Serendipity
Chapter 2: Fateful Flight
Rodney dragged me into the puddle jumper and eased me down onto one of the side benches in the rear compartment. I was weak as a newborn kitten and still wheezing like I was having the mother of all asthma attacks. I watched groggily as he reached overhead into the storage bin and pulled out the portable oxygen tank, extra bandages, an emergency blanket, and--bless all that is holy--more painkillers. As he placed the mask over my face and released the flow of gas from the tank, I greedily sucked in the cool, life-giving oxygen.
Oh sweet relief! After the last bout with that local lowlife who wanted me dead, I just couldn't get enough air into my lungs as I labored and gasped for breath. I was willing to bet that while that inhabitant of M5J-346 was using my body for soccer practice, he succeeded in busting a rib or two. Between the bullet in my chest and the boot marks on my side, I was in dire straits. If I were still alive when we reached Atlantis, Beckett would have his work cut out for him putting my sorry butt back together. I'm not sure how he managed it, but thanks to Rodney somehow getting me back to the puddle jumper, the good doctor might still get that chance.
Since my eyelids kept drooping tiredly, I didn't immediately see that Rodney was starting an IV. On a good day, I would never have let the astrophysicist come near me if he were armed with a syringe. I was not normally a fearful man, but the sight of McKay brandishing a sharp needle pointed in my direction was enough to make me extremely nervous. Put a screwdriver or a fragile circuit board in his hand, and he was steady as a rock. But put a needle in his hand, and suddenly the man developed more tremors than a drug addict sweating it out in detox. Thankfully his doctorate was in astrophysics instead of medicine or he would have missed his true calling. If I had been feeling more like myself, there would be no way in hell I would let McKay turn me into a human pin cushion while he jabbed away in search of a vein. But since I was only semi-alert at this point, I barely flinched when I felt the pinprick against my flesh. As soon as he finished with the IV, he draped the blanket over me and tucked it around my body to ensure it stayed in place for the duration of the long flight home.
After settling me in, McKay got up and rushed forward to the cockpit and sat down in the pilot's chair. Usually this would also be something to make my blood curdle and my stomach churn. McKay was flying MY jumper without me at least riding shotgun in the co-pilot's seat. McKay. Flying. Solo. I shudder at the thought. But since I had been losing blood at an alarming rate, I doubt I had enough left in my body to curdle, and I had already tossed my cookies. So due to the nature of my injuries, I simply lay there in resignation as our resident Chuck Yeager wannabe wrestled with the controls of my aircraft.
I felt the jumper shudder and heard the engines whining in protest as McKay slammed the throttle handles back with all the finesse of an oversized bull loose in a china shop. Damn it! If I only had the energy, I would have yelled at him to handle that control stick with the same care that he would with a DeWalt. We took off at a much steeper angle than I normally would advise, given the current pilot's lack of expertise. But I decided to chalk up the rough take-off to McKay's eagerness to make haste and get us off this cursed planet.
I couldn't fault him too much when he was only trying to save my life. Well, not much. I practically bit my lip to keep from being overly critical of how he was handling the spaceship. No need to make him more nervous than he already was. But when the jumper abruptly bounced as its bottom hull brushed against the treetops while we sped away, I just had to finally say something.
"Jesus, McKay. Remind me to revoke your learner's permit." I hoped my voice was strong enough to carry to the cockpit.
Using the jumper to prune some overgrown branches along the tree line was not going to earn McKay his pilot's wings. Not if I had any say in it. Besides, last time I checked his degree stated he was an astrophysicist, not a certified tree surgeon. I heard another faint scraping sound as the fuselage again made contact with the forest canopy. Crap! This was no way to treat a jumper. Not my baby. She may not look as sleek as an F302. In fact, she looked more like the cardboard tube from a roll of toilet paper, but she handled like a dream. It was like flying a plane that read my thoughts and reacted to them instinctively with only the lightest of touches required at the controls. Not the ham-fisted, white-knuckled way McKay was gripping the joysticks.
We lurched a bit to the right as the hell-bent-flying scientist, would-be space pilot overcompensated as he tried to clear some other obstacle in our flight path. Holy shit! I wish I could fully see what was going on up there. If the bullet wound didn't kill me, McKay's questionable flying skills may as hell might.
