Slowly, begrudgingly, consciousness returned to Sheppard, and he stirred sluggishly. The smell of scorched metal pervaded the air, and he could hear intermittent sparks. As he realised he was draped across something that was digging rather uncomfortably into his ribcage, John groaned and forced his eyes blearily open.
His head rested on its side, and as his blurry vision cleared up, he could make out Rodney slumped over the co-pilot control console. As John watched, he noted with relief the soft rise and fall of the physicist's chest as he breathed, so that was at least one of his team members alive. Lifting his head on a stiff neck, Sheppard moved cautiously, testing his body for sharp pains, but was able to lay eyes first on Teyla, who looked as though she'd been tossed against the back of her seat, and then Ronon, who was half out of his seat, his head and chest resting on the jumper's fuselage. The former Runner looked the most awkward, so John decided to check on him first.
As he stood, he felt a massive rush to his head, making him dizzy, while his previously injured right thigh screamed a protest and collapsed out under his weight. Catching himself by grasping his own seat back for support, John stifled a cry as his ribs flared with pain. Carefully pushing up with his left leg, John stood holding the chair and breathed shallowly. This was definitely not one of his better landings.
After a moment, the pain settled to more or less background noise, and Sheppard was able to move again. Grabbing onto parts of the ceiling, John limped closer to Ronon and gently checked the man's pulse. Relief flooded through him upon finding a steady if accelerated beat. Unable to spot any obvious injuries, worried to move him in case of any internal injuries or breaks, John left him and moved on to check Teyla.
Teyla had taken a solid crack across the head, and blood ran down her left temple from a cut hidden in her hairline. Though the bleeding had stopped and the blood was semi-dry, Sheppard fretted, especially once he found her slow, uneven pulse. He heard stirring behind him, and Ronon grunted as he sat up.
"Sheppard?" Ronon asked as John gently, gently, grabbed Teyla's shoulders.
"Check Rodney," the Colonel said with a glance back, seeing Ronon standing, then walking without obvious difficulty.
John tried to rouse the unconscious woman before him. "Teyla?" he probed. "Teyla I need you to wake up now."
Teyla stirred fretfully, her eyelids fluttering open then slamming shut with a wince.
"There you are." John sighed, a short breath of relief. "What's your name?"
Keeping her eyes closed, Teyla licked her lips and answered in a confused voice. "Teyla Emmagan, daughter of Tagan and Torren."
John nodded. "And who is the current leader of Atlantis?"
"Colonel Samantha Carter." Teyla sounded more sure of her answer, her words less slurred.
"Where do you live?"
Teyla opened her eyes, though her expression remained pinched. "The city of the Ancestors, Atlantis."
"Alright, that's good," John said with further relief as he let go of her arms and leaned back, tilting his weight onto his left side.
"McKay seems all right," Ronon said as he straightened up.
John let out a short breath, not wanting to push his sore ribs, and settled in pilot seat, turning the chair to face the middle of the cockpit. Ronon sat back down too, and the team fell silent as they considered what came next.
"At least McKay blew that hive to kingdom come," John said at last, with a rueful chuckle. He glanced at the still-unconscious physicist, wondering how long it had been since they'd crashed. Checking his watch revealed nothing, its cracked screen showing a random series of numbers. "Teyla, is your watch still working?"
Teyla moved gingerly as she read her digital watch's reading, staring at it a prolonged moment before replying. "I believe it is a little over half an hour since we left the Hive."
John turned to stare out the scratched, cracked, and slightly buckled viewscreen. Broken branches hung haphazardly over the cockpit glass; spatters of dirt kicked up from the crash blotted the view here and there. "It'll be getting dark soon," he commented, then tried to power the ship up.
No response.
"Well," Sheppard swivelled his seat back around, "looks like comms are offline. No radio either, so no pick-up. Unless either of you brought a Protegan beacon?"
Ronon shook his head, while Teyla, still speaking carefully, answered, "I am afraid not."
"I guess we'll have to wait until McKay's up to see if he can figure out which direction the city's in," John sighed. "We'll have to hoof it in the morning."
He stood up, heading through to the rear compartment, Ronon following, and together they picked up the cases that had fallen out of the overhead netting. Digging around, they fetched four water bottles from the emergency supplies, and brought them back to the forward section. As Sheppard walked back through, Teyla gasped.
