Fic update
Jan. 5th, 2006 12:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stargaterYep I'm actually updating my Hiding in the Light series, part 3 is up and while it's not a lot, I am moving in the direction of finishing it. Most likely it will have 6 parts total and yes I intend to finish it hopefully in the next couple of months (not like the 8 month hiatus from the last part) as it always seems this time of year I have much more time for writing (though I don't share it all online) and I'm usually inspired to write more often.
Part 3 – Which way this wicked thing walks
O’Neill ran full tilt through the trees, hopping over fallen logs and ducking under low hanging branches with surprising speed and agility. As he neared the edge of the clearing, he heard the low rumbling of thunder overhead. He spared a quick glance towards the sky, noting the large angry rain clouds forming above him. He picked up his speed and felt the first of the rain drops pelt him like cold wet daggers. The rain began to fall so fast that it was hard to clearly see what was in front of him. He wiped the water from his eyes and continued to survey the surrounding area.
O’Neill blinked and spotted the thing that snatched Carter and still had her struggling in its grasp. He might have missed it had it not been for his 2IC squirming around in mid-air; it was more like a shadow of something than an actual solid object. As the dark storm clouds rolled in closer overhead, shielding them from what daylight there was, he could almost see it better. It was as if the darkness was making it reveal itself, and it puzzled him greatly. He made a mental note to remember it later as he had more important matters to attend to at the moment.
O’Neill was on a mission, one which his only concern was getting Carter back and getting them both to safety through the gate. He brought his weapon up and started pumping off rounds at what he thought was the head of the creature. He heard a shriek and saw it drop Carter from its grasp. Then the creature changed right in front of him. What had once been a big ugly bird-thing was now a large spider-like thing with more legs than a spider was ever supposed to have. He blinked twice, making sure he wasn’t hallucinating. It morphed back into another bird-thing and soared off into the trees. He fired a couple more rounds at it as he ran to Carter’s side. He knelt down at her side and saw that she was out cold. He checked her pulse, which was strong, and did a quick check for external injuries. Other than the cut she had sustained to the forehead earlier, he could find none.
The rain had begun to assault them in sheets, so heavy at times that O’Neill could barely see a foot in front of him. He gently picked Carter up off the ground and headed for a small cave they had spotted on their way to the ruins when they had first arrived here. It seemed like days ago that they had just stepped out of the gate with the hopes of a quick and painless mission where they just might find something useful to bring back to the SGC. In reality, though, it had been only a few hours ago. They had already endured enough on this mission to last the rest of the week at least, maybe even through the weekend, but for SG-1, this sort of thing was normal. They never could catch a break with an easy mission, always encountering something that wanted to eat them, kill them, or enslave them. O’Neill really wasn’t sure he would have it any other way. He just hoped that whatever it was out there didn’t want to eat them; the whole being eaten off-world scenario was beginning to get old.
O’Neill quickly entered the cave and did a fast check of the immediate area before setting Carter down on the ground. He checked her breathing and pulse again and found it still strong and steady. He worried slightly at the thought of internal injuries but could do nothing about it until she woke up. He checked around the rest of the cavern, noticing that it continued on behind them in a narrow crevice, but it didn’t appear to pose any threat to them for the moment. The cave was damp and cold, but at least they were out of the rain and wind. He looked down at himself and Carter noticing they were both drenched. He wrung out what he could of his jacket, sat down next to Carter, and waited for her to regain consciousness.
A while later, Carter opened her eyes and groaned.
“Hey welcome back,” O’Neill said somewhere off to her right. She turned to him and winced as the movement caused a wave of nausea. He helped her into a sitting position. “How’re ya feeling?” he asked.
She took a deep breath then answered, “Like I’ve been run over by a freight train.”
“Oh. That good, huh?”
She gave him a small smile before starting to check herself over for injuries. “Well nothing seems broken. That’s good,” she said.
“That it is,” he replied.
“How long was I out?” she asked.
“Uh, about an hour, but you haven’t missed much except for the rain.” He motioned at the mouth of the cave where the rain continued its assault outside.
