"Oh, Colonel. Sorry about that." The owner of the Beretta dropped it quickly. "You'll find we're all a little jumpy. Guess I should have been expecting you though."

Lieutenant Payson had a cut running along his right shoulder, but by the way he was grinning you'd have thought he'd just won the lottery. A cursory glance around the bridge revealed that no one was in critical condition and Sheppard allowed himself a sigh of relief. There was one problem though.

"Where's Colonel Caldwell?" Apparently, Ronon hadn't missed the man's absence either.

"He went down to engineering to give them a hand. Honestly, I think he was getting a bit stir-crazy up here. There's absolutely no power and not even Hermiod seems to be able to do anything about it."

"McKay's on his way there now." No power, that would explain the lack of communications, but – "How did you get here without any power?"

"We limped home, sir. We were in pretty bad shape after the battle." He smirked ironically, "well, still are. But when the colonel ordered us to retreat we were venting atmosphere. The sub-light engines had been hit. Somehow we were able to engage hyperspace. Amazingly it cut out right when we arrived. Kind of like a miracle, isn't it sir?" The lieutenant was still grinning like a maniac. You had to hand it to the kid, nothing could kill his spirit.

John couldn't help but grin back. "Yeah." Turing away he activated his radio. "McKay are you there yet?"

A very irritated, "We're going as fast as we can," replied.

"Colonel Caldwell should be there when you arrive, ask him to return to the bridge would ya?"

"Alright, alright. McKay out."

After the brief conversation, John returned to the task at hand. "What can you tell me about the battle?"

The lieutenant exhaled slowly. Clearly the tale was neither an easy nor a short one.

Sheppard braced himself. Since the extent of the Daedalus' injuries had become clear he had known that the battle had been more serious than anyone on Atlantis had imagined. The lieutenant began his narrative, starting from the very beginning.

XXXX

"We're nearly there Colonel. A few more minutes and we'll be within communications distance." Leo Payson informed Caldwell from his station at tactical.

"Drop out of hyperspace just out of scanning distance. Let's not give them any chance to attack."

"Aye, aye sir." Payson affirmed brushing a stray blond bang out of his face as he turned back to his console. Praying this wouldn't take long, he entered the sequence to disengage the hyperspace generator. Unconsciously he braced himself for the jolt he knew wasn't coming. Even though it was impossible to tell when you were entering or exiting hyperspace unless you were near a window he always expected there to be a massive shift in inertia.

A blue sphere appeared on the view screen. From this distance it was only the size of an orange until the proper magnification was put into place. A strip of land ran along the equator, causing the planet to look as if it had rings.

"What are the long distance scanners picking up, Major?" Colonel Caldwell asked of the red head to his right.

"There are a few regions of enormously high energy readings." Major Cooper answered in his slight English accent. "Wait, we're being targeted!"

"Evasive maneuvers!" Payson recognized the note of carefully restrained panic he had become familiar with the few times he had flown with the colonel. Just as he was reaching to follow the command there was a jolt which shook the entire ship causing him to be thrown onto the ground hitting his head against the console on the way down.

He awoke what he gathered to be a few minutes later, but he could tell that the battle was already over. Upon first opening his eyes he saw that there was an unfamiliar airman occupying his seat. There was a burn mark along the man's left shoulder. Disoriented and beginning to feel the coming of a massive migraine he shifted upright slowly. This movement summoned Major Cooper to abandon the panel he had desperately been pounding on to come to Payson's aid.

"You took quite a bump on the noggin. Sorry we left you on the floor there, but we've had other worries."

"How's she look?" Leo queried, his own health forgotten as he took in the state of the bridge. He noticed that the stars outside were quite stationary and he wondered if the engines were working.

"Well, she's looked better mate. Here ya go." Cooper offered as he helped the man to his feet.

"What happened?"

"Wha, you don't remember conking your head on the console there?"

"After that."

"We got shot."

Payson glowered at him as respectfully as possible. Cooper only met this with a laugh. "Then we got shot a few more times. Then we stuck out tail between our legs and ran faster than a bunny with a hound at its heels. Amazing we even got away in one piece at all really."

With this information Payson turned to more closely survey the bridge. It didn't look too worse for wear, if you ignored the exposed circuits and the fire damage that was. Caldwell was barking orders at a half dozen mechanics who apparently weren't working fast enough on a section that Leo was sure housed the life support for the upper decks. There were a myriad of other airman and civilian scientists poring over consoles and workstations. Cooper had returned to updating the colonel on the ship's status while sporadically pounding the console in front of him.

Relieving the clearly inexperienced airman from his station, Payson's fingers flew across the touch screen as he scanned the ship for damage. What he saw nearly knocked him out of his seat again. There was an entire section of the ship missing. As if the Daedalus had gone in for a nose job and the surgeon had simply removed the entire nose rather than fix it. This caused Payson to consider how Michael Jackson must feel and he snickered despite himself. That was just his personality though; nothing could keep him down for long.

"Something amusing over there Lieutenant?"

Leo flinched at the harsh voice of his commander. "No not at all sir." He returned to his examination of the ship and was met with another nasty shock when he pulled up the status of the hyperdrive. Not being an engineer he wasn't completely sure he was interpreting the readings properly, but a nearby woman speaking to Caldwell confirmed his fears.

"Sir, the drive could fail at any moment. Not to mention the fact that the shields are barely holding us together as it is. I'm not sure that we'd survive another jump to hyperspace."

Clearly on his last nerve Caldwell drew his brows together as if facial distortion would expend some of the energy that was clearly coursing through his veins. "We need to get back to Atlantis as soon as possible to warn them. Now tell me how we do this Lieutenant."

"A patch!" The woman exclaimed quite inexplicably.

"Excuse me?" The Colonel's voice was lower than normal.

"If we can get the hyperdrive stabilized we could get it running long enough to make a series of jumps back to Atlantis. If we could hybridize its systems to another, say the sub-light engines then we might be able to give it enough power to get us back home."

"I thought the sub-lights were offline."

The woman broke into a dazzling smile, "We can fix that."

"That's what I like to hear. Have at it, Doctor."

"Yes, sir."

Two hours later, even Payson was beginning to get worried that maybe fixing the hyperdrive wasn't as easy as it sounded, not that it had sounded easy to him, but that energetic woman had seemed confident enough.

Caldwell was pacing. Or what would have been pacing if there had been enough room to do so. He was wavering back and forth in front of his chair. Every so often he would scowl at a team of workers, but then turn away and waver some more. As a military man it seemed like he was having hard time 'staying out of the way' so it was no surprise when he announced that he was going down to engineering to see how the work was progressing. The internal communications had failed sometime in the last two hours. Payson suspected that people were siphoning off power any way they could.

Soon after the colonel had left, Leo discerned the low hum of the hyper drive from among the varied voices and mechanical sounds on the bridge. Seconds later the ship was again hurtling through the stars. A cacophony of cheers and applause erupted from those on the bridge and Payson felt his own heart lighten considerably.

The next couple days were spent repairing various critical systems as they one by one went offline. When the Daedalus eventually reached Atlantis there was no power left for anything but the basics. Everyone onboard had been so occupied trying to keep them alive that they'd barely had opportunities to sleep, let alone perform any nonessential maintenance which accounted for the state of ship when John Sheppard's team arrived.