Trust Once Broken | SGA John Sheppard

0.109.0

McKay pulled out a scanner. "I'm picking up that puzzling energy reading," McKay told them.

Beckett turned to face McKay. "What is it?" he asked, trying to read over McKay's shoulder. He didn't especially like going in the field, but he wasn't going to shy away from the possibility if one of their men was out here injured.

"Did I not just use the word 'puzzling'?" McKay snarked.

Beckett shot him a withering look. "Charming," he snapped back.

Kai stood over Ronon's shoulder with a gun in one hand and a Blade in the other as he crouched down to study the dirt surrounding the gate. She couldn't see or hear anything in the surrounding woods, but the marines they brought with were hardly quiet enough for her to use her senses to their full capabilities.

"Tracks," Ronon called after a moment. John stepped up beside them. "Boot prints," Ronon clarified.

"Let's go find them," John said brightly and he led them deeper into the woods.

A few minutes into their walk McKay spoke up. "The readings are getting stronger," he told them warily. "Whatever it is, we're getting warmer."

Kai frowned as she studied the forest around them. There was something off here, something she could feel like a presence brushing against her mind, but she couldn't quite place it. She shivered as she looked into the shadows of the trees. She wasn't often uneasy and it was even more rare for her to feel this way when there was no clear threat.

John hesitated for a second, feeling how trepidatious Kai was. He wanted to ask, but he couldn't do it in front of the marines. He had not missed the gleam in Weir's eye as she told him to take Kai with him. It was rare for Kai to feel uneasy and he could feel it like a spike of ice in his chest. He kept glancing towards her as they moved through the forest, but she gave no outward indication something was wrong.

Kai hesitated, pausing mid stride and her nose wrinkled as a noxious scent hit her. "There," she called turning towards the side of the path. The others hurried over and pushed aside the thick underbrush to reveal a body.

Kai wrinkled her nose as the smell of decay burned her nostrils. It was too strong for just the one corpse. She stepped away, and continued to search the underbrush while they investigated the body.

"Genii," John said, studying the uniform.

"Been dead for several months," Beckett reported crouching over the body.

"No really, you don't say," McKay snapped motioning to the highly decomposed corpse as though it were obvious. Beckett didn't bother with a response. He just rolled his eyes at his acerbic friend and continued working.

"Well, our guys didn't do it," John said.

"They weren't fed on by the wraith. Bullet wounds," Beckett reported, shifting the uniform. "Dozens of them."

"Over there!" Ronon called from behind them.

They all turned and moved over to where Ronon was standing over another body of a Genii, in an equally as advanced stage of decay.

"Also shot," Beckett reported.

"This guy was repeatedly stabbed," Sheppard said frowning down at yet another body.

"By this guy, looks like," Ronon said sardonically, lifting the grisly skeletal hand of a third body, still gripping a knife.

"What, so they killed each other?" McKay asked, his voice rising in panic. His eyes flittered over the trees around them, wondering what could have caused it.