I think I barely made it into Jack's office. Damn it!" The last was after another failed attempt to retrieve his boot.

"Here, let me try something." Sam worked her way out further on her limb and flicked on the laser sight on her P90. Angling the gun, she shone the light on the trunk, right at hellhound eye level. It took a moment, but suddenly the animal noticed the alluring red dot in front of it. It stood up and pressed its nose to the bark in confusion, than slowly followed as the dot moved down the tree and onto the ground. Sam wiggled the laser so the dot danced around on the ground some five feet from the tree, causing the animal's ears to prick up. In a fluid movement the hound crouched, then pounced, excitedly trying to bat at the mysterious light with its big paws. Daniel lunged with his stick and snagged the laces of his boot and pulled it up. Sam kept the creature's attention for awhile longer, more for her amusement than anything else, then switched the laser off. She chuckled a bit at the perplexed air the hound gave off as it looked around for its new toy.

"Sam, that was brilliant. How did you know it would do that?" Daniel asked as he slipped on his boot and started lacing it up. Some deep dents in the thick sole were testament to how strong those jaws were, but it seemed to be only moderately slobbered on.

"Bill was playing with the laser pointer in my lab one day and was telling me how crazy his cat went with one. He had to stop using it because it made the cat completely neurotic. Kept looking for the "little red dot" months after he got rid of the pointer. See." She pointed at the hound, who was still nosing around in the grass where the dot had disappeared. "Looks like it works on dogs too. Or, dog-things."

Daniel finished with his footwear and settled himself more comfortably against the tree trunk. "Pet psychology and Bill's neurotic cat aside, we can't stay up here forever. Ideas?"

"We've found out just how well our weapons work on that shield. Besides dropping a claymore on it's head, which I don't recommend at this range, I don't know what else to try, " Sam said as she slung her gun around to the side and lounged on her branch, much like a big cat herself. The hound looked alertly up at the movement, then went back to its search for the mysterious red dot. "Kind of a shame to kill it. I like dogs."

"You can't take one home, Sam." Daniel laughed when she stuck her tongue out at him. "Oh, very mature."

Vala raised an eyebrow at this. "You suddenly like the monster that's trying to maul us to death?"

"Vala, it's an animal, not an monster. It's only doing what it was trained to do. Animals aren't cruel or malicious, they just do what they do. Domesticated ones are only as good as their owners. I know we're probably going to have to kill it, it's just a shame, that's all. "

"Oh," Vala said, mollified. "But that's kind of moot anyways seeing as we can't kill it."

Sam smiled. "Just because we can't shoot it doesn't mean there isn't another way."

"Why would he put a shield on the thing in the first place if he thought we would have a chance to win this little hunt of his? Doesn't seem very fair to me."

"Because he's a sportsman." Both women looked over at Daniel. "He actually does want us to have a chance against his hunters. But he also wants his animals to have a chance against us, so he made them bulletproof. It wouldn't be entertaining for him if this whole thing was over too quickly. He's got a camera on the hound's harness, and I bet he has this jungle laced with cameras and listening devices. This is kind of like a reality show to him, he wants it to last more than one episode."

Vala pulled a face. "Well that's…creepy," she said, looking around them. "Survivor, with the ever-present chance of being torn to shreds. Sad thing is, I'd probably watch it."

Sam laughed. " You got addicted to those things pretty fast. I don't know how you can watch any of them. They're obviously staged."

Vala looked horrified. "They are not! Not all of them! The cameras are just there to record things. The people making the show don't interfere at all."

Sam snorted.

Daniel smirked at the argument, crossed his arms, and started to work on their dilemma. He didn't know much about animals. The only exposure to them he'd ever had was his so called "pet" mastadge on Abydos. His father-in-law had owned several of the camel-like creatures. He'd learned how to handle the huge beasts of burden out of necessity, mainly because Little Bit, as the animal had come to be called, had followed, or tried to follow, him everywhere. Skaara and the other boys got a lot of amusement out of letting it loose as he walked past. The only way he had been able to keep the big smelly thing away from him had been to tie it up.

Hmm.

"Sam, how much rope have we got?"

"We each have coils in our packs. About 100 feet each. Why?"

"I'm getting an idea. How strong is it?"

Sam seemed to get where he was going with this. "It's the strongest test the military's got. You could stop a car with it. But once we tie it up, what's to stop the hound from just chewing through it? It would take it a little bit, but eventually, it would get out. It seems smart enough to figure that out in a hurry. "

"That's what I'm still working on."

Vala, quite used to the way Daniel and Sam bounced ideas off of each other by now, had been following along. "If it's smart enough to chew through a rope it's probably smart enough not to get caught in the first place."

