Sam aimed the light into the mouth of the cave, sweeping the floor and walls. There was no sign that anyone had been there recently, but the dimensions looked right and the radio signals were strong. She gave Teal'c a quick nod over her shoulder, then reached to toggle her radio.
"Sir, I think we've found the right cave," she reported. "We're going in now."
"Right, Captain." Jack's voice crackled and sputtered beneath a heavy layer of static, but she could still hear Daniel's muffled coughs in the background. "Daniel doesn't think it'll take too long to dig us out, but be careful."
"How's the air?"
"Dusty," Jack drawled. "Fresh enough, though. There are a few gaps in the rubble. We'll be fine."
"Yes, sir. Carter out."
Behind her, she heard Teal'c saying firmly, "You must remain here, Councilor Sheb. Captain Carter and I will rescue our companions."
"But we wish to help!" Sheb protested. "You have done us a great service by killing the creature. Please, allow us to help you recover Colonel O'Neill and Doctor Jackson!"
Sam shot another look behind her, frowning. The little man had good intentions, but the idea of the natives excitedly - and loudly - trailing into a cave that had already suffered two rockfalls...
"It is unwise to allow large groups of people inside," Teal'c explained calmly. "The ceiling appears stable, but there is no guarantee that it will remain so."
"Oh. Yes." The little man shuffled his feet unhappily. "Perhaps we could ready supplies out here, in anticipation of your return?"
"That would be a good idea, Councilor," Sam said quickly. "Blankets, rope, hot water, clean cloths to use as bandages - all that would be very useful." Most of those items were in their packs, of course, but it would keep Sheb and the others busy, and safely out of the way.
Sheb brightened. "I will return within six sheebum," he promised, and turned and scurried off, his bright purple robe flapping around his knees.
"Sheebum?" Sam repeated dubiously.
"Approximately ten minutes," Teal'c clarified as he joined her by the cave mouth. "No doubt Councilor Sheb intends to be back in less than an hour."
"Let's hope we're done by then," Sam muttered, and the two of them carefully stepped into the cave.
The whole thing had gone south so quickly. The Wooleys, as the purple-garbed natives of P4X-701 called themselves, had been terrorized for decades by a large carnivorous creature that swept down from the sky without warning to snatch victims as prey. Daniel had wondered if the monster had been set upon the Wooleys by the Goa'uld, but the description hadn't matched any creature that Teal'c could identify from his own experiences.
They'd gotten a quick and horrifying look at the monster when it attacked a few short hours after their arrival. It swooped down from the sky, claws outstretched. SG-1 immediately opened fire, but bullets simply bounced off the thick hide, and even staff weapon blasts seemed to do little more than annoy it. It had been enough to drive the creature away, though, and it flew back toward the cave where it lived, some three klicks away from the village.
As it disappeared with a final, angry screech, the team looked at one another.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"C4?"
"C4."
They consulted the Wooleys, who were excited but nervous at the prospect. Councilor Sheb, who accompanied them to the creature's lair with several other Wooleys, warned them of the risks.
"It will not be enough to destroy only this entrance," he explained. "We know there is another way into these caves - twice, we have crept inside and rescued the creature's victims before they were killed."
"We'll be careful," Daniel promised. Then he and Jack stepped inside the cave to make a detailed inspection, while Sam and Teal'c guarded the entrance.
"We can bring it down safely enough, Jack," he finally said, "but I'm not sure how we can know if it's trapped inside..."
The discussion became moot when the monster came arrowing through the cave mouth, its single eye red with insane fury and the lethal tip of its horn aimed straight at Teal'c. Teal'c flung himself to the ground, which saved his life, but his staff weapon clattered away, leaving him armed with nothing more than a pistol and a knife.
Chaos reigned. Jack and Daniel were cut off from the entrance. Sam's M5 hammered away at the monster, keeping it distracted from Teal'c. Sheb and the others, ignoring Sam's orders to get to safety, picked up stray rocks and hurled them at the beast. Then Jack was yelling something into the radio, and Teal'c's staff weapon went off, and -
And then the ceiling poured down in a hailstorm of stone and dust, crushing the monster directly beneath it. Sam, Teal'c, and the Wooleys were close enough to the cave mouth to escape with little more than scrapes and bruises, but Jack and Daniel were trapped inside.
"Sir!" Sam shouted into her radio. "Sir, are you and Daniel all right?"
