Tough Waters
SGA Fanfic ---- Infection tag -- spoilers for Infection
Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate Atlantis or any of it´s characters. Also, it´s a first story... so don´t expect a masterpiece ... ;-)
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Teyla was working the flight controls of the descending hive ship, her eyes were closed in concentration, "We're in the atmosphere. Altitude one hundred thousand feet."
Todd walked onto the Bridge, followed by John.
"It is no use " Teyla gasped, "I cannot control it."
"Move aside!" Todd hissed at her, shoving her out of his way.
Rodney and Teyla got out of his way and Todd took over the controls as Teyla went to another console.
Ronon walked over to Sheppard and leaned forward: "Are you sure about this?"
John shrugged and kept his eyes closely on Todd: "Well, what can he do? We're on a freefall."
"I believe that I can successfully create a bypass that will deliver power to the forward thrusters, but it will take a few moments." Todd offered.
Rodney huffed: "OK, you just take your time"
Her whole body tensed as Teyla checked their countdown "Impact in fifteen seconds."
"Not if I can help it", Todd snarled, "firing thrusters!"
The thrusters began to fire around the outside of the Hive.
Teyla didn´t find that comforting at all, "Forty thousand feet. Still descending too fast".
Rodney began to panic, "Not enough!"
"Instead of criticising ... . " Todd stared at him in disgust and annoyance, "perhaps you could work at GETTING ME SOME MORE POWER!"
Rodneys eyes went wide:" I'm on it!" he hurried to another console.
Teyla was still tensing, "twenty thousand feet and still too fast."
Sheppard turned to Todd, "angle the thrusters; try to get the ship level. We can glide her across the water".
Todd gave him a look that clearly labeled the pilot a crazy son of a bitch.
John caught it just fine, but didn´t back down, "trust me. I've done this before."
Todd´s only reacion was a snarl
"Ten thousand feet" Teyla said.
Rodney turned from his console, "that's it. That's all the power we've got."
Todd closed his eyes and concentrated, snarling with the effort.
Outside the Hive, the thrusters began to tilt the ship.
Teyla continued her countdown of doom "Two thousand feet!"
Todd bared his teeth and put his entire concentration into the ship.
McKay looked at them with strain in his voice, "This is it! We're about to lose inertial dampeners!"
Everybody tried to brace themselves as the ship vibrated drastically and Todd continued to concentrate, his eyes rolled up into his head.
The Hive hit the ocean hard, everybody on board tried to desperately hold onto something, while the remaining half of the ship was about to scatter into even more pieces, but they were all smashed into the floor, bones cracking dangerously, blood spluttering from various body parts being slammed into hard Wraith Ship controls, glass from various monitors split into thousands of pieces and and hitting into faces and hands nearby.
The Hive skated over the surface and made a little jump up over the waves before crashing right down again, and finally coming to a swift swinging calm
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In Atlantis control room, Amelia Banks studied the screen with the exact location of the Hive in the waters in relation to Atlantis position. "They just hit the water. I've got the coordinates"
Woolsey looked at them as well, "relay them to the rescue Jumpers immediately."
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A scream nearby had Sheppard lift his heavy feeling head in the direction of Major Lorne, who seemed to have his leg caught in a part of the ship which looked about ready to fall off and rip him down with him.
John tried to stand up, but his legs felt like they had been snapped in the middle. With a grunt of desperate determination to not let the Major join any collateral damage count, he forced himself up and staggered towards Lorne on unsteady legs that threatened to give out any moment.
"Major, hold on!" he yelled and fought a dizziness that blurred his vision and caused a nausea he really didn´t need right now, but he reached Lorne just in time to haul him back into the remains of the Hive.
"Thanks!" Lorne panted as he collapsed onto the Colonel, crashing them both back down to the floor when John´s legs finally gave out under him.
John breathed hard, "No need, Major"
"You don´t look so good!" Lorne threw a worried look at his commanding officer, and then looked around. "But I guess that goes for everybody here!" he deadpanned.
John managed to haul himself onto his side, and looked through a film over his eyes around at his team members, and everybody else who had managed to make it to the front of the ship just before they had lost the rear section, luckily with all those Wraith-gone-zombie like creatures locked up behind them and therefore gone.
