FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: RECON

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Carson paced in the back of the jumper, waiting as he watched the events unfold below through the viewscreen. Still threatened by the ship, the men of this planet and their…what….were those horses?...had backed off, allowing Corporal Johnson to slip in and pick up McKay. Johnson was enormous, at least as big as Ronon and twice as broad, and he scooped up McKay as if a child. Carson tried not to make assumptions when McKay's seemingly lifeless arm fell loose from blue blanket enveloping him, the lack of reaction seriously worrying. On the ground, Stackhouse looked up at the ship and gave Lorne a thumbs up before giving the order for his men to move out. In moments, they were tracking the Atlantian soldiers on the Hud as they quickly made their way to a clearing Lorne had spotted, one large enough to land the jumper. The ship itself never moved from its position, and Lorne never took his eyes off of Captain Godfrey.

Carson was going crazy, wringing his hands, trying not to panic because of his current inability to act. All he knew was Johnson's brief assurance that McKay was alive, but unconscious.

"Okay," Lorne said suddenly, "they're at the clearing."

The ship shifted, the sensation barely felt with the inertial dampeners, and Lorne sent them sailing over the trees at incredible speed. In mere seconds, they set down, and Carson hit the button to open the rear hatch even before the ship was flush with the earth.

Johnson jumped inside first, and, at Carson's direction, placed McKay on the floor. The other four soldiers came in after, weapons still pointed at the forest, and the last in shut the hatch. Lorne got them airborne and cloaked again as soon as he could, even though he knew Godfrey and his guardsmen couldn't reach them that quickly.

Carson muttered and mumbled, hissing as he quickly assessed the wounds and checked McKay's vitals. His litany of small swears and his dark expression was not lost on the other men in the jumper. Next to him, the field medic, Sergeant Greene, started to prepare the IV bags and checked the vitals Carson wasn't, quickly writing them down on a pad.

"He gonna be okay?" Johnson asked, settling down on the bench near the back hatch, rubbing a little at his sore arms and shoulders.

"No," Carson said, "Not unless I can get him back to Atlantis. Major, what—"

"We can't, Doc, not yet," Lorne replied. "We have to find the rest of McKay's team, Doctor Travis and Doctor Weir first. Is McKay awake, or can you wake him? He can probably tell us—"

"He's not awake," Carson snapped, grabbing an IV bag from Greene, "and he's not going to be waking anytime soon, son. He's in a coma, and unless I get him back home soon, he's not going to survive."

Lorne grimaced, and, for a moment, made no response.

"I see," he stated quietly, finally.

"Sir," Stackhouse had moved to sit on Lorne's right in the cockpit and was pointing to the huge stone castle at the far end of the valley. "That must be the Citadel. If the others are anywhere…."

The major nodded. "Right, guess that's where we're going."

In the back, Carson looked up from where he'd been desperately searching for a vein on McKay's arm, torn between needing to get McKay home and wanting to find the others, as they had been sent through here to do.

"Major…" he tried again. "Is there any chance we could return—"

"No, Doctor," Lorne replied, cutting him off, never turning his head to look Carson. "I'm sorry. As soon as we know where the others are, we'll get him back as soon as possible, I promise you."

"But, son, you don't understand, he—"

"Doctor Beckett," Stackhouse said suddenly, turning in his seat and meeting Carson's eyes in the back. "You know Doctor McKay better than I do, but I'm thinking there was a reason he did not mention how badly hurt he was in his message. I mean, it was pure luck that we caught that radio signal and found him, seeing as he didn't tell us where he was. My guess is, he would not want us to get him home unless we got all of the others as well at the same time." The young sergeant's eyes softened slightly, "Wouldn't you agree?"

Beckett's jaw clenched, then loosened. He closed his eyes briefly, then turned away, returning to his ministrations. "Aye," he whispered sadly. Up front, Lorne gave Stackhouse a quizzical look, not so sure he agreed with the assessment after what he'd seen of McKay on the radiation planet where they'd found Ronon, but, then, he hadn't known McKay that long either. But, if it got Beckett off his back….

"Can we try their radios?" Corporal Dunne asked, leaning over Stackhouse's shoulder, peering at the Citadel with curious eyes, impressed by how much of it was cliff and how much was carved stone. "After all, that's how we found McKay. I know we weren't picking up any other radio signals when we located him, but now that we're deeper into the valley…maybe we could get lucky again?"

"Only as a last resort," Lorne replied, adjusting his speed towards the structure. "You're right that we got lucky with McKay—lucky that Captain Godfrey was an ass and lucky that no one else was in range to hear his or our transmission. No, if the Colonel is out there and he's trying to stay hidden, he won't want us alerting them to his position by using his radio."

"Then how do we find them?" Stackhouse asked, adjusting one set of sensors on his side of the cockpit to pick up any radio signals, however faint.

"The old fashioned way," Lorne replied. "Stackhouse, adjust the main sensors to pick up large, fast moving troop movements, and Dunne, use your eyes. If they've been captured or are being chased, we should be able to spot a group of that size. There aren't that many roads down there."

"What about energy signatures?" Stackhouse suggested, "Ronon's weapon emits a faint charge, doesn't it?"

"I already thought of that," Lorne replied. He blinked and a screen showing the valley and a whole mess of faint blue dots pulsing along it sprang up. "There's tech here. Probably all small, but I doubt we could isolate Ronon's weapon in all that."

"We need better ways to track our people," Dunne said in annoyance, still staring out the front, his eyes now scouring the ground in case he got lucky.

"Yeah," Lorne snorted, "But if we could track them easily, how long do you think it would take for the Wraith to catch on?"

The young, dark-haired corporal's face screwed up at that, but he didn't disagree.

"I'm picking up at least six sets of fairly quickly moving troop movements, sir," Stackhouse announced. "Two heading into the City, two in the middle of the valley, one near the Gate, and one coming from the direction of the pass behind the Citadel."

"Okay," Lorne nodded, "Let's check 'em out. We have forty five minutes until the Daedalus gets here, and I want our people found before that."

In the back of the jumper, Carson looked up, finding it a little odd to hear that statement from the young major. He'd sounded a lot like Sheppard there for a second. With a grimace, he glanced at Greene, watching as the medic quickly entered data onto a pad, then past him to where Corporal Johnson was still sitting there watching them work. The corporal looked sad, and his eyes flicked up from their focus on McKay's face to the doctor's when he felt the scrutiny

Beckett put on his best doctor's face. "It's all right, son," he said quietly, "he'll be all right now."

Johnson continued to meet his eyes, then looked down again. "He and Teyla Emmagen saved my life, sir," the big man said softly. "During the Wraith siege, right after Doctor McKay got the ZPM installed. He and Teyla came around a corner and stopped a Wraith from feeding on me and a couple of others." He shrugged, "I could tell he didn't want to be there, or to stay with us when we went after the rest of the Wraith still in the City, but...he did." He looked up at Carson again, huge brown eyes meeting pale blue ones unabashedly. "I owe them."

Carson nodded, lowering his eyes to take in the much too pale face on the floor before him. "I know, lad," he agreed, resting a hand on Rodney's shoulder. "I know."

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TBC...oooh...I know, Lorne seems cold, but, remember, his only knowledge of McKay at this point is the McKay in Runner...not the best impression...Oh, and Johnson is nothing clever, for anyone trying to pick up on my name plays. I randomly gave that name to the big guy with Ford, Teyla and Markham in the jumper in the Defiant One when I wrote Aftermath, and he just keeps showing up in my fics. LOL!

Oh, and, yup, Lorne is USAF. I originally had USMC, but at the last second checked Gateworld and...there you go.Thank you,Gateworld!