Chapter 2

Finn found himself having fun over the next four hours. He and the doctor managed to stay hidden for almost three hours, but Alexa gave them away, and got shot for her trouble. Finn escaped and nailed Reed again, but got winged himself by Wilds. His return shot 'killed' her at the same time her second shot 'killed' him, and Finn's respect for the Major grew.

All in all, he was pretty happy with how things had gone. They found a defensible place to camp for the evening, and set up. Finn took some time to show Alexa how to make a smokeless fire, and they all relaxed for a bit.

"Where'd you learn to track like that?" asked Alexa.

"My Grandpa," said Finn, enjoying the warmth of the fire.

It had been hot during the day, but as darkness grew, the temperature dropped pretty fast.

"He liked to hunt animals, although he only rarely killed one," he said. "Not cuz he couldn't, just cuz Grandma didn't like the idea of eating something wild when you could buy food at the store. Still, in the summers, he and I would disappear for a month or so and live off the land."

"That sounds like fun," said Captain Reed.

"Well... it wasn't at first," said Finn. "When I say live off the land, that's what I mean. We left the house with a small pack containing a medical kit, a few changes of clothes and knives."

"What did you sleep in?" asked Alexa.

"Same thing you'll be sleeping in tonight," replied Finn, "a forest."

"I mean why didn't you bring a tent or something."

"Same reason you're not going to use the one in your pack," he said. "You need to be comfortable just sleeping out in the open when you can. It's a lot easier to sneak up on a camp that has a couple of tents in it, then one where you can't see where people are sleeping. Anyway, I'll take third watch tonight. Alexa, you have first watch, Wilds, you get last and Reed, you'll take second."

"Why do we even need watches?" asked Alexa.

"Because we don't know what's out here, and being woken by something that thinks you're a meal is unpleasant."

He saw she wasn't convinced, and he knew she'd be even less convinced, and less happy, when he showed her how to make a hide to sleep in. A few hours later, he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep in his hide. When Captain Reed woke him up, she found herself staring into the end of his pistol, and he cursed himself.

"Sorry Reed," he said in a quiet voice.

"No problem, Sir," she replied, then crawled off to her own hide while he stayed awake listening to the sounds of the night.

Escape and evade didn't go quite as well as the hunting game had. Finn was quite good at getting out of ropes, but Wilds managed to get out of hers almost as soon as he'd put the damn things on her. Not only that, but she'd grabbed Alexa's unsecured gun, and shot everyone but Finn (although she went for him first) before running away. They never did find her. He found out later that her father had been a stage magician, who was also an escape artist. Nice thing to know.

Alexa's E&E hadn't gone any better, but for the opposite reason: she couldn't escape. Even after Finn gave up and let her go, they recaptured her within fifteen minutes.

Finn went next, and even though he was damned good at getting out of ropes, Wilds turned out to be damned good at tying them. He got out, and managed to take out Reed and Shaw before getting winged by Wilds. But once he was in the woods, no one was able to find him (Reed and Shawn were 'revived' as different people to help with the hunt), and he 'killed' all of them.

He expected Wilds would be the one to secure Captain Reed, but she gave him a smirk and indicated that he should do it. He couldn't help but notice that Reed looked more than a little flushed as he tied her, and that her nipples could be seen through her black T-shirt (it was too warm to wear the fatigue tops). It was obvious to him that she was aroused, which did little for his peace of mind. He was very tempted to get creative with his ties, but it wouldn't have been professional. He noted that Wilds was watching him quite closely as he stepped away. She appeared a bit flushed as well.

Reed managed to squirm out of his bonds, scraping herself up in the process, but she did get out and get away. It took them almost an hour to find her, although she only managed to 'kill' Alexa. By the end of the day, everyone was tired and very dirty, so he suggested that they use the stream to clean up before darkness fell and it got cold. Reed looked at him, then at Wilds, and Wilds just cocked an eyebrow at him.

"Being clean is important," said Finn, although had hadn't had any objection to how Reed smelled when he'd been tying her. "A lot of animals hunt using smell, and so do a surprising number of humans. You can give away your position if you smell bad enough, and, of course, it's important to be clean for other reasons."

