8. The Sweetest Sound
The line vibrated wildly under his hands and Teyla's head emerged, then her shoulders, and then she was dragging herself back up onto the trunk. He almost gasped with the relief of having the weight eased as she took hold of the rope and began pulling with him to carefully pull the unconscious man up. Teyla looped the cord around a branch to lock it while Ford hooked his leg around a branch then reached over to grab Sheppard and drag him up onto the trunk. They all sat there gasping for a moment, Sheppard loosely cradled against Ford, head lolling.
"Thank you, Aiden. You saved our lives," Teyla said after a moment. Aiden moved his head far enough to look over the edge to far below where the stretcher poles had splintered and broken on the rocks at the bottom of the ravine. Still shaking at how nearly he'd almost lost them both, he didn't, or couldn't really respond. Before he was ready, he forced himself to get up, and balancing carefully, hefted the major up and over his shoulders. Good thing the major's so skinny, Ford thought to himself and slowly followed Teyla the rest of the way across.
No sooner had he settled the major beside McKay than his radio crackled.
#Major Sheppard, report.# It was Sgt. Bates and Ford did not think his own grandmother's voice could sound sweeter.
#Sgt. Bates, this is Lieutenant Ford. The major and Dr. McKay are both a little under the weather. We could use some medical assistance ASAP.#
#Lieutenant Ford, this is Dr. Beckett. Wha' is the situation?#
Ford nodded for Teyla to take over the explanations. She was the one designated as the team medic and had trained with Beckett.
#This is Teyla. Major Sheppard has been bitten on the right forearm. The wound is infected and he is running a high fever. Dr. McKay has puncture wounds on his shoulders, front and back, one deep, that also appear to be infected and his right shoulder is dislocated. I am concerned that there has been insufficient blood flow to his arm. He also has a concussion and both men are unconscious.# There was a moment of silence after Teyla's litany of their woes.
#We'll be there in fifteen minutes, Lieutenant,# came Sgt. Bates neutral response, though Ford could hear the normally low-key Beckett bellowing orders at his staff in the background.
Ford took a deep breath and let it out, closing his eyes. It was almost over. The Puddlejumper would come, Beckett would be here, everything was going to be all right.
"Hey Teyla," Ford started, "…are any of those s'mores PowerBars…"
Before he could finish asking though, he grabbed for the P-90 miraculously still strapped to his chest and fired over Teyla's head. "Shit!" The dinos that had chased the major and Teyla were still hungry and had come back for seconds.
'Sorry but we are not on the menu!' he thought and fired off a few rounds, severing the head of one unlucky bastard.
Teyla was firing as well, her 9mm barking, and he tried frantically to remember how many rounds were left in this magazine. There was at least one more magazine but that was it. Teyla ran out of rounds and slamming another clip into the gun, continued to fire. Then the chomposaurs were gone. At least for a moment. He and Teyla stood there, arms locked in firing position and guns ready. It was still.
"Damn!" he swore, lowering his gun. "If we get outta this place I am never coming back, not even if McKay finds a machine that MAKES ZPM's!" He glanced down at the two men almost involuntarily. Teyla's empty clip lay on McKay's leg. "How many magazines have you got left, anyway?" He already knew the answer, and so did she, but Teyla went through the motions of checking through her vest and BDU pants pockets just in case.
"I have no other magazines and approximately 8 rounds left in the clip in my gun," she said somberly.
"And it looks like I've got four in this clip and one magazine left."
"I counted at least seven of the predators," she said.
"We just have to hang on until Bates gets here," he said, trying to sound confident. "We're both good shots; we'll just have to make every shot count." Teyla nodded and didn't speak. Part of him appreciated that, knowing she didn't believe it any more than he did.
They stood back to back beside their teammates and waited. They didn't have to wait long. The chomposaurs knew an easy meal when they saw it and the death of one beast just meant more for the rest. They came from several sides at once, and Ford was shocked all over again at just how friggin' huge these things were. They easily towered over him easily by several feet, but they were so stupid it was like target practice in some ways, except it seemed to take a lot more shots than usual.
Thick-skulled, he thought to himself as he fired the last round he had and heard the click of an empty magazine fall from the P-90. Teyla too stood empty-handed but for her knife. There were still two monsters left, and the two of them armed with nothing more than hunting knives.
#Atlantis, if you can hear us, we need you now!# Ford shouted into his radio as the chomposaurs started towards them.
Ford changed his mind about Bates; the sweetest sound in the universe was the sound of a Puddlejumper blowing up giant man-eating dinosaurs. Teyla and he watched in bone-melting relief as one of Atlantis' finest trained weapons on their tormenters and blew them to kingdom come. Ford found he did not even mind getting pelted with chunks of raw dinosaur.