Ronon was slumbed over Teyla in a protective bear crouch, Teyla buried underneath, unconcious.
The sight was unsettling, "Teyla.... Ronon!" John exhaled with a smidge of relief when Ronon stirred and looked back at him.
"I´m fine..." the big guy looked at Teyla before John could even tell him to, and checked for her pulse, "She´s alive!"
Relief washed over John as his glance moved over to McKay. Rodney seemed to have hit his head on a control panel, and a slight trace of blood was running down the left side of his unconcious face, but the scientist was still breathing.
Todd was unconcious and sprawled out against a corner. He didn´t look so good himself, which wasn´t surprising, since the Wraith had already been weakened by the illness that struck his entire crew down.
A shudder went through the Hive and some piece of the ceiling, or what it used to be, fell down in several places at once.
"Watch out!" John and Ronon yelled at the same time, both gesturing wildy for the other to move out of harms way, but John was too occupied by staring horrified at the piece that crashed down towards Ronon and Teyla to notice the piece that fell from directly above him.
It hit him hard on the back of his head and back, and with a grimace, he put both hands over his head protectively but way to late to be of any help. "Crap!" was the only thing they heard, before the Colonel´s body slumbed and lay still.
"Sheppard!" Ronon yelled and hurried towards him.
He was joined by Lorne, who checked the pulse on his CO. "He´s still here... just knocked out!" Lorne said, just before more of the pieces came down and smashed down on them.
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"We just received the coordinates" Major Kersey studied the HUD in Rescue Jumper One with anxious anticipation, the Hive ship that had been hovering in orbit of their planet, now with their best teams onboard, had just been crash landing on the ocean near Atlantis.
The wave it caused would have been a dream for any surfer, Colonel Sheppard must have the best time of his life right now. That is, if he wasn´t already dead. Kersey quickly washed that thought away and concentrated back on the issue at hand.
Two Jumpers started to speed over the ocean towards the Hive laying on the water, or, on closer inspection, what remained of the Hive. That ship had been parted in the middle, the entire rear section was missing.
"We better move fast, I doubt this thing is going to cooperate with us for long!" he yelled to the members of his rescue team, and they brought the Jumper close in front of the open half, where a bulkhead door had once been.
"Opening the rear hatch now!" his pilot gave back, the hatch was lowered and the team geared up what they needed to retrieve their people.
Water was moving into the remains of the Hive quickly and their boots on the organic floor of the Hive ship were almost kneedeep in water.
"S*it!" Kersey didn´t like these conditions at all and simply hoped they hadn´t come to find their people drowned already. He flicked on the light of his P-90, studied a life signs detector and quickly waved to a corridor leading to the control room, "they´re here!"
His men followed with cautious but quick steps, pointing their guns at every corner but were undisturbed, "a ghost ship alright!" one of them said, "a Hive without Wraith is even creepier than one swarming with them!"
Kersey looked back at him, "Well, I prefer it this way!" they turned a corner and arrived at the control room, or… where it should be! "Crap!"
The life signs were behind thick walls, and they would have to shoot through them. Hopefully, without causing any more harm.
"Ok people, we have to build our own entrance here!" and he gave them a sign to use weapon's fire. After several minutes of deafening rounds, the holes were big enough to allow them through.
Colonel Sheppard´s and Major Lorne´s teams were sprawled unconcious on the wet floor, half buried in debris, apparently leftovers from the ceiling, the walls looked like they were alive, and holes in them seemed to get bigger as they still looked at it, water from the ocean rushing in in small, but bigger getting waves, becoming a menacing threat to claim the ship.
Kersey moved over to Sheppard, who was half buried underneath Major Lorne and Ronon.
They were all still knocked out, as was everybody else in the room who hadn´t just entered along with a rescue Jumper. The impact must have been quite a nasty one. Kersey and two rescue workers did their best to separate this human bundle with the best caution they could muster, making sure that no serious injuries had been caused.
"Alright, let's get them outta here!" Two of his men had been carrying stretchers, and the rescue workers started to secure their charges onto them, some of them managed to stand up on their own, woggy but able to walk, which was a good thing, because the Hive suddenly started to make some violent jumps.