They sat in silence for a moment before O’Neill spoke. “Did you get a close up look at the one that grabbed you?”
“Not really,” she said. “It’s kind of hard to describe, more like a shadow than an actual solid object. I could clearly feel it holding on to me, but it was hard to keep my eye on it.”
She sounded a bit disconcerted by the fact that she couldn’t clearly see what was attacking her yet she knew it to be there. O’Neill thought back to when he had seen it change shape and wondered if she had seen it do the same. It occurred to him how ridiculous it would sound to talk about a floating spider, but they were on an alien planet after all. “Did it ever turn into something different?” he asked tentatively.
“Actually yes.” She sounded relieved that she just hadn’t imagined it. “It’s kind of fuzzy what happened out there, but it was like a bird once, then it was a like a horse but with six legs. I think it changed into other things while I was wrestling with it, but it was kind of hard to see. I thought it was my mind might have been playing tricks on me.”
Since they both had witnessed the creature changing, suddenly the floating spider didn’t sound quite so silly anymore.
“I’m still puzzled about why Daniel and Teal’c couldn’t see it,” Sam said, interrupting O’Neill’s reverie.
“Yeah,” he answered, waving his hand. “It appears we’re still the only ones sharing this little hallucination.” O’Neill thought back to when he had ordered Daniel and Teal’c to go back through the gate and hoped for once that Daniel had listened to him. For all he knew, they could still be out there right now beating the bushes looking for them. “Do you think that maybe whatever it is isn’t after Daniel and Teal’c in the first place? I mean they never heard it or saw it at all.”
“No idea, Sir. But whatever the reason, they seem to only want to attack us,” she said.
“Yeah, why does that always happen? I mean, it’s always us when things go wrong.” O’Neill said, recalling the events of the last day. “Us against the bad guys… and the rest of SG-1, of course.”
“Of course.”
“We make a good team.”
“Yes, Sir, we do,” Carter replied, the hidden reference not going unnoticed by either of them. They sat in silence a few moments until a loud cracking noise assaulted their ears from somewhere back in the cave.
“What was that?” Carter said.
O’Neill shrugged and got to his feet. “There’s a passageway back there. Maybe we should take a look.”
Carter nodded and followed him to the back of the cavern to peer into the narrow fissure in the wall. They began to follow the only path available to them through the cave. At times, the passageway became so narrow that they had to go through single file, shoulder to shoulder. O’Neill squeezed through followed by Carter and was relieved when the passageway widened once again to allow them to move in relative comfort. He could still hear the rain outside beating down above them like an aerial assault. He shivered slightly, still damp from their mad dash to the cave.
They had walked mostly in silence, thinking about what exactly their attackers were and what they wanted. “So we know that they have a weakness. They can be seen in the darkness, they can change shapes, and they can be seen by us,” Carter said, breaking the silence.
“Last time I checked, we’ve eaten, drank, and slept the same as Daniel and Teal’c, though we didn’t begin to hear the things until after….” O’Neill trailed off.
“We fell into the river,” Carter finished. “So there’s something different in the water.” She became annoyed again at the thought of losing the sample case in the fall. They lapsed back into silence, thinking of their new discovery and how it was going to help them get off this world.
After what seemed like miles, they finally emerged into another cavern, stopping at its entrance to comprehend what they were seeing. “Carter,” O’Neill turned his head quizzically, “what do those look like to you?”
Her eyes roamed over the room before she said, “Eggs. Big eggs.”
The small cavern ahead looked like a huge nest filled with eggs. They realized that all the eggs seemed to be resting peacefully in about a foot of water. They stepped down the slippery slope farther into the cavern, O’Neill uttering a quiet curse to himself as they splashed into the ice cold water once again. O’Neill covered the short distance to the nearest egg and noted that it didn’t have a hard shell covering it. It was almost rubbery-looking, as if someone had wrapped it in giant rubber bands. His mind briefly flitted to the thought of huge rubber band balls and the havoc he could wreck with one. Upon closer examination, it appeared that the rubbery surface of the egg was interlaced with a web-like substance that produced a glowing yellow sheen. He squinted and looked closer but could not see past the surface. He stood back looking at it and decided that it was definitely glowing softly. He poked it cautiously with his finger and watched as the flexible covering extended inward with his finger. He poked a bit harder with three fingers and was relieved when it didn’t break under the pressure. He was beginning to think they wouldn’t much like what hatched from these eggs.
