Please see first chapter for disclaimer, rating, warnings, pairings, etc.

Part 10/?

-Chapter 10-

Release

During the twenty-five minute flight to the mainland, tension smothered all conversation inside both of Jumper One's compartments as, according to standard search-and-rescue protocol, it followed Jumper Seven's planned route. John kept the HUD scanning for life signs at its widest sensitivity. He was glad when no one, not even Rodney, pointed out that any survivors and/or floating debris would be widely dispersed by wave and wind action after three days. Jumpers Two, Three, Four, and Six would be deploying to fly wider search patterns as soon as they were cleared for flight. But it fell to Jumper One to adhere to the exact flight plan as filed by Lieutenant Johnson.

A shadow grew on the horizon, resolved itself into the mainland. Rodney, riding shotgun in the copilot's seat, automatically leaned forward. John sensed Carson and Radek doing the same in the two jump seats. He slowed the jumper's airspeed as they got closer to land, his eyes flickering from the HUD to the view through the front port, and back again.

"There! There! Off to the left, do you see it?" Zelenka all but lunged into the space between the pilot and copilot's seats, arm jabbing excitedly. Carson stood, too, leaning over the back of Sheppard's seat. John immediately brought the little ship to a hover over the waterline and turned its nose in the direction indicated. An instant later he felt as if a giant had punched him in the gut when his brain registered what his eyes were seeing.

A cross – rough, but unmistakably a cross – planted on the beach as a marker. His chest tight with dread, he nudged the jumper a little closer. And there behind its long shadow was, just as unmistakably, a walled-up grave.

Carson dropped heavily back into his seat as Zelenka murmured something in his native Czech and bowed his head. Rodney made a kind of groaning noise. "Teyla— Ronon—" He sagged back, looking sick.

Sheppard stared at it for a long moment, then slowly shook his head. Speaking past the constriction in his throat, he said flatly, "It's Johnson."

"How could it possibly be Johnson?" McKay lashed back at him, sounding half angry, half like he was fighting back tears. "That's a cross, Colonel, an Earth symbol,Ronon or Teyla wouldn't know—"

"Ronon would." John felt the certainty grow more and more sure inside him. He sensed three pairs of eyes targeting him intensely, and his shoulders twitched in discomfort. "What? It was really, really late, we got to talking about – things, about – beliefs— Ronon's a soldier. He'd remember something like that." He backed the jumper while rotating it to give them a wider view of the beach. "I don't see any sign of their jumper, but— Wait a minute. What's that down the other way?" He sent the ship drifting in that direction.

"It looks like a pile of stuff out of a jumper!" Beckett had grabbed the back of John's seat again and seemed to be trying to shake it. "And surely that was a campfire!"

"Yeah." John sent an extra thought at the HUD just in case it had forgotten what he wanted it to look for. He bit his lip when no life sign dots popped up in response. "All right," he said, thinking it through. "We know they made it this far. There's only one grave. We know they aren't here now." He mentally tweaked the HUD and studied the results. "But from here. . .?" He frowned and rubbed his upper lip with a finger.

"Hopefully not that way." Zelenka squinted at the upper left portion of the display. "Looks like a frontal boundary has stalled out over that part of the mountains, lots and lots of rain."

"Terrain's too rough that way anyhow," John responded absently, thinking, C'mon, guys, help us out here. Couldn't you have left a sign saying, "We went this way"?

"Colonel," Beckett spoke up, sounding as if he didn't much like what he was saying, "if Johnson died from injuries sustained in the jumper's crash, we can probably assume Ronon, or Teyla, or both, were injured as well, perhaps even badly."

"Um, I'd say that's a given." Rodney was also studying the HUD, his expression bleak. "Uninjured, Teyla and Ronon could've hiked the most direct way to the settlement and back at least twice. Which means we wouldn't be here now. Sheppard," he shook a finger at the display, "what about this way?" He traced a route in the air with his finger. "It's longer, but—"

"—It's also fairly easy going. Comparatively speaking." John nodded decisively, reached for the com and activated it. "Atlantis, this is Sheppard. Get me Doctor Weir."

Elizabeth must've been right by the console by the swiftness of her response. "I'm here, John."

He gave her a capsule report of what they'd found and what they'd surmised, ending with, "Only one jumper needs to come to these coordinates, to retrieve Lieutenant Johnson's body. The others can stand down."

