A/N: Yay! Here's chappie two of my chaptered story. And I now have a betareader! Thanks so much Judith. Of course, any mistakes are mine and mine alone.
The nauseating stench of blood and burnt flesh filled the air, and Aiden Ford choked as his
mind slowly became conscious. He opened his eyes and found himself staring at an
unrecognizable charred mass, causing his stomach to rebel. Sitting up slightly, he brought up his breakfast, gagging aswhen the retching began to produceing only dry heaves. Finally, he was able
to catch his breath, and wipinged his mouth with the back of his hand, and swallowing against the
acidic taste left by the recently ejected bile left.
Steeling himself against a second sight, he pulled himself up and sat cross-legged on the
ground, waiting for the as a wave of dizziness to pass, and so he could take took stock of his situation and
environment. The latter was easy to determine. He was in the middle of a forest, with
sunlight filtering down through the leaves. The muted lighting coupled with the absolute
silence and the...thing, lent an eerie eery, surreal quality to the air, and Aiden couldn't stop
the small chill that ran down his spine.
His situation was a little harder to determine. A quick check of his person revealed that
his side-arm, P-90 and other weapons were nowhere in sight, and his radio were was also missing.
He still had a few MRE's and his canteen was full, so whoever had taken the rest of his
equipment either hadn't realized what they were, hadn't found them interesting enough to
take, or simply hadn't wanted him to die immediately.
Of course, none of that explained what he was doing here in the first place. He closed his
eyes and concentrated.
He remembered running after the beasts that had carried off Teyla and Dr. Weir off, remembered
Major Sheppard's order for them to retreat as more of the creatures began attacking en
masse. They had fallen back to the Puddle Jumper, and as quickly as they had come, the
things had gone. Then, McKay had mentioned picking up a strong energy surge coming from the
direction the two women had taken...and...
Everything else was a blur. He remembered being Being attacked again. Gunfire, screams of pain...then flames.
And people's voices...men's voices.
He shook his head to see if that would help, but all it did was make him dizzier. His head sunk into his hands and he sagged, feeling depleted of energy.
'Okay, brief moment of self-pity over, Aiden,' he told himself, 'time to figure out what's
going on.' With a deep breath, he got to his feet and glanced around. But with no compass,
and no way of knowing which way the 'gate lay, even if he had had one and it had worked on
another planet that wasn't Earth, he was pretty much...lost.
So, until he could get his bearings, he turned his attention to the... thing, taking it in this
time with the eye of a soldier. Though it was misshapen, it was undeniably one of the
beasts. A long, burnt stick, that he hadn't been able to see from sitting, lay on its other
side. A torch. And it would explain why he remembered flames.
But who, or what had made it? And why had they left him here in the forest? More
importantly, where was everyone else at? Major Sheppard and McKay? Dr. Weir and Teyla?
He bit his lip and looked more closely at the signs left behind. He could see where many
feet had trampled through the foliage, breaking tender new growth and dead leaves beneath.
That and the fact that the smell of blood was so fresh, led him to believe that whatever had
happened, hadn't been long ago.
"Well," he said aloud, "There's nothing for it but to go." He began following the path left
behind by whoever had killed the beast.
----------------------------
Aiden leaned back against the large boulder, ignoring the jagged edges that bit into his
back and gazed up at the sheer cliff in despondence. While he had excelled in rock
climbing, even as a kid, he knew that this would be all but impossible to climb, even if had the
proper tools. And though there could possibly be another way around, if he were to follow
the cliff, the trail he'd been following ended here. Abruptly.
He pulled out the canteen, unscrewed the cap, and took a sip, swirling the water around in
his mouth before spitting it out. Then he took a larger drink before capping it and
replacing it on his belt. The refreshing coolness did nothing to clear his head, or bring
about an epiphany, though it did help that his mouth no longer tasted as though something
had crawled into it and died.
"Damn it!" he shouted, bringing his fisted hands forward and then banging them back against
the boulder in a fit of pique.
But his left hand met with no resistance, and sank into the rock. He blinked in surprise as
the cliff face began to shimmer, then disappeared entirely, revealing a long, dark tunnel.
He grinned and muttered, "tThat's more like it."
Wafts of cool air drifted out of the tunnel, and Aiden cautiously walked towards it, his
grin fading as he realized something. Whoever had built this complex security system had to
be extremely advanced, but the people he had been following couldn't be, as evidenced by the
torch and burnt carcass. He didn't know what that meant, at the moment, but knew it was
important and filed it away to look at later, when he had more information.
His mouth tightened and he took a hesitant step inside. Nothing happened, and then he was
all the way inside and there was a strange whine to the air. The tunnel was plunged into
complete darkness for a second, before the artificial lighting he had become used to on
Atlantis kicked in.
So it was Ancient design. The idea he'd had clicked into place. McKay had said something
about a power surge. Could it have been the deactivation of the hologram? Or something
else that was related?
Somewhere he had read something about not jumping to conclusions without all the facts.
Well, in order to get all the facts, he'd need to investigate further. All signs seemed to
point in this direction, so he'd take it, and he'd manage, come what may.
tbc...
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