Eyes blinked and saw only darkness. Fingers reached and grabbed ice. Legs kicked and soon Daniel Jackson was pushing out from under the ice and snow that covered him from the cave in. "Martin? Sergeant Tiller!" he called out. There was no answer, only the echo of his voice down the passageway. Looking from side to side, Daniel tried to remember where the tunnel had been but the ice wall had been reshaped from the cave in and he felt the wall until his hand pushed in on a soft spot—fresh ice from the cave in, this had to be were the tunnel was. Reaching back to his vest, Daniel pulled out a specimen bag and shoved it into the wall so that only the red seal stuck out. A little bookmark, he thought as another weaker tremor shook the passageway. As more ice fell around him, Daniel looked back and touched the wall, "I'll be back." he said softly, before turning and running down the passage way to the larger catacombs.
Running so fast that his chest was about it explode, Daniel didn't stop until he reached the red marker in the ice that signaled he would be close enough to use his radio. Sliding to a stop, Daniel leaned fell against the ice wall and pulled out his radio. "THIS IS DANIEL! THERE WAS A CAVE IN THE NORTHERN PASSAGE! SERGEANT TILLER AND DOCTOR MARTIN ARE TRAPPED! I NEED HELP!"
Glancing at his watch, Colonel Bedard marked off another hour without incident and silently thanked God for the break. Then his radio came to life and Daniel Jackson's voice screamed over the channel. As soon as the channel cleared, Bedard's eyes locked with Lieutenant Connelly's across the room. Both men nodded and sprang into action. "Alpha 6, 8 and 9 gear up! Let's go people!" Bedard called out as he slung a rescue pack over his shoulder and broke into a sprint for the tunnel to the northern passage. On his heels, Connelly and three Marine fire teams formed a rescue team.
All was silent as the rescue team ran through the passages. But as Bedard ran, he began to hear a strange noise. Then as he made the last turn the noise turned into a voice—Daniel Jackson's voice.
"Colonel! Over here!" Daniel yelled, as he stood by the bag he had marked the tunnel with.
"Jackson—what happened?" Bedard barked.
Waiting for the Colonel to stand at his side, Daniel began reporting in as though he were one of the Colonel's sergeants. "We just made it in when the tremors started—I got out, I was reaching for Martin to pull her out and the tunnel collapsed." Pausing for a moment Daniel saw a fire ignite in the Colonel eyes.
"SHE WAS IN THE TUNNEL?" Bedard yelled as Lt. Connelly came to a stop behind him.
Looking back to the Lieutenant, Daniel answered the question for them both. "I don't know—she might have cleared it at the last second—I just don't know." Bedard took a ragged breath as Daniel pointed at the wall. "This is where the tunnel was—this is where we need to dig."
"Alright, let's get started. DIXON! Get your team up here and dig me a tunnel!" Bedard yelled.
Daniel stood aside and caught the flash of fear in Colonel Bedard's eyes. Even he knew that they might not make it through.
Cold. Pain. Martin felt all of these before she even had a chance to open her eyes and even then it didn't do any good—all she could see was darkness. Moving slowly at first, she managed to get her legs working and propped herself up on her hands before standing slowly. Okay…just stay calm…don't freak out…she said softly. The shards of ice under her feet made balancing a process of shifting from one foot to the other but she managed to reach her flashlight without falling. With shaky hands, Martin held the flash light and tried to find the small on button but her bulky gloves and numb fingers refused to work and the flashlight quickly slipped from her hands. But instead of crashing to the floor as she had expected, it made a rather odd sound as it landed—it sounded more like someone GRUNTING!
"Oh my god! Sergeant Tiller?" she called out, as she pulled her gloves off and dropped to the floor to feel the ice around her. The sound didn't come again but her hand soon felt a fuzzy round object—Tiller's head. Moving her hands to his shoulders, Martin slid to his side and felt his face. "Sergeant Tiller—are you okay?" she asked, running her fingers down his neck to feel his pulse. "Oh come on, please wake up…please," she pleaded as she gently shook his shoulders. After a moment she gave up on trying to wake him up and reached out along the ice and felt for the flashlight. Finding it by her leg, she flipped the switch angled it at Tiller's face. Now she could see that from the chest down he was buried in solid ice. "Oh no…come wake up!" she yelled, shaking his shoulders harder.