Daniel nodded. "Good point. We're going to have to trick it somehow. Maybe with the laser again." He ran through a list of all their supplies in his mind, seeing if anything would give him an idea. When he came to the tents, he stopped. Before Vala had become a permanent member of the team, he and Sam had always shared one tent, and Cam and Teal'c had shared the other. Becoming a five member team had necessitated a slight change of sleeping arrangements when camping off world. Somehow they had gravitated to a "guys tent" and "girls tent" kind of thing, with he, Cam and Teal'c sharing a larger tent, and Sam and Vala bunking together in the smaller. The larger tent was supported by long, light-weight, aluminum poles. And, by some fluke, it had gotten into his pack this trip and not Teal'c's.

Once on a dig in Egypt when he was a child, a wild jackal had blundered into a phone booth type excavation overnight, much to the consternation of the grid's excavators. By morning it had been in a panic, and in its terror was trying to take a chunk out of anything that came near. If they had pulled it up with a simple rope, it would have attacked them as soon as its feet touched the ground. Daniel remembered his father tying a noose to the end of one of their tent poles and using it to pull the terrified animal out of the pit. The pole had held the jackal at bay long enough for someone to throw a tarp over it. That calmed it enough so that it could be released back into the desert. Of course, in this instance, Daniel had no intention of releasing their captive. "Sam, get your rope out. I've got an idea."

Things moved fast after that, as they usual did after finally coming up with a plan of action. Daniel explained while they worked. Sam got the concept immediately. Getting one of the tent poles out of his pack without spilling everything else out of it, all while balancing on a branch, was fun, to say the least, but at last they accomplished it. It was a close fit getting the rope to pass through the hollow of the pole, but after some frustrated effort on their part, this too was done. A noose with a tight slip knot at the end was the finishing touch.

"This is going to take some timing. That thing is going to go nuts as soon as it feels the loop." Sam said, as Daniel positioned himself on one of the thicker limbs. "We're going to have to get this end tied off quick, or whoever's still holding on is going to end up on the ground."

"No kidding. Vala, you're fast with a knot, that's your job." Vala nodded and loosely draped the free end of the rope around the thick branch they had decided on. "Sam, time to tease the kitty again."

Daniel balanced himself directly above their target and shook the loop loosely. They were only going to have one chance at this. He could see the animal wising up to them if they missed the first time. Sam, on the next branch over, switched the laser on and shone it on the ground right in front of its nose. Its ears went up excitedly and it began to follow the light to the base of the tree, then raised its head to follow as it moved up the trunk. As soon as the hound's head was up as far as it could go, Daniel neatly dropped the noose around its supple neck. The animal was so startled for a moment that it just stood there. That gave Daniel enough time to jerk the rope taunt and slam the pole home against the knot. Vala pulled the rope tight around the branch and tied the end off fast enough to make a calf-roper jealous.

Which was a good thing, because a few seconds later, all hell broke loose. The hound quickly got over its shock when it felt the loop tighten around its neck and promptly went berserk.

The massive black body danced and twisted at the end of the pole, claws digging up chunks of earth and flinging them out into the field, a strangled howl emanating from its slavering jaws. So strenuous were it exertions that it was even causing the stout branch to which it was tied to buck and bounce. Daniel caught his balance at a particularly wicked shimmy, and hopped over to join Sam and Vala before he fell on the enraged bundle of teeth below. As they watched, the animal tried to get its jaws around the thing that had trapped it, but all it could do was graze the metal with its fangs. That failing, it began to struggle again. They waited a few minutes to see if their knots would hold, then, when they were convinced they would, started to gather up their gear in preparation to move out. Sam was first on the ground, her teammates following after she gave the all clear. They headed off into the jungle at a fast trot, needing to cover some miles before dark. When Daniel glanced back, the hound had stopped struggling and its yellow eyes were boring into his. The menace glaring from them told Daniel something of their chances if the hound ever got loose and caught them on the ground.

Cam had always thought of the Odyssey as a pretty big ship. True, he didn't have much to compare it to. He hadn't been on very many other ships, besides the odd Ha'tak. While the Goa'uld mother-ships were bigger, he liked to think that the Daedalus-class ships were more tasteful. There was just something ostentatious about a big flying gold pyramid. At the moment, though, all these lovely thoughts of the Air Force's battle cruisers had started to pale after a day on one that was stuffed to the gills with villagers and all their worldly possessions. Cam now had intimate knowledge of what a sardine in a can felt like.

After helping with the loading, Mitchell and Teal'c had searched the ship for a spot to call their own. It had proved to be an almost impossible thing. It was not only people, but their stuff. And their animals. A whole section of the starboard hangar bay had been converted to house livestock and, as no one had the heart to tell the kids to leave their pets behind, several dogs were now running amok on one of the decks. The Odyssey had been converted from a sleek and serious fighting machine to a giant floating Greyhound bus.

