Disclaimers and spoilers with prologue
Nothing worse than either of the shows, though.
Thanks to Christy for her beta reading work.
Slowly, consciousness returned. Her head ached and her mouth was drier than a desert. Nausea rolled in her gut. She kept her eyes closed and concentrated on not vomiting, carefully giving herself a little time to clear some of the fuzziness from her head. Only then did she begin her litany of checks for "waking up nauseous in a unknown location".
A quick assessment of her situation said that she had been bound at wrist and ankle and gentle wriggling told her that whoever had done it was more skilled than usual in the art of bondage. Even through the remaining fuzziness, she could almost picture the knots required. There was definitely still blood flowing into her hands and feet, but there was no movement to be gained, nor would the rough rope abrade the delicate skin. Much better than the average Jaffa, she decided.
She smelt loam and leaf litter. A forest, then, she concluded. Unfortunately, that placed her on about seventy-five percent of the planets she'd ever visited. She shivered in the cool air, and it dawned on her she wasn't in uniform. In fact, she wasn't wearing a great deal at all. Under the outdoors smells, she detected a hint of leather, and not a little fear, in her own scent. The smell triggered her memory and she recalled that she had been out for a night ride.
Finally, she began listening; cursing that it had taken so long to remember. The air was filled with the sounds of nocturnal animals; hunting, feeding, scurrying, walking, calling. Then, over all that, she heard a sound out of place, a sound that spoke a thousand words.
Her eyes flew open, and she breathed in the acrid scent of gun oil. Her heart beat a little faster and her stomach settled somewhat as her body began to adapt to the conflict situation. Long years of training and drill automatically managed the primal reactions of her body.
Her eyes tracked up the length of the rifle barrel. A strangely analytical part of her brain noted that, though clearly not a modern weapon, it was in superb condition, and she had no doubt of its efficacy if it came to that. Finally, she looked into the cold, clear eyes of her captor.
"Coombs?" she whispered.
The question escaped her lips even as the answer was supplied by her photographic memory. This couldn't be the geeky scientist. He was on Dakara with the Jaffa.
"Ah... good. I knew you were awake, Major Carter. It always interests me how... persuasive my friend can be."
For a second, she was tempted to correct his use of her rank, but the gun in her face cautioned that it might be unwise to disagree with this man, whoever he might be. Quickly, without moving her head, she checked that she had correctly surmised her forest location, though she felt sure that it wasn't where she last remembered being.
"Do you like my little playground, Major?. he queried. .I trust you're recovering from the chloroform, and that the ropes aren't too tight. I did so want to make sure that you wouldn't struggle too much, but I.m still going to need you able to run."
Examining her captor further, as he spoke, she realized that his resemblance to Simon Coombs was enhanced by the camouflage gear he was wearing. She wondered why he might want her to run, after he had gone to such lengths to capture her in the first place, though she still couldn't remember how she came to be in the clearing, and that was bothering her.
"You ready to run, Major, aren.t you? There's no challenge otherwise."
He seemed to be offering her a chance to get away. She didn't understand, and the last of the haziness in her brain wasn't helping.
"You'll have to untie me first," she rasped, her throat dry. "Can't run far, otherwise."
"Excellent, Major! Glad to see you've taken up the challenge."
She felt herself hauled roughly to her feet by one arm, then her captor moved away behind her, and she turned her head to try and track him.
"Now., he said, his voice becoming harder, .Brace yourself."
Two sharp, unbalancing jerks and her wrists and ankles were free.
"Time to run, Major Carter. Run fast."
She heard the crack of the rifle being fired, and the leaf litter behind her exploded, scratching the backs of her legs.
Samantha Carter ran.
The trail out of the clearing was a natural funnel, he knew there was no way into the forest either side of it for anyone not fully dressed in protective clothing. Between the thorn bushes and the poison ivy, straight on was the only option, leaving no doubt as to where he would next encounter his prey. He would get there first, however, he knew all the short cuts.
Carefully, he slung the shotgun over his shoulder and coiled the rope. After giving the clearing a final visual check for signs of his passing, he ambled off down another trail, musing about the scars he had seen on the ivory skin. He wondered about their origin, and decided he might ask before he took his rightful trophy.
Once given free reign, the instinctive flight response is hard to control. Dead branches and pine needles tore at her bare feet. Thorn covered tendrils scratched at her torso and legs. Her left shoulder was inflamed and itching where she had unwittingly brushed past an overhanging branch of poison ivy.
Finally, she saw another clearing ahead. She slowed her headlong rush, and pushed the pain to the back of her mind. In her head, a voice, that sounded suspiciously like Janet's, told her she needed to be calm and think. Running out into an open space, while there was a unknown quanitity with a gun in an unknown location was just going to get her killed, and, the voice continued, it wouldn't be fair to Cassandra to lose both of them in quick succession.
He watched Carter enter the clearing, carefully, a mostly dark shadow amongst the broken light at the edge of the treeline. He could see that she had attempted to cover herself in mud, but patches of her skin still glowed luminously under the full harvest moon.
A worthy adversary, indeed.
He waited until she appeared to have settled on the right route out of the clearing. Not that it made much difference, he knew where every path led, and other ways to get to the destination of each. This forest was his friend. However, it was his game and he had carefully choreographed the route that they would take through the forest, this evening, and he knew exactly where it would end. His rifle was pre-cocked. This time, he didn't want its noise to alert her to his presence before he was ready to reveal himself. Gingerly, he brought it to his shoulder, knowing that the the aging mechanism was highly sensitve to shocks in this state. He waited for her to look in his direction, before he moved out from behind the tree that had sheltered him.
Abandoning caution, she ran across the clearing for the trees on the far side, checking over her shoulder, as she reached them. There was a cold feeling in her guts when she realised that the hunter was smiling at her. She ran harder, fear and exhaustion battling for control of her already weakened body.
Time was passing and she feared what would happen when the hunter tired of the chase.
Finally, a root tripped the exhausted runner, and she went down. Moving more silently than might have been expected for a man of his size, he positioned himself in front of Carter. He wanted to be sure that he was the first thing she saw as she pushed herself out of the leaf litter.
She tracked up to the hunter's pudgy, non-descript face. Whispering a silent apology to Cassandra, she looked him square in the eye and said, as clearly as her dusty throat would allow, "Enough."
Kneeling in the dirt, exhausted and broken, at the feet of some earth-bound psychopath with a rifle, she could almost have laughed. It seemed such a prosaic end for an interplanetary explorer.
As he brought the rifle to bear on her chest, she hoped that her spirit would find those of her father and her lover.
"HEY!!"
The fisherman came bursting through the trees from the direction of the lake.
"Hey, you! What're you doing?!"
A second man appeared behind the first, and they both started across the clearing in the direction of the camoflage dressed man, who inverted his rifle and brought the butt down on the woman's temple before beating a hasty retreat into the trees, where he was swiftly hidden by the gloom.
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