"WHAT!" he screamed suddenly as he gasped for air.
Leaning over him, Martin brushed away the ice from his face. "Are you alright?"
Her touched almost aggravated him and he grabbed her wrist and pulled her down so he could see her face. "What the hell happened?" he asked as he suddenly realized he couldn't move his legs. Looking around Martin he saw the pile of ice on his chest and legs, "Oh that doesn't look good."
Sitting back up, Martin looked at the ice and winced, "Yeah, by the way…you're buried in ice."
Tiller glared up at her as he took the flash light and pointed it at the ice. "Gee, thanks for the update…I don't suppose you have a shovel handy?" he asked laying back down and looking up at her.
"Uhm, yeah actually I do," she said pulling out a small archeology tool that resembled a shovel, only it fit in the palm of her hand.
Tiller glared up at her again. "That's not funny Doc."
Tucking the shovel in her pocket, Martin looked around out into the shadows. "I wasn't trying to be funny," she said, looking back down at him. "So…any ideas for a great escape?" she asked, hoping that Sergeant Tiller's training had covered being trapped in an ice cave.
"Not at the moment, you?"
"Oh yeah, plenty," she said waiving off the question, "but they all involve a shovel and a stick of dynamite."
"No," Tiller said, pointing his finger at her. "No explosives, that would only make things worse," he said struggling to look up to where the tunnel had been. "Can you see the tunnel?"
Angling the flashlight to the wall, Martin squinted through the shadows, "No—it's completely gone but Doctor Jackson got through; he'll come back with help. I think we should just wait it out."
Tiller sighed, "If he got out."
"No, he cleared the tunnel,"
"What if the passage collapsed?"
"Can you be anymore pessimistic there Sergeant Tiller? Can't I just have my little delusions where we are going to be rescued before we freeze to death."
"Okay, you have your little rescue theory and I'll try to find a real way of getting us out of here." He tried to struggle and pull himself free but it was no use—the ice was solid and too heavy.
"Yeah, I'd like to see that," Martin said with a sigh as she sat back and held her head.
Angling the flash light at her, Tiller saw that something was wrong and reached out for her knee. "Hey…you alright? Did you get hurt?" he asked, trying to pull at her knee so she would look at him.
"I hit my head on something…in the tunnel…" she said, shaking her head slightly as though it would make the pain subside. As she looked at Tiller, she could tell he was concerned, even though he was the one half buried in ice—it was almost sweet…almost. "I'm fine," she said as Tiller glared up at her. "Really, let's concentrate on the one of us who is buried in ice. Then we can worry about my headache," she said as she started to pull at the loose bits of ice around him.
Tiller took a hold of her arm until she looked at him, "You tell me if it gets bad," he said.
Martin nodded. "I will."
Letting her arm go, Tiller saw that her radio was missing from her vest. "Where's your radio?"
"I lost it when you threw me," she said smiling.
"Well it was that or leave you in the tunnel," Tiller said, moving around as much as he could in search of his own radio.
"Oh, I'm not complaining—by all means throw me around anytime you feel like saving my life." She was trying to lighten the mood and it worked. Tiller actually smiled as he struggled under the ice.
"My radio is under me--I'm going to sit up as far as I can, see if you can reach it," he said, sitting up a few inches as Martin reached under him to pull out his radio. After struggling a moment she pulled his radio off his vest and held it in her hands. "Does it work?" he asked, watching as she flipped the switch.
Listening closely, Martin held it out to him. "Static."
Taking the radio, Tiller tried to take a decent breath before speaking. "This is Sergeant Tiller, Colonel Bedard are you there, Sir?" His voice echoed through the room as he spoke.
Then he waited…but nothing came back over the radio except static…
General O'Neill was headed for the elevator and was ready for a quiet night at home. The whole day had been nonstop insanity since he walked into his office that morning and all he wanted was a cold beer.
Letting his feet drag the last few steps to the elevator, he pushed the button for the elevator and waited—but as the doors opened the sound of quickly moving foot steps coming up from behind him told the General that he wasn't going to be having that quiet night at home after all.
"WHAT?" he asked before he even turned around and saw a very nervous Sergeant Harriman standing behind him.