They had finally found a spot in a hallway near the engine room, which turned out to be a mixed blessing, as it was quiet and mercifully free of dogs, but also still bore some slight signs of their fight with the Replicators, a day he'd rather not think too hard about. But boredom had always made him think too much, and this trip was going to be no exception. He sat quietly next to a meditating Teal'c and looked at the slightly pockmarked walls around him. Replicators. Little sons o' bitches. Right up there with the Ori in terms of level of pain in his ass. The team had been split up that trip too, and look how they'd turned out. Jackson, Vala, and Tomin had looked like they had been raked over hot coals, Teal'c had obviously taken a staff blast, though it had been healed somehow, and he himself had looked like he'd gone forty rounds with Evander Holyfeild.

But, as much as he had hurt, the pain had gone away when his missing team members had been brought in, and he realized just how important this mismatched group of people had become to him. They weren't just the people under his command, they were his family.

Cam hadn't missed the dark rings under Jackson's eyes, or the way his body had shuddered with fatigue and residual pain from whatever the Priors had been torturing them with. But as he sat on the bed next to his in the Odyssey's infirmary, stoically sitting through having the split on his cheekbone stitched up, his friend's expressive eyes had held only concern for Cam's injuries. Then, once they had hit the SGC, Daniel had hung out with him a lot, telling him stories of past missions and keeping him from going insane while he was off his feet. Cam had been a surprised, grateful and somewhat flattered audience.

When Mitchell had first arrived at the SGC, he had been told by numerous personnel that Daniel Jackson was a very nice, but very private man that only opened up around his teammates and a select few other people, like General Hammond and the late Janet Fraiser. People who had worked with him for ten years hardly knew anything about him. But somehow that same private, unapproachable person had become Cam's closest friend. That the friendship was returned was the flattering part, since he knew very well he took a backseat to Jack O'Neill. But Jackson was an all or nothing kind of guy, in everything he did. Apparently that included his friendship, 'cause once you had him on your side, it took a hell of a lot to get rid of him. He was like that perfect older brother. Definitely wiser than you, but still close enough in age to be your pal and play basketball with you.

In the same way, Sam was like the big sister he'd never had. He had known her for years, and trusted her without question. They were equal in rank, but not in experience, and the fact that he acknowledged this was the only thing that let this co-command situation they had going work.

"Not like it's much of a command, in a team consisting of two Colonels and three civilians," he thought. "But hell, why fix what aint broke?"

He had been stunned when she had brought him homemade cookies. He had been even more shocked when Daniel had come back in, peeked into the bag of macaroons, asked where they had come from, and had promptly started laughing. He had then found out that Sam hated to cook, considered heating up a MRE as too much like cooking, and lived off of take out and anything she could fit in a microwave. It had explained the proud expression on her face when she had presented him with the bag. Cam had thought it was because she had never baked macaroons before, not because she had never baked anything before. That she held him in that high a regard was gratifying considering he had come in and kind of usurped her command.

It took Cam a little longer to sus out how he felt about the team's two aliens. That hadn't been a problem for Vala, as she just took to anyone who would listen to her. Teal'c had been a little harder to win over, seeing 's how his last name wasn't O'Neill. But to Cam's immense satisfaction, the stoic Jaffa had accepted him, both as a friend and as a fellow warrior.

Vala had actually become something like a sister to him, that obnoxious little sister that drove you crazy on a regular basis, but you would do anything to protect. And that, no matter how much she bitched and whined at you, you knew she always had your back as well. And Teal'c, well Teal'c was kind of a old (very old) uncle who you listened to without question because you knew he could still kick your ass.

After an excruciating 24 hour trip, in which Cam and Teal'c had long run out of ways to amuse themselves and each other, they were finally paged to the bridge. Dominating the forward viewing window was a very small, very green moon orbiting a larger planet. "Damn. Welcome to Endor. All we need is a Death Star," Cam muttered. He heard Teal'c ,the resident Star Wars nut, snort softly beside him.

General Smithton motioned them forward to look at a topographical readout of the moon. "Welcome to P3X-211, gentlemen. We've traced your team's locators to this craterlike depression on the southern hemisphere. We're still trying to figure out if it's natural or not. Here's the Stargate." He pointed to a spot near the rim of the crater. "Here's your team." This spot was down in the crater itself, nearly eight miles from the 'gate.

"What the hell are they doing way down there? They're supposed to wait at the Stargate in a situation like this. Something weird must be going on. Can you beam them up?"

Major Marks looked up at him apologetically. "Sorry, sir. There's some kind of interference surrounding that crater, a barrier or something. It's amazing that we're even picking up their locators. And before you ask, we can't beam you in, either."

Cam sighed. Just like a Star Trek episode. As soon as you really needed the damn transporter, it doesn't work. He examined his options. Normally, he would start at the 'gate and work his way out to find his wayward team, but something had made them abandon the 'gate and go gallivanting off into the unknown. Jackson and Carter were too sensible to do that on a whim. He looked down at Marks's screen. "Are there any other features of interest outside this interference that you could set us down near?"