Carter was a short distance away examining another egg; this one, however, still had a hard shell covering. It was the same iridescent color as the others, though dulled just a bit by the shell, and she thought she heard a slight hum from within it. She ran her had down the side of it noting that its smooth surface appeared very strong and sturdy. Suddenly, it shuddered and started vibrating where it stood. Carter immediately backed away, calling O’Neill over to see.
They watched as the egg trembled. Then an ear piercing crack erupted from it, and they reflexively pressed their palms to their ears at the sound. A large crack had indeed appeared on the shell, and now several smaller cracks were appearing around it. Bits of the shell began to fall away, leaving behind the same stretchy surface on the egg O’Neill had studied. It stood still once again just like the other one.
As if on cue, a small popping noise came from the egg O’Neill had been poking. Inside, something was moving and poking out, and it almost looked like fingers pressing their way back at them. Whatever the thing was, it was struggling and was intent on breaking free. They stepped back and took in the expanse of the cavern before them. There had to be hundreds of eggs around them with who knew how many other caverns like this one in the cave system. Another ear-splitting crack broke the silence from across the room as yet another egg was shedding its shell.
“Um, Carter,” O’Neill said quietly, tugging on her jacket sleeve. “I’m thinking we should get out of here.”
Carter nodded wordlessly as they started back towards the passageway. They squeezed through this time with little thought or effort as neither of them wanted to stay around to see what was about to hatch from those eggs.
They reached the cavern opening and stopped listening. In the distance, they heard another crack, and a sweet spongy smell filled their nostrils. It was very heavy and thick, almost enough to make them feel nauseous. O’Neill was sure it had something to do with the eggs.
“We need to find another shelter while we can, preferably somewhere without our little egg friends,” O’Neill said. They started back out in the pouring rain, trying to stay low in the underbrush as they made their way silently away from the cave.
Part 4 coming soon!
Part 3 – Which way this wicked thing walks
O’Neill ran full tilt through the trees, hopping over fallen logs and ducking under low hanging branches with surprising speed and agility. As he neared the edge of the clearing, he heard the low rumbling of thunder overhead. He spared a quick glance towards the sky, noting the large angry rain clouds forming above him. He picked up his speed and felt the first of the rain drops pelt him like cold wet daggers. The rain began to fall so fast that it was hard to clearly see what was in front of him. He wiped the water from his eyes and continued to survey the surrounding area.
O’Neill blinked and spotted the thing that snatched Carter and still had her struggling in its grasp. He might have missed it had it not been for his 2IC squirming around in mid-air; it was more like a shadow of something than an actual solid object. As the dark storm clouds rolled in closer overhead, shielding them from what daylight there was, he could almost see it better. It was as if the darkness was making it reveal itself, and it puzzled him greatly. He made a mental note to remember it later as he had more important matters to attend to at the moment.
O’Neill was on a mission, one which his only concern was getting Carter back and getting them both to safety through the gate. He brought his weapon up and started pumping off rounds at what he thought was the head of the creature. He heard a shriek and saw it drop Carter from its grasp. Then the creature changed right in front of him. What had once been a big ugly bird-thing was now a large spider-like thing with more legs than a spider was ever supposed to have. He blinked twice, making sure he wasn’t hallucinating. It morphed back into another bird-thing and soared off into the trees. He fired a couple more rounds at it as he ran to Carter’s side. He knelt down at her side and saw that she was out cold. He checked her pulse, which was strong, and did a quick check for external injuries. Other than the cut she had sustained to the forehead earlier, he could find none.