"John!"
Alarmed, Sheppard turned immediately, trying to follow her line of sight, to see where the problem was. "What? What's wrong?"
"Your leg- sit down right now!" Teyla rushed to her feet, swaying unsteadily for a moment before pushing John roughly to his seat and grabbing the first aid kit from behind Ronon's.
John stumbled back into pilot seat, then looked down at his legs. Ah, that's what she's so worried about, John thought as he saw the wet blood darkening his black BDUs. And here he'd thought it was something serious. "Woah, Teyla, calm down," he said as she tripped over her own feet, clearly feeling the effects of her head injury.
"You never should have opted out of surgery," Teyla chastised, barging past Ronon with the bulky first aid case in hand.
"Do you think anyone else could've done what we just did?" Sheppard asked disparagingly.
"Major Lorne can fly the jumper as well as you can," Teyla retorted as she kneeled down and opened the case.
John frowned. "Lorne's not quite as good a pilot as I am. But even if he was, he doesn't have the political clout to get an op like that authorised."
Teyla hummed irritably, so Sheppard decided to switch tracks. "The point is moot, anyway. What's done is done. I'm more worried about you. You took a bad hit to the head, Teyla, you should be resting, not-" John cut off with a strained grunt as Teyla tugged a little too firmly on his BDUs in an attempt to cut them open.
Her mouth dropped open and she hurriedly put the scissors in her hand down, her hands coming up helplessly. "I am sorry, Colonel," she breathed.
Sheppard bit back a groan, as the nerves surrounding the old wound, previously frozen with local cryo, let the full breadth of their displeasure be known. "Maybe let Ronon handle it," John suggested weakly.
Teyla's ashamed and repentant expression tore at him as she slowly stood back, looking miserable.
"If it helps," John offered, "I'll admit, you were right, back at Zolaria."
Teyla gave a half-hearted smile. "I always knew that."
Ronon sighed as he knelt down, picking up the scissors Teyla had abandoned. John lapsed into silence as the Satedan, not unkindly, cut away enough material to see the freshly bleeding injury. "This looks like it happened today, not six days ago."
"Yeah, that cryo stuff is pretty impressive," Sheppard said, staring up at the jumper ceiling. He knew the tightness of his voice betrayed the pain he was in. It actually felt worse than when the bullet tore through days ago. "Mind you, I'm not so impressed by the after effects."
"Medicus Barukazar warned you the nerves would become inflamed once they thawed out," Teyla pointed out.
"To be honest," John grunted, "I thought that wouldn't happen until I had the time to get laid up in hospital with some good painkillers."
"Sheppard," Ronon interrupted, "time for a fresh pressure bandage."
"Oh joy," the Colonel breathed, looking down at his substitute nurse. "Just do it as fast as you can."
Ronon nodded, and brusquely, efficiently, wrapped the bandage tightly around the entry and exit wounds. Sheppard bit his lower lip, but couldn't help but let one bark of pain out as the Satedan gave a sharp pull to tie off the material.
Over to his left, McKay finally stirred.
With something of a dramatic groan, Rodney slowly sat up. "What's with all the noise?" The physicist slowly took in the room; Teyla sitting slumped, gazing unsteadily at Sheppard, who breathed heavily with unfixed eyes, Ronon hovering in a crouch, open first aid kit at his feet while his arms hovered as though ready to catch Sheppard should he fall forward.
Rodney's eyes moved to take in the view through the cracked cockpit glass, then slid to John with an accusation. "You crashed us!" he whined.
Still focusing more on breathing than anything else at that time, Sheppard waved a dismissive hand at Rodney. He was not in the mood for the usual theatrics.
As though satisfied that John was not going to collapse anytime soon, Ronon stood, pulling the first aid kit over to Teyla, and gestured for her to turn her head. When she did so, Ronon carefully began cleaning the blood off her face, trying to find the cut so he could treat it.
Rodney grabbed one of the water bottles Sheppard and Ronon had brought through, then paused. "So we obviously made it off the hive, what happened?"