"Sounds like a plan," shrugged Wilds and they trudged down to the stream.

Once they neared the bank, he stopped out of sight of the stream, and up the path a bit, to give them some privacy.

"What, you don't smell bad?" asked Wilds.

"I thought I'd give you three a little privacy," he said smiling.

"Ah c'mon," she taunted him, "we're all solders here."

"Not all of us," said Alexa, much to Finn's relief.

His relief was short lived though.

"But I certainly wouldn't want to go against military tradition," she continued. "Feel free to join us, Major."

If he stripped and went into the stream with them, his erection would be noticeable for sure. He wasn't exactly small in that department.

"I'll pass, thank you, and stay on watch."

Captain Reed was obviously starting to get into the spirit of things, and added, "If you feel you must. But I'm sure the view's going to be better down there."

"No doubt," smiled Finn. "Don't take too long, or I might have to come looking for you."

They laughed at him, and he thought he heard Wilds say something like, "come looking at us, more like..." as they headed down the path to the stream.

Now that no one was near, he shifted his erection to a more comfortable position, then found a nice tree to climb. While he suspected that he could see the stream from where he was, he decided it would be best, if not much more difficult, to keep his eyes where they belonged. Eventually, the three of them came back up the path, Alexa still wringing out her long red hair.

"Now where the hell did he go?" asked Wilds.

Finn dropped lightly out of the tree behind her, and she spun reaching for her weapon.

"If you don't mind, I'll be back in a few minutes," he said with a smile.

"You're gonna get shot, doing that," said Wilds.

He shrugged, and headed down to the stream. The water was cold, and Finn washed quickly. Then, because he was pretty worked up, he also took care of the erection that the cold water hadn't been able to kill. His thoughts were of Captain Reed and how she might look tied nice and tight with some good hemp rope. Naked, and tied nice and tight, he amended. That image quickly brought him to a strong, but not overly satisfying, climax. He got out of the water and quickly dried, his half hard dick still thick despite the cold, then dressed in a clean uniform from his pack. Finally, he took out some soap, and washed his uniform, hoping it would dry over night.

When he returned to where he'd left the rest of the team, they were talking, but still alert. His arrival wasn't a surprise, but he could swear that Reed was blushing for some reason. She certainly did that often.

"Shall we head out to the camp?" asked Finn.

Everyone gathered up their things, and set out to find a new camp. Even though Finn was using this as a training exercise, he was still mindful of what he'd been officially ordered to do. So they'd been steadily heading west, not that they'd found anything. And Finn didn't expect that to change.

Eventually, they came across a good place to camp. They still weren't going to be using the tents, but they did start a nice sized fire so they could start drying their clothes. Finn pointedly ignored some of the more... interesting... underclothing his team mates apparently wore and were not shy about laying out in a prominent spot.

He took out his pistol, stripped it down and began cleaning it, more out of habit than because it needed it. He'd had it custom made, and the forty-five was certainly better than any thing the service issued. Technically, he wasn't supposed to be using weapons that the service didn't issue, but the desk jockeys that made that rule had never been in the field with a standard issue piece failing at a critical moment. Lots of special forces folks carried personal hardware. It was one of those things that the SGC didn't bother to reprimand people for.

"That's some nice hardware you have there," commented Wilds.

Reed and the doctor snickered. Finn chose to ignore the implications of her statement, and replied accordingly.

"Thanks," he said, "I've noticed you have a very nice set yourself."

That brought more snickers, but Finn was eying the Major's set of pistols, rather than her other (very nice) set, and nodded toward them.

"Custom are they?"

"Yup," said Wilds, an innocent look on her face. "Maybe sometime we can do a little exchange and see how everything works."

Finn blinked. Well now, it seemed the Major wasn't above a bit of flirting. That suited him just fine. He was sure that it wouldn't go anywhere, because he was sure that she was far more interested in the Doctor and Reed than she was in him. Gay folks in the service often used that kind of camouflage. He understood why, but that didn't mean he appreciated the reasons for it. Who someone had sex with was their business, as far as he was concerned, and if they could shoot straight, and hold up their end of an op, who they fucked wasn't his problem. Still, the flirting and light conversation gave him hope that his team might have started to jell.

