I'm still reposting my older story, so here's part two of it.

A Little Problem Part Two

Rated: PG

“What the hell happened out there, people?” General Hammond asked what remained of SG-1 in the briefing room.

Just an hour earlier, he received their signal. He wasn’t expecting them back so soon. When the iris opened, he saw them running through the gate with terrified expressions as if they were being chased by something far more frightening than the Goau’ld. No weapons were firing at them from the other side, and nothing appeared threatening, yet still they ran from whatever it was.

Major Samantha Carter ran a frustrated hand through her short blonde hair. “We really don’t know, sir,” she said, sighing. “The planet was supposedly uninhabited.”

“Yeah, until that…thing chased after us,” Daniel said, shuddering.

“What thing?” Hammond asked.

“It appeared as though some rather large being was chasing after us,” Teal’c said.

“What kind of being? Did you manage to get a look at it?” Hammond asked.

“Not exactly, sir,” Sam said.

“It was too large to get a good look at it,” Daniel said. “It was like a massive shadow, a dark cloud of some kind.”

“Are you sure it was alive? It wasn’t just some storm activity?”

“I do not believe storms move in the manner which this creature did, General Hammond,” Teal’c said.

“Teal’c’s right,” Sam said. “It was definitely alive.”

“Yeah, it was moving toward us,” Daniel said.

Hammond looked at each member of SG-1, perplexed and expecting an answer from one of them—at least one that made sense.

“Can someone please explain to me how a planet we deemed to be uninhabited suddenly has a life form of some kind on its surface?” He asked. “How could our devices miss detecting something like that?”

“Perhaps it was an animal of some kind,” Teal’c said.

“No,” Sam said. “I tested the planet thoroughly before we left. There was no sign of any life except vegetation.”

“Well, there’s definitely something there now,” Daniel said, “whatever it is.”

“What happened to the Colonel and MacGyver?” General Hammond asked.

“We don’t know,” Sam said, closing her eyes. She wasn’t only embarrassed about losing them—she was worried. “They were with us for awhile when we arrived, but then they walked ahead of us. We lost them, sir.” She opened her intense blue eyes and stared at the General, expressing her concern.

General Hammond noted the pain and worry in Sam’s eyes. He knew how much she cared about the missing men. He knew how much they all cared.

“We’ve got to go back,” Daniel said. “I mean, what if that…thing…found them?”

“Indeed,” Teal’c said. “We must not waste any time. We must arrange a rescue.”

“I agree, Teal’c, but before we risk anyone else’s safety, I want another probe sent to that planet,” Hammond said. “I want to know just exactly what we’re up against on this planet before we send in any kind of rescue effort. Major Carter, I want you to head up the launch of the new probe. Daniel and Teal’c will accompany you. Find out all you can, people.”

Sam bit her lower lip, Daniel shifted uneasily in his seat, and Teal’c looked stoic yet filled with despair. None of them wanted to wait, not while Jack and MacGyver were still out there.

“Yes sir,” Sam said, sucking in a tense breath.

***

Ellie did her best to make the little man comfortable while he was still unconscious. Gently, like a loving mother, she placed the man on the bed inside her doll house. She watched him sleep for a long time. He stirred and moaned, but for the most part he remained motionless. She wanted him to wake up, but she knew she had to be patient. She was never cruel to any being, large or small. She wanted to respect the man’s need to sleep. Reaching out carefully, she lightly touched the man with the tip of her index finger, which covered half his tiny body. He was a fascinating little creature. She wondered how he breathed, how he lived when he was that small. When he awoke, would he be able to speak? She watched him longingly, hoping for a companion.

“Ellie, I’m home dear,” Susan, the girl’s mother said entering the bedroom.

For a moment, Ellie thought about hiding her new little treasure, but her blushing easily gave her away. Her mother smiled and approached the doll house.

“What do you have there?” She asked.

“A little man,” Ellie said.

“A what?”

“I found him outside in the yard.”

Susan stared at the tiny creature, amazed. “I’ve never seen anything like him before,” she said.

I know,” Ellie said. “Isn’t he neat? Wait till I take him to show and tell! That awful Billy will finally shut up and stop thinking he’s better than me!”

Susan watched carefully as the man slept. She worked for a laboratory that studied alien life and tried to find cures for diseases that plagued her people as well as others they had come into contact with from other planets. They were scientists and diplomats, hoping to create a peaceful universe through research and outreach to beings from other planets. Their goal was to make the universe a safe place where all races cooperated with each other.

As she studied this small man, she began to remember a race of beings she had read about during her education. They had been declared either mythical or extinct, and they would be recognizable to her people only by their small size. They were from a planet called Earth, and they were a race of human. They were supposedly the stuff of fairy tales, yet she was looking right at one. He was sleeping in her daughter’s doll house. Her mouth fell open slightly, shocked by what she was looking at. It was too good to be true. They had actually made contact with a small human from Earth. There could be no other explanation for the appearance of this man who looked every bit as much as they did, but was more than half their size.

“So they do exist,” she murmured.

“What are you talking about, Mommy?” Ellie asked.

“This is incredible!”

“What is?” Ellie asked, growing impatient with her mother’s excitement and her refusal to share it.

Susan smiled and looked down at her daughter. “Ellie, remember those stories I told you about tiny aliens from a distant galaxy?” She asked.

Ellie nodded and smiled broadly. “Uh-huh,” she said.

“They actually exist! He’s one of them!”

