SG1-25 Hostile Ground(27)

O’Neill shook his head. “We don’t split up. Besides, I need Daniel to talk to these people.”

From the mouth of the tent, Daniel said, “Actually, I’m feeling better, Sam. The rest did me good, I think.”

“See? It’ll be fine.”

Major Carter was shaking her head, but it was clear she knew the point had been lost. “For the record, sir, I think leaving the vicinity of the Stargate is a mistake.”

O’Neill glowered, but said only, “Duly noted, Major.” Then he gestured at the equipment — most of it Major Carter’s — outside the tent. “Get your crap together, Carter. And that’s an order.”

“Yes sir.” She clamped her mouth shut and Teal’c could see her jaw muscles twitch from the effort of saying no more.

Snatching up his empty coffee mug again, O’Neill shook out the dregs as he stalked back to the tent.

“We should at least leave a marker, sir,” Major Carter said as he walked past her. “Like I did at the gate.”

“Knock yourself out,” O’Neill said. “Just be ready to go in ten.”

She watched him disappear into the tent and then shook her head as her eyes met Teal’c’s. “This is a bad idea.”

Teal’c wasn’t sure that their current predicament allowed for any good ones.



It wasn’t that Daniel had been exaggerating when he said he felt better, it was just that ‘better’ was a relative term and he’d been starting from a very low point.

Walking was possible, so long as he didn’t jostle the wound in his side. The pain was always there, and he could bear its base level, but if he twisted sideways or bent over or — His foot jarred on a stone and, God, just like that, agony flared. He gritted his teeth, sucked in a breath.

“Daniel?” Sam touched his arm.

He gestured that he was fine, rode the wave of pain until it started to recede, and then forced himself to start walking again. An hour into their trek through the woods and he knew he was slowing the pace. Not that anyone was complaining. Not that anyone was saying much of anything.

Teal’c had taken point, following the trail left by the two hunters. Well, trail was a loose term, but to Teal’c’s skilled eye it was, apparently, very clear. Jack was stalking along at Teal’c’s shoulder, silent and bristling with whatever was bugging him. He and Teal’c were so alike it was comic. For all Jack’s offbeat humor, he was as guarded as any Jaffa when it came to something important.

“Hey,” Sam said. “Doing okay?”

“I could ask you the same thing…” Daniel said, diverting the subject from himself. He was bored of his own problems and Sam had been fuming wordlessly since her confrontation with Jack — an event which, in itself, was strange. He’d never seen them openly disagree like that, and never in the field.

“We’re too far from the gate to get a radio signal now,” she said and gave a bemused kind of shrug. “For what that’s worth.”

He studied her pinched expression. “I don’t suppose you know what’s been bugging Colonel Jackass recently?”

Sam smiled at the moniker, but it soon faded. “I think it has something to do with Edora,” she said, glancing at Jack and lowering her voice. “I overheard him telling —” She stopped dead, her hand suddenly gripping Daniel’s arm.

Up ahead Teal’c had signaled a halt and both he and Jack were dropping into a crouch. Sam did the same, helping Daniel down too. He tried not to hiss in pain as the wound in his side compressed.

After a long few minutes of him trying to be silent while in fairly excruciating agony, Teal’c and Jack rose to their feet again and walked on. Daniel shared a look with Sam, who just shrugged and helped him up.

But they walked in silence now, and through the trees Daniel could see that the ground ahead was starting to fall away. Teal’c and Jack stopped just at the point where the ground plunged downward, dropped to their stomachs and crawled forward until they could peer over the edge. Slowly, Daniel and Sam caught up.

Keeping below the ridgeline, Sam stopped him while they were still out of sight of whatever lay below. He was breathless, his wound was throbbing, and he didn’t object when Sam maneuvered him toward a fallen tree so that he could rest. Not that sitting hurt any less — in fact it was worse — but his legs were feeling decidedly gelatinous and his head was starting to spin. Sam pressed half a power bar into his hand. He smiled and hoped it would help.

Teal’c and Jack lay still, watching. Then, on some unspoken signal, they squirmed back down the slope and stood up, trotting downhill to where Daniel and Sam were waiting.