SURVIVING THE SIEGE, alternate ending to the Siege
PART SEVEN: BRIEF MOMENT OF CALM
Elizabeth leaned heavily against the console, breathing deeply and just trying to stop shaking. Around her, the gunfire had stopped, and she turned to see Zelenka leaning fully over his console, practically bent in half, his head buried in his arms.
Turning a little further, she saw Carson was darting around, quickly examining the soldiers in the room who were unconscious, making sure they were just stunned. Of the thirty or so soldiers holding the Gateroom, about eight were knocked out, and, once examined by Beckett, were dragged closer to the gate, to be placed on carts with the last of the supplies and pushed through when the wormhole was reestablished. The gate had shut down, as 38 minutes had passed by without anything passing through. Rodney quickly redialed the Alpha site and opened it again, before the Wraith could take advantage and block them out.
Meanwhile, the rest of the soldiers were quickly moving to stack up dead Wraith soldiers by the doors, as barricades. It was gruesome, but two sets of the doors leading to the Gateroom floor below had been breached and wouldn't reseal, and the Wraith, to put it bluntly, were handy. Obviously, the doors at the top of the stairwell leading up from the control room had also been breached, and several dead Wraith now littered the steps—those doors would have to be barricaded as well.
Turning to voice that thought, she found Teyla already advancing slowly up the stairs with two soldiers, clearly having had the same idea. Her hair was wild, but her eyes were eerily calm as she stared unblinkingly upwards, watchful for hidden dangers. Her steady, unflinching step as she climbed gave Elizabeth a boost of confidence. The two soldiers followed her without question, as if they had always been a single unit.
Turning a little further, she saw McKay was now pacing, walking up and down the room, as if looking for something more to do. His P90 was still held tight in his right arm, his left hand twitching and twisting by his side, demonstrating the roller coaster of emotions roiling within. He was on the edge, she knew. She couldn't even imagine the depth of his exhaustion, well aware that he had not been allowed any rest at all this week, and combined with whatever had happened down in the chair room….
Her eyes involuntarily lowered to the bloody mess that was his chest as he turned to head back in her direction, the scientist moving to look down to the Gateroom floor below at the damage done. How much did the Wraith steal from him? Teyla had told Carson it had been for a second, only, but even so….the pain and fear he must have felt, on top of everything else….His heart-wrenching scream ripped through her memory again, and she had to look away, her eyes turning to the display behind her again.
So many red dots converging rapidly on just one single yellow one. Where their last hope lay.
God, it looked so small...
She raised a shaking hand to her forehead, then lifted it away. She stared at the limb for a moment, watching it shake, then set her jaw. The hand gripped into a fist and steadied.
Not yet. She was not going to fall apart yet. She couldn't. This was still far from over.
"Right," she snapped, her voice sharp as Doctor Elizabeth Weir returned to herself, "Doctor Zelenka?"
"Hmm?" Radek stood up a little too quickly, and almost lost his balance. If she didn't know better, she would have thought she had woken him up. Rodney wasn't the only one who was exhausted. "Sorry? What?" He blinked rapidly at her, pushing his glasses up his nose from where they'd slipped down.
She pointed to the display, just as PJ-03X merged with UN-01.
"We can't help the Daedalus anymore," she said. "They will let us know if they succeed…or don't." She grimaced, feeling more than seeing that Rodney was watching them both, and listening as she continued to talk to Radek. "Please reconfigure the sensor to display the biometric, internal sensors again. We need to know what is happening here in Atlantis. I want to be more prepared next time the Wraith try to get in here."
Zelenka blinked, trying to get some clarity back in his fatigue fogged vision, "But, what if the Daedelus doesn't—"
"We still have the jumpers," Rodney said matter-of-factly, his eyes intense.
"Yes, of course," Radek straightened further, his eyes brightening, "Someone could bring one down here, and we could hook up one of the displays to the jumpers power source…." He nodded, stepping down from the dais as if to head towards the jumper bay.
"Doctor Zelenka," Elizabeth called softly, stopping the Czech before he went more than a few steps. "The biometric sensors first?"
"Oh, right, right," Zelenka turned around and walked back.
"I'll get the jumper," Rodney said, glancing at something behind Elizabeth, before turning to the stairs.
"Oh, no you don't," Carson called, walking past Elizabeth, coming from the main stairs leading down to the Gate where he'd just seen to it that the unconscious soldiers, including Stackhouse, were sent through to the Alpha site, "I'll get it." He reached the scientist and crossed his arms, as if challenging Rodney to deny him. "I wouldn't trust you to control a tricycle right now, Rodney, much less a jumper. Fact is, I'm not even sure you're fully conscious at the moment, so…I think I'll bring it down, if you don't mind."
Rodney simply stared at him for a moment, then shrugged.
"Fine with me," he said, heaving a sigh. "Better take this then." He held out the P90.
Carson stared at it for a moment, then, with a grimace, took the machine gun.
"It's a little low on bullets," Rodney indicated the magazine, "Might want to get more from someone before going up there. Oh, and, don't worry about the dead Wraith everywhere up there. I'm sure there's more coming." He smiled wryly, then hit his radio. "Teyla?"
"Yes?" she replied from her position now in the hall above the control room.
"Beckett's going to try and get a jumper and bring it down here. Protect him, will you?"
"Of course. The corridor is clear so far. However, Doctor Beckett, if you would please bring a life signs detector with you, that would be most helpful."
Carson arched an eyebrow at Rodney, then, holding the P90 closer, still looking horribly uncomfortable with the thing in his arms, he sighed.
"You coulda said no, you know," he reproached the other man.
Rodney shrugged back, "What? And ruin your chance to make up for the whole Sora-concussion incident? I wouldn't deny you that."
Beckett snorted, his dimpled smile growing as he looked away. A soldier still guarding the bottom of the stairs held up an extra magazine. He nodded, and it was lobbed to him. Catching it easily, he stared at it for a moment, then shoved it in his pocket. He looked back at Rodney, and found the scientist had already walked away, pacing again, his now free hands both twitching, like a pianist practicing on an imaginary piano, eyes unfocused. A second later, he was down underneath one of the consoles, prying open a panel, muttering to himself about something.
Carson glanced at Elizabeth, saw the same worried look on her face about Rodney's current state of health, both mentally and physically, and shook his head. He wanted to tell Rodney to go through the Gate. To get to safety. But Rodney knew how best to connect the jumper's systems to the City's. Elizabeth nodded at Carson's silent communication to her, the same thoughts obviously running through her mind as well.
"You going to go, Carson?" Rodney suddenly snapped from where he was now tugging out wires, "Or are you going to keep standing there like a marionette, waiting for someone to pull your strings?"
Carson sighed again, "I'm on my way," he stated calmly, not responding to the snide remark. Turning, he jogged over to the stairs, calling up to Teyla that he was on his way. The physician continued to hold the P90 like it was a dirty diaper--a little away from him and with an expression that he clearly wished he wouldn't have to use it.
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TBC (but almost done! Can you feel it? Just two more parts to go!)