Sheppard stirred slighty on the stretcher and nearly fell off when the Hive did another jolt but he didn´t wake up. A trail of blood from the back of his head hinted that he had hit either the floor or some other blunt object pretty hard. Kersey checked for any gashes but the bleeding had already stopped, although there was quite a big bump and two nasty scratches were visible over his neck and cheek.
"How are the others?" he glanced over to the rest of their people being put on either stretchers or guided by helping hands towards the waiting Jumpers hovering over the Hive wreck.
"Transportable!" came the blunt answer, and another jolt through the ship nearly knocked Kersey to the floor himself.
"Damn! We´re sinking!! Move, move, move!" he urged his men to hurry up, even though they already did. None of them wanted to drown, anyway.
By the time they reached the corridors, they had to fight through water that had already reached the height of their hips, and keeping the unconscious patients on the stretchers out of the demanding cold water proved more difficult with each step.
Finally, they heaved them into the Jumpers and took off for good.
As the Jumpers gained altitude, they could see the remains of the Hive doing a Titanic style bolt upright until it sank into the ocean.
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Marie and several other of the nurses had all hands full with not only one team in need of medical attention, but actually two.
Richard Woolsey came into the infirmary with a look of concern towards Sheppard and his team; his look lingering on the Wraith being led to the isolation room before returning his attention to his second in command, but found him hovered upon by the nurses, as were all the rest of his team. Lorne and his team weren´t any better off either.
He wanted to ask what happened, but decided that later would be a better opportunity. As he turned to leave, he heard a half conscious Sheppard begging a nurse to help Todd because of a deal or something.
He wondered if one of these days, they would not all regret it, but decided to ask his questions later and moved out of the crowded infirmary to avoid standing in the way.
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Woolsey was reading a book in his office, when a figure in the door frame distracted him. He looked up and saw Sheppard looking at him. "Colonel. Good to see you back on your feet. How's the rest of your team?"
John simply shrugged, "yeah, recovering. Took quite a jolt when we hit the water."
Woolsey grimaced again, as John walked over and sat down in the chair opposite to him "I can imagine"
He put his book aside, "You were lucky. By the time Major Kersey and his team were able to blast their way down to your position, the Hive – what remained of it – was already half full of water. It sank minutes after they extracted you"
Sheppard actually seemed disappointed: "Hmm. Wish I was awake to see that"
His gaze went over to the wallscreen showing Todd sitting on a bench in the isolation room, with his back to them. "How is he?"
Woolsey looked at the screen as well, then back to John, "Not well. He hasn't responded to any treatment." He put a mark into his book and closed it, before returning his gaze to John with a frown "I received your request."
Sheppard leaned a bit forward with anticipation "And?"
"Forgive me if I'm wrong but weren't you the one who wanted to destroy his ship when it first appeared?"
Damn that good memory! John screwed up his face a bit in mock surprise, "Mmm, sounds vaguely familiar."
"And now you want me to go against protocol and let him go."
John waved in Todd's direction, "Well, he is the reason we're alive."
Woolsey wasn't ready to leave it at that though, "I realise that, Colonel. He's also the reason you were in danger in the first place – not to mention an incredible security risk."
Sheppard shrugged and tried a more reasonable approach, "All right, look: he's probably gonna die anyway." Which probably wasn't so far off, the crazy Wraith was about to let an Iratus bug of all things feed on him. That thought alone made the scratch on John's neck itch worse than it should. An old reminder of a long faded scar.
"And if he survives?" Woolsey still wasn't convinced.
"If he survives, he's gonna remember what we did. Like it or not, he's the best ally we've had in the fight against the Wraith. If we ever get around to perfecting this gene therapy, we're gonna need his help to deploy it."
"You realise this is the kind of decision that could cost me my job?"
Sheppard deadpanned "Well ... aren't they all?!"
Woolsey couldn't help but return a smile.
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John waited in front of the Gate with an open wormhole as Todd is led to him by two marines guarding him. He gives them a sign, and the marines leave.
Todd looked at him. "I appreciate your decision to let me go."
Sheppard tried his best to keep an indifferent stance, and simply shrugged, "A deal's a deal"
Todd lowered his head a little, "I will remember this, John Sheppard."
John didn't answer but simply stared after him as the Wraith stepped through the Gate. He couldn't help feeling that this wouldn't be the last time he saw Todd.
End