John let out a breath, then, speaking haltingly, filled the physicist in. "We told the fighters to clear out, and were almost at a safe distance when some sort of shockwave the jumper couldn't identify shorted out the power supply. Knocked the jumper around a bit, too. We got spun around, so we actually got to see it when you teleported half the hive to oblivion." Sheppard shook his head in disbelief, "I've never seen anything like that."
"It worked? The hyperdrive opened the window in the same space the ship was occupying?" Rodney asked, near crowing with victory.
"Sure did. The hive was cut in two, and the debris from that K-O'd four of the cruisers," Sheppard confirmed. "Of course, we were sitting ducks at that point, got knocked into the planet ring and pulled into a tug-of-war with gravity. Gravity won."
"Gravity always wins," Rodney said dismissively.
"Well, duh. So," he paused, still breathless, "is that going to make it into our playbook?" John asked.
"Doubt it," Rodney answered. "That was a right pain, trying to override enough safety protocols to force the hyperdrive to change the window coordinates to a location within the ship. Hopefully in future situations we can still use the power overload, because a repeat performance would require as much time and effort as the first."
"Shame." John leaned his head back and closed his eyes, his thigh still throbbing painfully. "Well, you're gonna have to figure out which way the Protegan city is before morning."
"What? Why? Surely we can call for a lift?"
"The jumper comms are fried, and we're too far out for short-range."
"Well did you even try to hail a ride?" Rodney's voice pitched higher, triggering a sudden headache for Sheppard.
"Sure, you try and fix it. I'll wait here until you figure out there's nothing that can be done. Just do me a favour and keep the volume down, okay?" he snapped.
"What is your problem, Colonel?" Rodney retaliated. "You're the one that crashed the Puddlejumper!"
Opening his eyes, Sheppard glared at McKay, but Ronon answered first. "Shush up, both of you. Teyla has a concussion."
Rodney looked stunned, like the thought of his teammates being injured hadn't even occurred to him. John felt angry with himself for letting Teyla's condition slip his mind.
"And McKay? Sheppard tore open his gunshot wound. He's trying to pretend otherwise, but he's in a lot of pain," Ronon continued. "So shush."
"Okay, okay," Rodney said as he pulled a Life Signs Detector out from his vest. "Sorry."
The physicist stood, scanning the jumper controls, before moving to the rear section, pulling down the overhead crystal trays and tutting at the darkened crystals.
"Hm," he muttered. "You're right, no power whatsoever. Did the shockwave knock it out or did this happen during the crash?"
Sheppard matched his quiet voice. "During, I presume. It's all a little fuzzy."
"Guess it doesn't make much difference. This jumper's not going to fly again without a full workup." Rodney's expression brightened a moment. "Hey, I don't suppose any of you guys brought a beacon?"
"No," Sheppard answered, and saw McKay's shoulders slump.
"So we don't really have any choice except walking back." Rodney sounded so worried.
"It'll be fine," John promised. "Atheon programmed my LSD with the locations of all the emergency caches; we'll have access to additional supplies as we go."
Rodney huffed in irritation, walking back into the forward section while brandishing his LSD in all directions. "Got it," he pointed north-west, "the city is over that way, but I'm not sure how far... Unless... Give me your LSD."
Sheppard handed over the Ancient device.
Rodney pulled something up on it, then they could hear it scanning. "Yep, I've got the cache locations, now with this and a map of the continent I should be able to narrow down our location within a few klicks." Rodney sat down and pulled out his tablet, visibly comparing the two devices' readings and muttering under his breath.
Finished with patching up Teyla, Ronon went into the back and opened the rear hatch, striding outside without a word. Sheppard only then noticed the smoke hanging around in the air, irritating his lungs. With the rear hatch open, the air started to clear.
Sheppard inhaled, savouring the sweet, fresh- if dry- air flowing through the ship. As he drew in a deeper breath, his ribs flared, and his diaphragm spasmed. Wincing, he coughed weakly, trying very hard not to cough, knowing it would only upset his ribs more. Finally managing to smother the fit, Sheppard looked up to see both Rodney and Teyla staring at him.
He froze for a moment, then hastily rearranged his expression to look a little less caught-out. "Glad that smoke's clearing out, hey?"
"Colonel," Teyla stated, waiting with a patient look on her face.