"General—Sir…" he said trying to catch his breath.
"Spill it out Walter—it can't be that bad."
He nodded his head frantically and finally caught his breath. "SG-4…Doctor Martin and…Sergeant…. Tiller…cave in."
"CAVE IN?" he yelled as his eyes grew two sized larger. The weight of the world settled on his shoulders for the second time that day. He didn't wait for Sergeant Harriman to continue, he grabbed his sleeve and ran back to his office to dial up the Antarctica site.
The last two weeks ran through Colonel Bedard's mind as he watched the rescue teams digging into the ice. How he had requested to switch Felger…Anyone but Felger…he had chosen her…without any field training he had brought her on his team. This was his fault… all of this was his fault. And very soon he knew that he was going to have a phone call coming in—one that he was not all sure that he wanted to answer.
The darkness seemed to hang around the small area that the flashlight illuminated. Doctor Martin had managed to move around and keep herself as warm as possible—but Tiller was not so lucky.
"Just keep walking around, you need to stay warm." Tiller said, letting his head rest on the ice.
"What about you? Are you alright?" she asked as she walked in place.
"I'll be fine, I just have to stay awake…keep me talking," he said.
"Keep you talking? What do you want to talk about?"
"Anything, just uh…"
Martin continued to pace, "Keep you talking, okay…so uh…why did you join the Marine Corps?" she asked, as though it were the most original question in the world.
"Oh come on—that's all you can think of! Don't be a cliché Doc."
"Well you think of something!"
Tiller thought for a moment and looked up at her again. "Why did you study archeology?"
Tilting her head, she glared at him. "Okay, now you're being a cliché," she said, pacing the room in a circle now.
"Sorry, I don't usually have to carry on conversations with Doctors…what do you brainy types normally talk about?"
Wrapping her arms around her, Martin stopped and look up into the darkness as she thought about the question—what did she normally talk about with people? "Uhm… dead languages, lost civilizations, how to build a better mouse trap…movies…"
"Movies!" he said, surprised that he actually found something they could talk about. "Talk about movies…" he said through another grunt. His chest was hurting now, not that he would tell her.
She heard the pain in his voice, no matter how hard he tried to cover it. "Is it bad?" she asked looking over to him.
Tiller shook his head, "Don't worry about it."
"You know something?" she said kneeing at his side again. "That tough Marine act is only going to work for so long," she said grinning down at him as she pulled at his vest.
He grabbed her hands again, and held them away from his vest. "It's not going to help anything to tell you that it hurts like hell every time I breathe." Another sharp pain ran through his chest and he gripped her hand as he tried not to let it show.
Settling beside him, Martin shifted her hands and turned her hand into his until she was holding his hand between hers. Tiller looked at their hands and then up at her face as she reached out and brushed the ice away from his hair. "It helps me."
As his heart pounded in his chest, General O'Neill sat at his desk staring at the red phone before him—waiting for it to ring.
Walter had brought him a fresh cup of coffee as he waited but that had only lasted the first twenty minutes…and now he was just plain nervous—he really didn't want to answer the phone…and then it started ringing…
He sat up right in his chair and picked up the receiver before it rang a second time.
"O'Neill…Yes sir…I'm expecting Colonel Bedard to report in any minute now Sir—no Sir, it's about 50 miles out of McMurdo. Yes Sir…it's been two hours since the cave in Sir—initial reports said she was in the tunnel but she could have cleared it in time—Yes Sir…I understand Sir…Yes Sir…" With that he hung up the phone and rested his forehead in his hand as Walter walked in the door.
"Sir?" he asked not all sure if he should announce himself just yet.
"What?" General O'Neill asked, without looking up.
"Sir—I've got a situation report in from Antarctica—"
"Tell me good news Walter," he said looking up slowly.
"They can't make radio contact with Sergeant Tiller or Doctor Martin. And the temperature is--"
"It's summer there right? So what are we talking temperature wise…20 below?"
"Yes, Sir--normally."
Jack took a mental step back as Walter's face turned grim. "Normally?"
"There's a storm, Sir. Three miles in diameter, it should reach the outpost within 8 hours."
General O'Neill took a rugged breath and sat back in his chair, "Walter…I really don't want to have to call the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and tell him that his daughter is dead."