PX5D09

They came through in the jumper after the MALP showed the stargate apparently under a seething, soup-thick, opalescent sea. They worried about pressure but the telemetry that came back assured them the stargate was only under two extra atmospheres. Which made sense, because the light wouldn't have penetrated to the gate otherwise.

John immediately became aware of the 'sea' when they exited the gate. It tugged and almost fingered the jumper. The stuff wasn't like water at all, more like a heavy, viscid mud - if mud had a white, semi-transparent glow shot through with twinkling, colored lights. He would have sworn he could feel the stuff sliding along the sides of the jumper.

It made his skin crawl.

He angled the jumper up faster than he would have otherwise. It responded dutifully, rising into the atmosphere of PX5D09 and the light of a reassuringly normal, yellow sun. Even so, at the last second, it felt like the opal sea almost clung to the jumper, trying to suck it back down.

"So," he said, setting their flight plan into the autopilot, despite his urge to rub his face and every other exposed part of his body. "Anyone else really creeped out already?"

He glanced over and discovered Teyla looked gray and drawn. She was breathing unsteadily, heaving breaths, her hands white knuckled on the arm rests of her seat. Her eyes were squeezed closed.

"Teyla?"

"I feel very unwell, Colonel," she whispered.

His gaze moved to Ronon and Rodney in the rear. Ronon looked disturbed by Teyla's state. Rodney had a glisten of sweat on his forehead. His blue eyes were wide as he looked up from his console.

"This place is wrong," Ronon declared.

John couldn't find anything to disagree with in that statement.

Ronon subsided deeper into his seat, arms crossed protectively over his chest. He didn't think he'd ever seen Ronon look so uneasy. It didn't do anything for his own inexplicable bout of nerves.

"Colonel, you'd better look at this."

John engaged the autopilot, letting the jumper skim across the strange, rippling expanse of the planet's sea, and lifted his hands away from the stick. He spun his seat around and leaned forward to check out what Rodney had found.

"No life signs?" he said, trying to make sense of the solid white read-out on Rodney's screen.

"N-no." Rodney pointed at the screen. "All life signs."

John blinked. "Whoa. That's a lot."

Rodney nodded jerkily.

"A lot, yeah. A lot like a planetary ocean lot," he said. He pointed out the viewport at the opalescent sea. "That's all alive."

John shuddered.

"And, yes, Colonel, I am really creeped out."

"Right," John said, making a command decision. He disengaged the autopilot and turned the jumper back onto a flight line that would return them to the stargate. Or the air above it. "Whatever there is on this planet that scares the Wraith, I've got a feeling we'd be better off not finding out."

"Please," Teyla whispered.

"Just hold on," he said.

She didn't answer, but nodded slowly. Her eyes were still shut.

He took the jumper down fast, wondering if it was hurting whatever life form composed this ocean, but suddenly, desperately wanting off this planet, no matter what it took. This time it felt like the stuff clutched at the jumper, dragging at it, and John found himself increasing power to the thrusters unconsciously.

"Rodney, dial Atlantis," he said. Teyla didn't look to be in any shape to do even that.

Rodney almost leaped out of his seat to lean over Teyla and depress the chevrons for Atlantis. The instant the wormhole opened, he sent through their IDC, before even John could.

John might have said something, but he felt the same need to get away from PX5D09.

*Jumper One, inbound,* he radioed and added even more thrust to the jumper as it approached the wormhole.

They slid through and he drew in a relieved breath that stuttered out as he noticed the opalescent scum that slipped and oozed over the viewport of the jumper.

"Rodney," he said.

"Oh, this is bad."

He activated the radio. *Better initiate a lockdown of the gateroom. It looks like we might have a hitchhiker.*

*We've noticed,* was Weir's dry response. Claxons began ringing through Atlantis.

John landed the jumper on the gateroom floor rather than take it up into the jumper bay. No use potentially contaminating two areas.

The instant the jumper touched down, he saw the stuff extend a dozen pseudopods and plop off the jumper onto the floor. It immediately began seeping toward the two Marines on guard at the transporter doors.

"Oh, shit," Rodney whispered.

John watched in silent horror as the thing reached the first Marine, a long tendril suddenly whipping out and grabbing his leg. He screamed once, before falling. Part of it seemed to flow into and over him at the same time, effortlessly absorbing the bullets the other Marine fired into it. An instant later, the first Marine opened his eyes.

John knew Rodney saw the same thing he did when Rodney whimpered.

The Marine's eyes were gone, filled with the seething, opalescent goo, then the rest of his body dissolved into the same thing. It took the second Marine the same way, even when he tried to run.

"Ronon," John asked. "Do you think your pulse pistol would – "

Ronon braced one hand on the back of John's seat and watched the stuff slide up the gateroom stairs. Teyla twitched and mewled beside them.

Someone in the gateroom had had the same thought. The blue glare of a Wraith stunner pulse hit the stuff. Energy crackled over it briefly and was absorbed. It even seemed to grow.

"Don't think so," Ronon said.

They watched in dulled horror as the invader swiftly took everyone trapped in the gate room and the control room. John tried to think of any way they could kill it. Until they did, they were trapped in the jumper, locked in the quarantined gate room with it. He couldn't think of anything and then it became moot.

"Remember The Blob?" Rodney suddenly asked.

"Yeah. You think we could freeze this thing?" John replied.

"No." Rodney's voice was shaking. He pointed up to the control room. More pseudopods were feeling over the consoles. "I think we're screwed."

John's mouth went dry as it did something that had the claxons silenced and the transporter doors sliding open. According to the jumper's sensors, the jumper bay doors above them had opened, too.

"Imagine if it had been smart," Rodney said.