"Understood." He heard the sadness in her voice, and wondered if she, like him, was remembering their lighthearted conversation about the young Marine having the time of his life. "Let us know what you can when you can."

"Roger that. Sheppard out."

The tension in the cockpit, thick as it had been before, seemed ten times worse as John flew the jumper inland. As the ocean and sinking sun disappeared behind the mountain looming on their left, the HUD stayed stubbornly blank of what they wanted most to see. Sorrow over Johnson's death, along with vivid images caused by Beckett and McKay's comments about the likelihood of his teammates being injured, niggled at the back of Sheppard's mind. It took all his military training to shut out those distracting thoughts.

The jumper continued its long curve around the mountain. Come on, come on, come on— At first he thought the monotonous beat of those words existed only inside his own head. Then he realized Rodney was chanting them under his breath.

Come on, come on, come ON—

Two dots, very close together, popped up on the extreme edge of the HUD's range.

"YES!"

John never knew for certain afterward if that triumphant yell came from one throat, or three. He kept all his attention determinedly focused on getting as quickly as possible to whom he passionately hoped those dots represented. Sending the jumper swooping over the final distance, he brought it to a halt that, if the ship had been a car, would have been a screaming slide.

"Where are— Oh." Apparently, McKay spotted the two motionless figures slumped on the edge of a small open space at the same time John did. "Oh, that doesn't look good."

Carson was on his feet again. "Can you land us, Colonel?"

John was already rotating the ship on its short axis, while nudging it delicately downward. "Get ready to go, Doc," he said tightly, as he started the hatch lowering. Beckett headed for the rear compartment. Evidently the two PhDs took his command to include themselves; they were right on Carson's heels.

The jumper settled, the ramp still only three quarters of the way down. As soon as it touched ground, John was out of his seat, thinking at his ship, Shut yourself down! The control console went dark behind him. He pounded through the length of the ship to the hatchway. Catching the edge of the frame with his left hand, he used his momentum to swing one hundred eighty degrees as he leaped. He landed, knees flexed to absorb the impact, ran for the cluster of people halfway along the jumper's side, and skidded to a halt just short of mowing over Zelenka.

Ronon held Teyla across his knees, his muscular arms wrapped protectively around her slight body. She was clearly unconscious, her labored breathing having an ominously audible wheeze. Beckett knelt in front of Sheppard's teammates, his arms partly extended as if to receive Teyla into them. Ronon's sunken eyes were locked on the Scot's. The manic glitter in them reminded John strongly of his first encounter with the Satedan.

At the exact moment of John's arrival, Rodney went to one knee beside the couple, and very carefully put a hand on Ronon's left shoulder. "Ronon," he said, his voice as gentle as John had ever heard it, "it's okay, you know you can trust us. Let Carson have her."

Ronon's eyes rolled Rodney's way. "Said 'can't,' McKay," he croaked hoarsely, "not 'won't.'" He looked down at Teyla, and seemed to will the fingers of his right hand to release their grip on his left wrist. He lowered that arm from around her, revealing the bandages swathing Teyla's midsection to them. And – something shiny and hard was sticking out from under the bandages. McKay uttered an oath that was more than half a prayer. John echoed it under his breath.

"Other end's in her lung. That's why you can't take her from that side." Ronon slipped his left arm under her knees. He drew a deep breath, his big frame tautening visibly. "Just get out of my way. I'll carry her to the jumper."

John opened his mouth to speak, but Carson beat him to it. "I don't think so, lad," he said, his voice both compassionate and authoritative as he gestured to two of the trauma team. They immediately moved in with a stretcher. "Ye've carried her far enough. We'll take her from here."

After the briefest of pauses, Ronon nodded his agreement. With the willing help of expert hands, he eased Teyla onto the stretcher, and then sat back again on his heels, looking utterly worn down. The trauma team lifted the stretcher with practiced smoothness and immediately started for the rear of the jumper. Beckett trotted alongside, issuing rapid-fire orders that included words like "dehydration," "bolus the fluids," and "oxygen." Ronon's glazed eyes tracked after them for a moment, then rolled back as he slipped slowly sideways.

