Aaron Rosenberg: Hunt and run

Sheppard slapped him on the back. “Stay out of trouble.” He exchanged a nod with Ronon. “Keep him out of trouble.”

“Be careful,” Ronon returned. He’d straightened slightly but hadn’t lowered his weapon. “I still don’t like this.”

“We’ll watch our backs,” Sheppard assured him. “Ready?” he asked Teyla. She nodded, and together they turned away from the Jumper and their friends. “Then let’s see what this lovely little mudball has to offer!”.

“Not really a mudball at all,” Sheppard muttered to himself an hour later. “More like a big dirty rock.”

It was true — they had been scouting the area around their impromptu landing site, and everything he and Teyla had seen so far confirmed that basic impression. This wasn’t a planet, not in the sense of proper landmasses and full ecosystems and weather patterns. Oh, it had dirt and water and plants and a breathable atmosphere — but only barely. There was some dirt but mostly it was rock, and they’d been hiking through craggy hills and shallow valleys for the past twenty minutes or more. A short distance away those same hills rose to become a low mountain range, and Sheppard was sure he saw dark openings here and there along the sides. Caves. He hated caves.

There was some moisture here and there — narrow little streams trickling along, small muddy puddles collected in small depressions — but he suspected that was from ice-covered meteorites small enough to get sucked in by this place’s low gravity. A few plants poked up as well, mostly scrub brush and tough vines. He figured the dirt was the result of countless meteorites, asteroids, and other bits of space debris, and some of it must have held a few seeds — there was sunlight aplenty, though the “sun” was a small star with watery white light, and without competition the few plants here had managed to eke out a basic subsistence. They didn’t have enough water or soil to flourish, however, and most of this place was still just bare rock.

“It’s a hiker’s paradise,” he added, hauling himself up onto a small boulder and straightening up to survey their surroundings. “Too bad I left my good hiking boots back on Atlantis.”

“At least you have your canteen,” Teyla pointed out. She raised hers in salute before taking a quick swig. Sheppard did the same, careful to only drink a mouthful of the warm water. No telling how long it would take Rodney to fix the Jumper, and the last thing he wanted was to risk dehydration.

“The good news is, I’m not seeing any signs of other life,” Sheppard commented, still scanning the horizon. “I’d say we’re alone out here.”

Teyla nodded. “I have not see anything either.” Then she frowned. “Except perhaps for that.” She pointed off in the distance. Sheppard followed her gesture and after a second his eyes picked up a glare. Something over there was reflecting the sunlight — something metallic.

“Could just be a piece from the Jumper,” he argued, hopping down from the boulder. “I’m sure we lost a few bits of the hull in that explosion, and passing through this place’s joke of an atmosphere might have been enough to tear it loose.”

“Perhaps,” Teyla admitted. “In which case Rodney might need it in order to complete his repairs. But what if it is not from our ship? It could be random debris, pulled here by this planet’s gravity well — or it could be something left behind by whomever set that ship to explode.”

“Why would they be here, though?” Sheppard wondered out loud as she headed in the reflection’s direction. “They could have flown that ship over there, rigged it, and flown off in a second ship they had following it. They wouldn’t have needed to set down on a planet at all. And they’d probably be safer not landing here — jostling explosives is never a good idea, and you risk having the thing blow up in your face before you can clear the atmosphere.”

Teyla only shrugged. “We do not know who set the ship or for what purpose,” she pointed out without slowing her pace, “and so we have no way of knowing their motivations for anything. But perhaps whatever is up ahead will provide us with some clue.”

“Yeah, or it could just be a discarded candy wrapper,” Sheppard said softly. But he followed her anyway. There wasn’t anything else to see out here, and Ronon’s earlier paranoia still had him a little on edge.

They spent the next few minutes without speaking, picking their way over rocks or around them. “You may be correct after all,” Teyla said finally. She had increased her lead and was now a good twenty paces ahead of him. The shiny object was perhaps another twenty paces past her, Sheppard judged, and he still couldn’t tell anything more about it than the fact that it was metal or at least metallic, and probably no bigger than his fist. It had been sheer luck that Teyla had spotted it in the first place — a slightly different angle, or a different time of day, and they’d never have seen the glare it gave off.

“What, it is a candy wrapper?” Sheppard called out. His stomach rumbled. “I don’t suppose it’s unopened?” He had emergency ration bars on him, of course, but didn’t want to eat those if he didn’t have to. They had better rations back on the Jumper, anyway. As soon as they’d inspected this thing, whatever it was, he planned on heading them back there. Hopefully Rodney at least had a diagnosis by now. Assuming Ronon hadn’t shot him yet.

“It may be,” Teyla agreed. She had slowed a few feet from it. “All I can be certain of is — ” her words cut off abruptly as the ground suddenly vanished beneath her and she disappeared completely from view.

“Teyla!” Sheppard burst into a sprint, making for her last location, and covered the rough ground in a flash. There was a crevice of some sort there, long but narrow. How had they missed that?

“I am unharmed,” her voice floated up from that gash in the earth. “This appears to be a natural formation, and it ends in a ledge some eight feet down. Be careful, however — there is a tarp here with me.”

“A tarp?” Sheppard had reached the edge and dropped to his knees, peering down. Sure enough, there was Teyla less than ten feet below him. She was holding one edge of a wide, stiff cloth that also piled below her boots. It was the same color as the rocks around them both, and even from here Sheppard could tell it had some texture to it as well. Someone had deliberately covered the crevice, and had placed that shiny object there as bait!

“It’s a trap!” he muttered, spinning around, his P90 submachine gun in hand as he scanned their surroundings. But he didn’t see anyone, or any movement. As far as he could tell, they were alone.

“A well-set one,” Teyla agreed. “I did not notice the difference in the ground until I felt it give way beneath me.”

“But why?” Sheppard wondered. He swept the area again, then slung the P90 back on his shoulder and lay flat on his belly, arms extended into the hole. “Why put this here? Who were they expecting? Us?”

“Perhaps whomever answered the distress beacon,” Teyla offered. She took a few steps away, then turned, ran back, and leaped. Her powerful legs propelled her upward and she caught Sheppard’s outstretched hands easily, her own locking onto them with a powerful grip. Before he could move she had slammed her feet against the crevice wall, pushed off, and flipped up and over him to safety.

“Okay, well let’s talk about this back — ” Sheppard suggested, rolling over — and stopped short, all sound and motion cut off by the rifle barrel pressed against his chest. A dark figure, silhouetted against the sun, offered him a hand up. Past the stranger’s shoulder Sheppard saw another one securing Teyla’s hands behind her back. “Hi. You must be the welcoming committee.”