John tried to throw on his poker face, but pain skewered it, kept him off-balance. "I'm fine."
Rodney groaned with exasperation. "So are your ribs broken or sprained?"
Sheepish, John avoided both his teammates' gaze.
Rodney slapped his palms down on his thighs. "For crying out loud, Colonel, just tell us which one it is."
With his head turned away from Teyla and Rodney, Sheppard muttered, "Sprained. Pretty sure anyway."
Evidently Teyla didn't believe him. "Ronon," she called quietly, "would you mind checking the Colonel for any floating ribs?"
The Satedan reappeared in the open hatchway, quickly striding into the jumper to stand before John. "Sit up straight a sec."
"I could really do without the theatrics," Sheppard mumbled, but complied anyway, and allowed Ronon to press firmly on his upper back and chest.
Ronon kept an eye on John's face, watching carefully for signs of pain, as he completed his examination. "Nothing obvious," he said, before picking up the remaining water bottles. "You guys need to drink."
"Thank-you, Ronon," Teyla said, accepting a bottle and sipping at it.
Sheppard received his after murmuring a quiet "Thanks."
"Rodney got us a direction yet?" Ronon questioned.
"Yeah, north-west," Sheppard answered.
Ronon nodded. "It's still over an hour until sundown; I'll scout a trail."
With that, the Satedan checked his blaster and left the jumper.
"Rodney, put that down a second," John said, cautiously standing up.
"Colonel, I need to figure out the distance so we can plan our hike properly," McKay retorted.
Sheppard shook his head. "You'll still be able to do that after dark, but we need to get something of a camp set up."
"The jumper will protect us from-"
"The jumper keeps filling itself up with smoke. I don't think it's smart to breath that stuff in over a long period of time." Sheppard sighed. "But I suppose, if that doesn't worry you, and you don't mind having a cold dinner..." he trailed off for dramatic effect.
McKay set the LSD and tablet aside. "Actually, maybe a campfire and tents aren't such a bad idea."
Teyla smiled in amusement as she, too, got to her feet. "Colonel, be careful of your leg. I shall help you set up the tents, Rodney can collect firewood and clear the ground."
"Alright," John said with a smile of his own. Tossing a cheeky glance at Rodney, he added, "Don't forget to check the wood is dry, servant boy."
"Everything on this continent is dry," McKay retorted. "Jeez, you bring back green firewood one time and you'll never hear the end of it."
Teyla and Sheppard pulled the small, compact survival kit out from the storage over the benches in the back, while Rodney swept past them. When they stepped out of the jumper themselves, they found Rodney waiting off to the right, above the furrow the jumper had carved in the dirt.
They tread carefully across the loose dirt, and Rodney held out a hand. "Pass me the kit."
Sheppard handed off the heavy kit, and McKay set it down on firmer ground, then reached back. Not too prideful to admit he was struggling, Sheppard let Rodney help Teyla up first, then accepted the same help from both of them.
Outside of the ship, John could really see the damage their crash had wrought. The jumper itself had deep gouges in it, and the fuselage was buckled on the starboard side. John figured that must've been the side that hit the first asteroid, because they were short a drive pod on starboard. The port drive pod was mangled, smoking.
They stared at it in silence for a minute, then McKay broke the quiet. "Well there's a ship that's not going to fly again."
Sheppard chuckled. "Nah, that'll buff out."
"Ha-ha," Rodney said sarcastically. "Let's hurry up and find a campsite."
Sheppard looked around at the rolling plains they had crashed in. Dry grass blanketed most the area; here and there, small copses of trees. The jumper had come stationary halfway in a spur of dry forest that ran across the northern horizon. Narrowing his eyes, John decided the trees were a type of cypress. "Let's stick close to the jumper, next to the trees," he suggested.
"Not under them?" Rodney asked.
"Falling branches, remember? If there's a risk of a storm you never set up under trees. We covered this in basic survival, back in the first year of the expedition."
"Right, right, I forgot." Rodney made a beeline for the front of the jumper, where he picked up one of the larger green branches broken off by the ship.
"Over here," Sheppard called, limping to a patch of dry, compacted dirt, a few metres out from the nearest overhanging boughs. Rodney and Teyla joined him, Teyla nodding approvingly as Rodney set to work, using his pine branch to sweep sticks and pine cones out of the way.