Ellie looked at the man sleeping in her doll house, her eyes wide. “Wow,” she said.

“Where did he come from, I wonder.”

“I told you…the back yard.”

“No sweetie, he had to come from somewhere else. How did he get here?”

“I don’t know,” Ellie said, shrugging. “I want to keep him.”

“All right,” Susan said. “The humans from Earth were supposedly, on the whole, good. Besides, he is far too small to be a threat to us. But Ellie, will you do something for me?”

“What?”

“You must not tell anyone else about him.”

“But Mom, I wanted to bring him to show and tell!” Ellie said, pouting.

“I know, honey, but for now, I don’t think it’s safe for anyone else besides us to know about him. Someone could…hurt him.”

There was a man at the laboratory that Susan worked with who had a reputation for being a little cruel to the alien creatures they studied. He was controversial, and many had called for his resignation, but still he prevailed and remained on staff. If the small man sleeping peacefully inside Ellie’s doll house were to be discovered by him, she could only imagine the possible horrific outcomes. Of course she wanted to study the little human, but in a humane way that was generally accepted by all staff at the laboratory in order to keep peaceful relations with new races they encountered in space.

“Ellie please…will you do that for me?” She asked.

Ellie was a perceptive child. She could see the concern and fear in her mother’s eyes. While she couldn’t quite understand why her mother would want to be so cautious, she agreed, nodding. “Okay Mommy,” she said. “I’ll keep him a secret. I won’t tell.”

Susan smiled and stroked her daughter’s hair. She glanced at the tiny man, who was still sleeping. “That’s good,” she said.

***

Sam, Daniel, and Teal’c watched as they launched a new probe through the stargate. As it collected data, Sam pounded her fists angrily and in frustration on the desk.

“Damn!” She said. “I just don’t understand it! We’re getting the same readings we did before! Something just doesn’t make sense!”

“We’ll figure it out, Sam, don’t worry,” Daniel said.

“But the Colonel and MacGyver are out there! We can’t just leave them, Daniel.”

“We’re not leaving them, Sam. We’ll find a way. It’ll just take time, that’s all.”

“I’m afraid we don’t have a lot of time. What if that thing already got to them?”

“O’Neill and his relation are quite resourceful,” Teal’c said. “They will survive until we can locate them, Major Carter.”

Sam managed a slight smile at the stalwart Jaffa warrior. “I hope you’re right, Teal’c,” she said.

They turned away from the monitor that was providing them with visual data of the strange planet. Before it shut off, the old probe went unnoticed by the team as it sat beside a giant soda can, looking like nothing more than a mere child’s toy.

***

It seemed like hours since the giant child had taken Jack O’Neill’s unconscious body and walked away with it to parts unknown. The bizarre forest was growing dark, and MacGyver knew it was close to night time. Using his survival instincts, he gathered materials to build a fire and unpacked the supplies SG-1 gave him before embarking on the mission. He was happy to have a thermal blanket and some rations. The idea of trying to hunt the beetle that chased him earlier didn’t appeal to him, and he hadn’t found much else that was edible. Not trusting the alien vegetation, he decided to trust the earth food supplied to him instead. It wasn’t quite as fun as actual camping, having to hunt and fish to find food, but it worked for him.

As he sat by the fire, absently chewing on a ration and trying to calm himself from seeing something so out of the ordinary realm of experience, he began to run the details through his mind. He figured it was the only way to find Jack and to help him. He remembered Jack talking about the trees on the planet. To MacGyver, they looked more like enormous blades of grass. The texture was similar, as was its appearance. He thought about the flowers towering overhead. It was then that his mind began to work out a scenario. He went with it, no matter how bizarre it seemed.

Somehow, he, Jack, and the rest of SG-1 had ended up on a planet where the beings were giants in comparison to them. The unusual trees were actually blades of grass and flowers growing in a backyard. MacGyver pictured a suburban lawn, and he was somewhere in the middle of it. Judging the way the girl had taken Jack, MacGyver figured they were in her backyard. She had probably taken Jack to her house. He wondered if the girl had found the other members of SG-1, too. That would certainly explain their strange disappearance in the middle of the mission. He smiled, amused by the thought that this girl might have gathered them up as if they were a set of collectibles. At the same time, he shuddered, pondering the possibilities. What were these large beings? Were they peaceful? Would they hurt Jack and the rest of SG-1?

Deciding he had little time to waste, MacGyver began to calculate ways in which he could reach the home of the girl and find Jack. The odds were against him, and the probable distance from where he was to the house was large. Any trek through that backyard wilderness could take him days, maybe even a week. He was a good hiker, but it still took him time to reach his destinations. A human being can only walk so fast, especially when they’re stranded on a strange alien planet where they’re only about the size of a mouse.

He had tried to contact General Hammond at the base, but his communication devices didn’t work. Ever since they had stepped on the planet, nothing seemed to work. He thought about fixing it, but he knew they were probably already working on a rescue plan if the team was overdue. Besides, he didn’t have time to wait for a rescue. He had to invent his own. After all Jack had done for him, he owed him that much. The sky, from what he could see of it beneath the thick, tall blades of grass, grew darker, and the night grew colder. Growing tired, MacGyver knew any rescue he undertook would have to wait until morning. Carefully, he hunkered down, burrowing inside his thermal sleeping bag, doing his best to camouflage himself like any small, vulnerable creature protecting itself from larger predators. Gradually, he fell asleep beneath the high blades of grass and the strange, alien night sky.

To be continued…