Marks scanned the area around the crater's rim for a few minutes before cocking his head thoughtfully. "Actually sir, I think I have something. There's a structure built into the cliff opposite the position of the Stargate. It might be a habitation of some sort. The barrier actually bisects the building, so we could put you down right at the front door if you wanted."

"Let's settle for half a mile away. I want a chance to see who we're dealing with before we ring their doorbell like a couple of girl scouts." He turned and saluted to the General. "Sir, thanks for the ride. We'll be out of your hair in a minute."

"My pleasure Colonel. Always happy to keep up the Odyssey tradition of bailing out SG-1. Sorry we can't stick around to assist, but all these extra passengers are straining our life support as it is. But we will swing by on our way back to see if you need anything. We'll also inform the SGC of your status. I imagine Hank might be a little curious about that."

"Thank you sir," Cam said, as he and Teal'c got into position in front of the window. "The way our luck's been leaning lately, that's probably a good idea. We'll try to get the 'gate working, but if that doesn't pan out, we might need a lift home. We'll just start counting out our frequent flyer miles."

General Smithton smiled. "Sounds good, son. Mitchell, Teal'c, good luck."

The familiar tingling sensation that came with Asguard beaming faded as Cam and Teal'c found themselves next to a toe tingling cliff looking down on a curiously shaped building situated at the edge of the crater. They had arrived precisely where Marks had promised, about half a mile away along the crater's rim. With the sun beginning to set on the far side, the angle allowed them to see that, rather than set on the cliff, the odd dwelling had been built into the cliff face itself. For that's what it obviously was, a home, rather than some other kind of installation. It just had those kind of decorative little embellishes that suggested that someone had lived there for awhile. Large picture windows were positioned to catch any sun rays, as well as what Cam recognized as solar energy panels.

No, not built, carved. It hadn't just been built out of the same rock that made up the wall, it was the same rock.

An outcrop of stone with an ornate door set into it was perched on the rim, facing outward. The energy barrier Marks had mentioned was actually visible as a orangish glow that covered the valley in a low dome and completely bisected the building's only entrance, quickly dashing Mitchell's hopes of getting down to the valley without alerting anyone in the house.

Looking at the valley, it was now easy to see that the walls were unnaturally smooth. And, as he walked cautiously up to the barrier, it was a freaking long way down. Dense jungle covered the valley floor in a seamless mat of dark green. "Well T, they're down there somewhere. Right smack in the middle, according to their locaters. What do you think the story is?"

"I am not sure. The energy barrier could be to keep intruders out, but it is also quite possible that it is to keep things in as well."

Mitchell sighed. "Yeah, the thought had crossed my mind too. I just don't want to think about what those things are, besides our team. I hate to say this, but I think the only way were going to find out is to knock on that door down there."

"I agree, Colonel Mitchell, that is what we must do. With extreme caution."

"I hear that."

The two began to make their way slowly toward the house, following the barrier when possible and using the brush as cover. "Guns at the ready" didn't even begin to describe their vigilance. Cam was starting to get that feeling he got before things went all to hell. All too soon, they reached the edge of the tree line at what seemed to be almost like a property line. They paused to study the area. Cam noticed something. "Hey Teal'c, check this out. There doesn't seem to be any kind of security system or anything. Not even a camera. What do you make of that?" No answer. "T?"

"I think it is due to the fact that the inhabitant does not require a security system."

Cam realized that Teal'c was facing away from the house and was standing stock still. Cam turned around to find himself almost face to face with a huge, black, something. With yellow eyes. And really big teeth. Wearing a harness. Crap.

Two more of the animals stepped out of the brush, one keeping an eye on Teal'c, the other seeming to be deciding what to do with them. They looked like big dogs. If dogs got the size of a small car.

"Nice Cujo," Mitchell said to the one staring at him.

As the sun set, the three weary captives took shelter in a small cave, little more than an overhang really, cut into the bank of a slow moving river that seemed to bisect the valley. They had chosen the site based on the fact that they had actually had to repel down to it using their other rope. It was a good twenty feet down, and set over a section of deep water, making it a hard spot to get to for certain four legged hunters. They had traveled as fast as they could to get this far before dark, but none of them had wanted to spend the night on the ground or in another tree if they could help it. They had been lucky to find this when they did. Vala had been at the end of her energy, and Sam and Daniel weren't in much better shape. They stayed awake long enough to choke down some cold MREs, then settled down to sleep, Daniel keeping watch until he couldn't keep his eyes open any longer.

Unbeknownst to him, several miles away, a door set into the cliff slid open and two large, inky shapes padded into the jungle.

Till next time!