"That should do it," the physicist said, finishing up. "I'll go get that dry firewood."
"Good job, Rodney," Sheppard said with a smile, watching him wander off, keeping close to the edge of the trees, in sight of the team.
"He has learned much since he first joined the team," Teyla commented.
"They grow up so fast," John said in a mock-teary voice. Teyla whacked his arm playfully.
John opened the supply kit. "Okay, let's do this."
It took them about forty minutes to set up four individual, one-man tents, eighteen of which were spent on the first. But they quickly settled into a system in which John sat on the ground, connecting tent poles and laying out the folded canvas in order, making it easier for Teyla to complete the assembly. When Rodney returned with an armful of good firewood, they had him peg the tents in place; Teyla's concussion not up for the repetitive jarring motion of hammering the pegs into the ground, and Sheppard's leg not in any condition for crouching over the pegs. While Rodney hammered the pegs, Sheppard and Teyla got the fire started.
By the time Ronon returned from his scout, the sun was creeping below the horizon, turning the blue sky orange, and giving the aqua-purple-gold nebula new life. The flamboyant colour cast ever-lengthening shadows over their fully-set camp. Ronon sat down on the ground with the rest of the team, sitting in a circle around the cheerfully flickering fire.
Rodney had brought his tablet and John's LSD out of the jumper, and had resumed pouring over them while Teyla and Sheppard heated their dinner, which consisted of emergency rations and bottled water, over the fire.
"So, Ronon," Sheppard began, "if you can get the rear hatch mostly closed again, we'll leave our food in the jumper overnight. Hopefully nothing hungry will smell it if we keep it packed up properly. And whoever is on watch needs to keep a Life Signs Detector on them. Some of the native fauna shows up on it, mostly the bigger carnivores, so it'll be nice to have that forewarning if any are creeping about."
"I won't need one," the former Runner simply stated.
Sheppard couldn't argue with him on that. "In that case, you'll have first watch, Rodney can take second, I'll take third."
"So I am on the last watch?" Teyla asked.
"You're not on watch at all," Sheppard replied. "We'll have to wake you through the night to keep an eye on your concussion, so one of us three has to be awake at all times anyway. No way we're leaving you unsupervised."
Teyla frowned, but didn't argue. They ate their dinner in quiet conversation, after which Rodney finished his calculations.
"Damn, we're at least fifty kilometres out." Rodney looked up from his tablet, and suddenly all eyes were on Sheppard. "That'd be a minimum of five days' travel- or four Protegan days- given the topography of Alpha continent, if we didn't have injuries."
"We'll make it," John said calmly. "We'll break camp as soon as possible in the morning. It's not like we have to walk all the way there; we'll hit an outlying power station or military base well before we reach the city, there'll be working comms there."
None of his teammates looked assuaged, but it was either that or stay put and just hope they'd be found eventually. Ronon packed away their unused gear and left to stow it for the night. Returning from the jumper he handed something small and crackly to Sheppard.
John turned the small packet over in his hands. Two oxycodone pills, still in their individual sealed bubbles. "No," John said.
"You've got last watch, you may as well get some decent sleep now," Ronon said in an undertone.
"And if something happens and I'm spaced out on morphine?" Sheppard pressed.
Ronon crossed his arms. "The stuff barely effects you in that way."
"No," John repeated emphatically.
Ronon stared down at him. Their gazes remained locked for one minute... two minutes... three minutes...
"Fine." Sheppard relented. "I'll take one."
"Good boy." Ronon sat back down, this time with his back turned to the fire, taking up sentry.
John downed one of the blasted pills then retired to his tent. Rodney and Teyla mimicked, crawling into their respective tents. Once inside, Sheppard shrugged out of his tac vest, ditching his belt, thigh holster, and boots for good measure, then tried to get as comfortable as he could under the flimsy thermal blanket, opting to lie on top of his sleeping bag because it wasn't really that cold. Knowing his pistol was out of ammo, John placed his combat knife near his head, still sheathed, but within easy reach.
He watched the still silhouette of Ronon, sitting alert, and waited for the pain meds to kick in before he finally drifted to sleep.