It didn't work. Jack had known it was a long shot.
His team stood upside down, from his vantage point, anyway. Daniel was full-on giggling, Carter was chuckling and holding more in, and even Teal'c had let out a few Jaffa guffaws.
Jack just hung there, suspended by one foot from the vine coiled around his ankle. "I swear to god, the next person who so much as snickers is fired!"
"This is fascinating," Daniel said. "I didn't think the native primates had advanced this far." The native primates were something between a chimp and a lemur that, luckily for SG1, hadn't yet invented the arrow.
Jack rolled his eyes and tried to reach his foot, but his abs were not what they used to be. He got his hands as far as his calf.
"No," Carter said. "I thought throwing rocks at us was the extent of their technology."
Jack swung and spun as he stretched his fingers as far as they would go.
"It is indeed curious," Teal'c said.
Jack gave up and fell back to vertical. "Nobody's getting their Christmas presents," he said.
"Daniel Jackson." Teal'c seemed to be watching something above Jack's foot. "I believe this trap truly was not laid by the beings here."
"What? What?" Jack grabbed his thigh and dragged his head upright so he could see. What he saw was another vine unfolding itself from the branch. "For crying out loud!"
"Uh-oh," Carter said. Jack hoped she was going for her P90.
"It's prehensile!" Daniel said. "We haven't come across a prehensile plant since --"
The prehensile plant aimed for Jack's other foot.
"Carter! Will you shoot the damn thing already?"
"Yes, sir." There was still amusement in her voice, but Jack would deal with that later. She took two crisp, quick shots and Jack tumbled into Teal'c's arms, shaking his foot frantically to dislodge the enemy. It wouldn't budge, until it moved by itself. The end Carter had shot rose like a snake.
Jack yelped. Carter had seen it, too, and crouched to help him. Together they tore the thing off and he tossed it far, far away.
"That's it," Jack said. "We are getting the hell off this planet right now."
He heard a couple snorts behind him as he took off at a run. It didn't matter. He was going to kill them all in their sleep anyway.
There is a sort of companion piece to this story that's too short to be posted on Helio. You can find it on my website: The Perquisites of Command.
Thanks for reading!