Sheppard took an automatic step forward. But Rodney had already tightened his hold on Ronon's shoulder and planted his other hand firmly in the middle of his sagging teammate's chest, just as Radek quickly dropped to his knees and propped him up on the other side. Uttering a curt, "He needs a stretcher," John started to pivot away.

"No. I can walk." Ronon's voice stopped him. "Just – somebody give me a hand up." He raised his head and pinned John with an intense look. "Go ahead and get the jumper ready to lift. I'll be right behind you."

"Yes, go, go, go." McKay pulled Ronon's left arm across his shoulders. Zelenka ducked under the right. "We've got him, go!"

John took their word for it and went. He eased his way past the huddle of medics busily working on Teyla, once again forcing himself to subjugate his deeply worried personal side to the totally focused military professional. The jumper's controls lit as he slid into the pilot's seat, the HUD coming on in response to his thought: We need a really fast way home. A white line traced itself from his current position to a suborbital point midway to Atlantis, back down again to the city.

For about the millionth time, Sheppard gave fervent thanks for inertial dampening. Yeah. That's what I thought, too.

-Mainland-

Ronon would've liked to stay in the rear compartment, close to Teyla. But a firm, "You lot move on through," from Beckett quickly let him know that wasn't going to happen. He allowed McKay and Zelenka to free him from the dragging weight of the backpack, then support him to one of the jump seats in the cockpit. "Thanks," he said, giving them each a glance of sincere gratitude as they eased him down into it.

As much as his abused body urged him to let go and relax, he couldn't, not yet. He still had one more duty to discharge. "Sheppard, I need to—" An impression of sky and clouds rushing past drew his gaze to the windscreen. He tried to make his eyes focus on it, then winced at the resulting thrust of pain and dizziness stabbing through his head.

"Carson!" That was McKay, his voice strident as he turned toward the connecting doorway. "Can you spare a— Ah. Oh." Ronon got a hazy impression of Rodney backing up into the space between the front seats as a brown-haired woman carrying a med kit came into the cockpit from the rear compartment.

She bent over him, her hands already busy opening the kit and drawing things out. "Specialist Dex, I'm Doctor Julia Vernon," she said crisply. "Doctor Beckett asked me to evaluate your condition."

Ronon tried to give her his flattest, most intimidating stare. "Later. I need to talk to Colonel Sheppard."

As she ran assessing eyes over him, Doctor Vernon said imperturbably, "You can talk to the colonel after triage. Now then, that's quite a bump on your forehead. Are you experiencing any blurred or double vision? Headaches? Nausea?" She unclipped a penlight from the breast pocket of her jacket, clicked it on, and shone the beam directly into his right eye, then his left.

Ronon flinched back involuntarily. It felt as though the light was trying to set his brain on fire. Just as suddenly, his heart seemed to be beating inside his head rather than his chest. Reluctantly he admitted, "Blurred vision and headaches from the concussion. Right collarbone is cracked. No other broken bones, no internal injuries, just a lot of bruising, some of it deep muscle." He paused a beat, expecting the world to come back into focus. Instead he got the impression it was trying to slip out from under him. For the first time he noticed that the sky outside the front port was going from blue to star-speckled black. He squinted at the HUD. "What—?"

Zelenka reached across the intervening space and patted his arm reassuringly. "Fastest way is not always shortest way," he said. "Is okay, Colonel Sheppard knows what he is doing."

Ronon wanted to tell the little scientist he trusted Sheppard to do the right thing, but he wasn't able to drag his eyes away from that forward view. The blackness outside the windscreen called to the blackness building inside the back of his head. He tried to shake it away, instantly knew that had been a bad idea. Gripping the jump seat's armrests, he reminded himself of the warning he had yet to deliver. He couldn't, he wouldn't, give in to any weakness until he'd done so.

Doctor Vernon was trying to wrap something around his left bicep. Ronon flexed his arm and shook her off. Leaning forward, he grabbed the arm of the pilot's chair. "Sheppard." Even to himself, his voice sounded like it was coming from very far away. "Gotta tell you. . . Jumper sabotaged. . . Traitor on Atlantis. . ."

He recognized the roaring buzz spreading out from behind his eyes, stealing his vision. Having gone his absolute limit, he was about to pass out. As he felt hands on him once again, he announced to no one in particular, "Going now."

Unconsciousness took him.

-To Be Continued-