They kept the same watch schedule as they had the night before, and were up bright and early to start their day. Finn decided that they'd continue to do a little exploring further toward the west. So, once they'd had breakfast and cleaned everything up, the team headed out.

Reed was on point, with Wilds and the doctor on her left and right flank. Finn brought up the rear, wondering if Reed had noticed that she was walking on something that looked too regular to be a game trail. He was about to mention it, when the ground opened up under her feet and she disappeared in a flash of light.

"Holy shit!" said Shaw.

"Everybody freeze!" yelled Finn. "Can either of you see what happened to Reed?"

"There's a big hole in the ground where she was standing," said Wilds.

"Reed," Finn called. "Reed!"

Nothing. Finn looked around carefully, but didn't see anything else that looked like a dead fall. Quickly, he pulled off his pack, and removed some rope, then tied it around his chest. He threw the other end to Wilds.

"Don't let go of that," he said, moving quickly to the hole in the ground.

It wasn't just a hole though. There was a trap door and he could barely see the bottom of hole. But at the bottom he could just make out a set of transport rings. Reed was nowhere in sight, and the trap door was closing.

"Quick," he yelled, "get me a big stick, or something to jam this with, and make sure you keep your eyes pealed for an attack."

Rather than asking for an explanation, Wilds quickly located a thick branch and tossed it to him. He jammed it in just as the door was finally closing, but the stick was crushed by the door. Once it was closed, it looked just like any other part of the trail, which was why Reed had stepped on it. How very odd.

"What the fuck happened?" asked Wilds.

"It looks like Reed fell into a trap," he replied.

"Well, why didn't you try and get her out?"

"Because she isn't there anymore," Finn answered. "There's a set of transport rings at the bottom of the thing,"

"Shit," said Wilds.

"Yeah, shit," said Finn.

Alexa was looking at the door of the well camouflaged trap.

"Damn," she said, "talk about well hidden."

"Who puts a trap like this in the middle of a path?" asked Wilds.

"Especially on a 'deserted' planet," added Finn.

Finn had them all move off the path, and they started to search the area to see if there was any other sign of intelligent life. They found none, but Alexa wanted to go back and look around the trap door to see what she could discover. Finn was anxious to begin looking for Reed. With that transport ring, she could be pretty much anywhere on the planet, or even in orbit. However, as anxious as he was to find her, he wasn't anxious to join her, so she was going to have to wait for a bit more thorough examination of the area. Besides, he wasn't sure they could even get the thing open again.

There was a way to open it, and Alexa found it. He tied a harness of rope around her upper body in case there were anymore traps, but there were none. What this one was doing here was beyond him. They sat and talked, trying to figure out what to do. Opening the trap had yielded little information. All that was at the bottom were the transport rings, and since he had no way of knowing where they went to, he wasn't going to take that route unless it was a last resort. If it came down to that, he'd send Alexa and Wilds back through the Gate while he went where ever Reed had gone.

"What's that?" asked Alexa.

"What's what?" asked Wilds.

"That, over there?"

"Looks like a column of smoke," said Finn.

Indeed, there was a column of thick, dark smoke rising in the air several miles in the distance.

"A fire," said Wilds.

"A big one," agreed Finn. "But how did it start? There's been no lightning, and I rather doubt something just spontaneously caught on fire."

Wilds nodded.

"Too much of a coincidence," she agreed.

"Lets head out," he said. "From here on in, we're in hostile territory. Comm silence, stay off the path and don't lose sight of one another. I'll take point."

It took several hours to make their way to where they could get a better view of what was going on, and when they did, what they saw changed everything.

They came to the edge of a steep cliff, and were able to get an overview of the valley that held the fire. And it was a fire; a huge, obviously man-made bonfire. It wasn't hard to figure out who made it, since there were figures dancing around it. Plus, there were other artifacts in the valley as well, mainly a large pyramid structure. Obviously a Goa'uld temple, although not, thank the gods, a mother ship. The area itself was just beautiful, situated in a valley with cliffs on three sides. Opposite of the team, there was a big waterfall which had created a large pool of water at its base. A wide river meandered its way out of the valley through the break in the cliffs.