The rain had begun to assault them in sheets, so heavy at times that O’Neill could barely see a foot in front of him. He gently picked Carter up off the ground and headed for a small cave they had spotted on their way to the ruins when they had first arrived here. It seemed like days ago that they had just stepped out of the gate with the hopes of a quick and painless mission where they just might find something useful to bring back to the SGC. In reality, though, it had been only a few hours ago. They had already endured enough on this mission to last the rest of the week at least, maybe even through the weekend, but for SG-1, this sort of thing was normal. They never could catch a break with an easy mission, always encountering something that wanted to eat them, kill them, or enslave them. O’Neill really wasn’t sure he would have it any other way. He just hoped that whatever it was out there didn’t want to eat them; the whole being eaten off-world scenario was beginning to get old.
O’Neill quickly entered the cave and did a fast check of the immediate area before setting Carter down on the ground. He checked her breathing and pulse again and found it still strong and steady. He worried slightly at the thought of internal injuries but could do nothing about it until she woke up. He checked around the rest of the cavern, noticing that it continued on behind them in a narrow crevice, but it didn’t appear to pose any threat to them for the moment. The cave was damp and cold, but at least they were out of the rain and wind. He looked down at himself and Carter noticing they were both drenched. He wrung out what he could of his jacket, sat down next to Carter, and waited for her to regain consciousness.
A while later, Carter opened her eyes and groaned.
“Hey welcome back,” O’Neill said somewhere off to her right. She turned to him and winced as the movement caused a wave of nausea. He helped her into a sitting position. “How’re ya feeling?” he asked.
She took a deep breath then answered, “Like I’ve been run over by a freight train.”
“Oh. That good, huh?”
She gave him a small smile before starting to check herself over for injuries. “Well nothing seems broken. That’s good,” she said.
“That it is,” he replied.
“How long was I out?” she asked.
“Uh, about an hour, but you haven’t missed much except for the rain.” He motioned at the mouth of the cave where the rain continued its assault outside.
They sat in silence for a moment before O’Neill spoke. “Did you get a close up look at the one that grabbed you?”
“Not really,” she said. “It’s kind of hard to describe, more like a shadow than an actual solid object. I could clearly feel it holding on to me, but it was hard to keep my eye on it.”
She sounded a bit disconcerted by the fact that she couldn’t clearly see what was attacking her yet she knew it to be there. O’Neill thought back to when he had seen it change shape and wondered if she had seen it do the same. It occurred to him how ridiculous it would sound to talk about a floating spider, but they were on an alien planet after all. “Did it ever turn into something different?” he asked tentatively.
“Actually yes.” She sounded relieved that she just hadn’t imagined it. “It’s kind of fuzzy what happened out there, but it was like a bird once, then it was a like a horse but with six legs. I think it changed into other things while I was wrestling with it, but it was kind of hard to see. I thought it was my mind might have been playing tricks on me.”
Since they both had witnessed the creature changing, suddenly the floating spider didn’t sound quite so silly anymore.
“I’m still puzzled about why Daniel and Teal’c couldn’t see it,” Sam said, interrupting O’Neill’s reverie.
“Yeah,” he answered, waving his hand. “It appears we’re still the only ones sharing this little hallucination.” O’Neill thought back to when he had ordered Daniel and Teal’c to go back through the gate and hoped for once that Daniel had listened to him. For all he knew, they could still be out there right now beating the bushes looking for them. “Do you think that maybe whatever it is isn’t after Daniel and Teal’c in the first place? I mean they never heard it or saw it at all.”
“No idea, Sir. But whatever the reason, they seem to only want to attack us,” she said.
“Yeah, why does that always happen? I mean, it’s always us when things go wrong.” O’Neill said, recalling the events of the last day. “Us against the bad guys… and the rest of SG-1, of course.”
“Of course.”
“We make a good team.”
“Yes, Sir, we do,” Carter replied, the hidden reference not going unnoticed by either of them. They sat in silence a few moments until a loud cracking noise assaulted their ears from somewhere back in the cave.
“What was that?” Carter said.
O’Neill shrugged and got to his feet. “There’s a passageway back there. Maybe we should take a look.”