"Oh, yeah," Jack gasped back, choking on cave dust. "We're just great. Looks like we're stuck with Plan B, though."
"I don't know why we don't go straight to Plan B in the first place," Daniel grumbled though his own coughs.
"If we did, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c said drily into his own radio, "we would no doubt be required to revert to Plan C."
They worked out Plan B soon enough: Sheb would lead Sam and Teal'c to the other entrance, and Jack and Daniel would try and find their own way out. Hopefully, they would rendezvous somewhere in the middle. The other Wooleys hurried back to the village to spread the good news that the monster was dead.
They'd been walking for twenty minutes when the radio crackled again, and Daniel gave them the bad news:
"Ah, Sam? Little problem here." He coughed twice.
"What's wrong?" Sam asked sharply.
"Ask Sheb when they last used this other entrance, will you? Because I think we found it - and it's blocked by another rockfall."
Sam looked at Teal'c with horrified dismay. "You mean you're trapped?"
"Looks like."
"Was this second collapse caused by the first one, Daniel Jackson?" Teal'c asked calmly into his own radio.
There was a moment's silence, then, "Hold on," came Jack's voice. "Daniel's checking." A few minutes went by, and the the radio crackled again. "Daniel says this rockfall's a lot older. The good news, according to our archaeologist, is that the ceiling over our head looks stable. But we won't be able to dig ourselves out on our own."
Sam took a deep breath. "We'll be there in a few more minutes, sir," she said as calmly as she could. "Carter out."
Now, she and Teal'c entered the cave and got to work. The older rockfall that had trapped Jack and Daniel was about 200 feet from the entrance. Teal'c's staff weapon made a fine lever, and Sam used her engineering skills to find the best angles of attack. It took about fifty minutes, working carefully and steadily on both sides, before they managed to clear away enough rubble for Jack and Daniel to clamber over the pile of rock and escape their impromptu prison.
They staggered a little as they emerged and blinked in surprise at the cheer that went up. Almost half the village was waiting for them, eager to give them a heroes' greeting. There was a flurry of blankets and bandages, and some of the younger Wooleys were busily setting up a campfire. The natives were definitely ready to party.
Jack made their excuses, explaining that they needed to get back to Earth for medical attention. The Wooleys, disappointed, pressed them with small gifts and extracted a promise that SG-1 would try to return as soon as possible.
They tramped back towards the Stargate, Daniel limping just a little and Jack favoring a bruised shoulder. Teal'c took point, and Sam had their six.
"I wish we could've figured out what that thing was," Daniel said wistfully.
"It's a dead thing. What else do we need to know?" Jack shot back.
"What if we encounter another one on some other planet? A little knowledge could help us a lot! I couldn't even tell if it was a bird or a reptile. Maybe it was some kind of dinosaur, or -"
"We know it can't survive being crushed by rock. Having a name besides 'big and scaly' isn't going to matter."
"Jack!"
"Daniel, you don't do paleontology, and you already said you don't have any mythological thingies to help this time. So unless you're going to try and tell me it was some kind of dragon, we're never going to be able to give it a name. Just drop it and -"
"On the contrary, O'Neill," Teal'c said without looking over his shoulder. "This creature is well-known on your world."
The others stopped short, then hurried to catch up as Teal'c kept walking.
"What do you mean, Teal'c?" Daniel demanded. "It doesn't match any Egyptian legends, and you said you didn't recognize it from your experiences with the Goa'uld!"
"That is correct."
They waited, but Teal'c merely strode on.
"T? Care to explain?"
"The creature is immortalized by song among the Tau'ri, O'Neill." They'd reached the clearing with the Stargate, and Teal'c stopped. He turned towards them, his left eyebrow arched. "Surely you know of what I speak?"
"Ah, can't say we do, Teal'c," Sam said, frowning.
Teal'c tilted his head slightly. "I am surprised, Captain Carter. And, indeed, somewhat disappointed."
"Teal'c..."
Teal'c gave the tiniest of sighs before elaborating. "It was a one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people eater." He paused, as if savoring their stunned silence, then added thoughtfully, "I must confess, however, that it did not look all that strange to me."
Heliopolis Main Archive
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Ten for the Team
by Fig NewtonKapitel Bemerkung:
Written for SG_Betty's icon prompt, and Ivory Gates' prompt of "classic children's literature," which she didn't actually get. :)Summary: The team tackles a monster off-world, and identification comes from a surprising source. The team should know that Teal'c pwns all by now.
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