Carter nodded and followed him to the back of the cavern to peer into the narrow fissure in the wall. They began to follow the only path available to them through the cave. At times, the passageway became so narrow that they had to go through single file, shoulder to shoulder. O’Neill squeezed through followed by Carter and was relieved when the passageway widened once again to allow them to move in relative comfort. He could still hear the rain outside beating down above them like an aerial assault. He shivered slightly, still damp from their mad dash to the cave.
They had walked mostly in silence, thinking about what exactly their attackers were and what they wanted. “So we know that they have a weakness. They can be seen in the darkness, they can change shapes, and they can be seen by us,” Carter said, breaking the silence.
“Last time I checked, we’ve eaten, drank, and slept the same as Daniel and Teal’c, though we didn’t begin to hear the things until after….” O’Neill trailed off.
“We fell into the river,” Carter finished. “So there’s something different in the water.” She became annoyed again at the thought of losing the sample case in the fall. They lapsed back into silence, thinking of their new discovery and how it was going to help them get off this world.
After what seemed like miles, they finally emerged into another cavern, stopping at its entrance to comprehend what they were seeing. “Carter,” O’Neill turned his head quizzically, “what do those look like to you?”
Her eyes roamed over the room before she said, “Eggs. Big eggs.”
The small cavern ahead looked like a huge nest filled with eggs. They realized that all the eggs seemed to be resting peacefully in about a foot of water. They stepped down the slippery slope farther into the cavern, O’Neill uttering a quiet curse to himself as they splashed into the ice cold water once again. O’Neill covered the short distance to the nearest egg and noted that it didn’t have a hard shell covering it. It was almost rubbery-looking, as if someone had wrapped it in giant rubber bands. His mind briefly flitted to the thought of huge rubber band balls and the havoc he could wreck with one. Upon closer examination, it appeared that the rubbery surface of the egg was interlaced with a web-like substance that produced a glowing yellow sheen. He squinted and looked closer but could not see past the surface. He stood back looking at it and decided that it was definitely glowing softly. He poked it cautiously with his finger and watched as the flexible covering extended inward with his finger. He poked a bit harder with three fingers and was relieved when it didn’t break under the pressure. He was beginning to think they wouldn’t much like what hatched from these eggs.
Carter was a short distance away examining another egg; this one, however, still had a hard shell covering. It was the same iridescent color as the others, though dulled just a bit by the shell, and she thought she heard a slight hum from within it. She ran her had down the side of it noting that its smooth surface appeared very strong and sturdy. Suddenly, it shuddered and started vibrating where it stood. Carter immediately backed away, calling O’Neill over to see.
They watched as the egg trembled. Then an ear piercing crack erupted from it, and they reflexively pressed their palms to their ears at the sound. A large crack had indeed appeared on the shell, and now several smaller cracks were appearing around it. Bits of the shell began to fall away, leaving behind the same stretchy surface on the egg O’Neill had studied. It stood still once again just like the other one.
As if on cue, a small popping noise came from the egg O’Neill had been poking. Inside, something was moving and poking out, and it almost looked like fingers pressing their way back at them. Whatever the thing was, it was struggling and was intent on breaking free. They stepped back and took in the expanse of the cavern before them. There had to be hundreds of eggs around them with who knew how many other caverns like this one in the cave system. Another ear-splitting crack broke the silence from across the room as yet another egg was shedding its shell.
“Um, Carter,” O’Neill said quietly, tugging on her jacket sleeve. “I’m thinking we should get out of here.”
Carter nodded wordlessly as they started back towards the passageway. They squeezed through this time with little thought or effort as neither of them wanted to stay around to see what was about to hatch from those eggs.
They reached the cavern opening and stopped listening. In the distance, they heard another crack, and a sweet spongy smell filled their nostrils. It was very heavy and thick, almost enough to make them feel nauseous. O’Neill was sure it had something to do with the eggs.
“We need to find another shelter while we can, preferably somewhere without our little egg friends,” O’Neill said. They started back out in the pouring rain, trying to stay low in the underbrush as they made their way silently away from the cave.
Part 4 coming soon!