"Ah, sorry, Colonel. Just a little unexpected crosswind. Nothing to worry about." He called back to me as if to explain his sorry excuse for a take-off.
"Crosswind my ass." I softly muttered, not sure if he heard me even though I had slipped off the oxygen mask so my voice would carry into the cockpit. Since when does a little crosswind leave bark scrapings on the edge of the windshield?
I closed my eyes after repositioning the oxygen mask, but refused to let the darkness take me a second time. Maybe some subconscious, watchdog part of me could not relinquish control--at least not with McKay piloting the jumper. Though if raw enthusiasm counted for anything, he might eventually become a fairly decent pilot. Someday. Maybe. After many, countless hours racking up flight time honing his skills and many more severely trying my patience. Fighting to stay awake, I concentrated on conserving the little energy I had left and focused on the difficult task of simply breathing in and out. In and out. I could do this. I had to. The alternative was unthinkable.
As I struggled to draw in air, I tried not to contemplate the possible damage done by the bullet as it had plowed through my body. Each inhalation grew more painfully labored and every exhalation sounded progressively wheezy and strangled. If this were what it felt like to slowly asphyxiate on your own blood, I'd rather take a clean shot to the head any day. It was a quick and relatively painless end rather than the slow, tortuous, drawn-out death I was experiencing now. Though this probably beat getting the life sucked out of you by a Wraith any day. That kind of hellish death was something I would never wish on my worst enemy!
Considering my job description and the place I now called home, I never figured I'd get to live to a ripe old age, dying peacefully in my sleep. My vocation was just too risky, every mission a crap shoot. But I would have never imagined though, I'd end up watching my life's blood spill out, choking to death after being the unwilling target of a simple village hunter with attitude. I may not be going out in the blaze of glory that most fighter pilots hoped for, but at least I had managed to keep McKay from going down with me. There was something to be said for that. At least I had saved my best friend.
To hear Rodney talk, you would think I had a big red bull's-eye painted on my back. I do admit some of the populace of the Pegasus galaxy appeared to always greet me with hostile intent, but it's not like I intentionally set myself up to be a target to test their shooting skills. I'm basically a nice guy, so I couldn't figure out why in the hell people always seemed to be gunning for me. I guess lady luck just had it in for me. Or maybe, it was just my bad karma. Maybe it was cosmic payback for all the past mistakes I had made. Mistakes that had cost others their lives.
I drifted on a sea of pain. Not fully alert to my surroundings, yet not completely oblivious either. It was like I was trapped in strange limbo between this world and the next. If there were indeed a next. I never considered myself a religious man or even a philosophical one, but I now wondered what awaited me once I stepped across the threshold of death's door. Would I simply cease to exist, finding only a black void? Or would an indefinable part of me continue on long after my body departed off the mortal coil? If there were indeed some form of afterlife, I sincerely hoped I would no longer be tormented by the ghosts of all those I failed to protect during the time I was alive.
Their faces already haunted my nightly dreams. I don't know if they condemned me for their untimely deaths. I guess it really didn't matter, because I blamed myself. If not for my screw-ups, they would all still be alive and well instead of cold and dead. They may have been gone, some for many years now, but they had never been forgotten. Not by me. Not ever. The dead don't stay buried. Not always.
Every night when I finally closed my eyes, I saw them all. Every last person that had died as a result of my actions. Some stood out in my memory more than others. I saw Mitch and Dex blown to bits when their chopper took a direct hit outside of Kabul. I was supposed to have flown that mission, but switched with them at the last minute in order to provide a military escort for some political bigwig visiting the embassy. It should have been me, not them. Not me left explaining to their families why they were coming home in body bags. Then there was that green recruit kid under my command named Havlichek that got shot in the neck when he covered my six during an ambush in the Afghani foothills. Twenty years old. He was only twenty years old--not even legal drinking age in some states. He was just a kid who had his whole frigging life ahead of him, and there he was riddled with bullets and drowning in his own blood. All because I didn't notice a Taliban rebel hiding in the shadows with an AK assault rifle.
A more recent addition to my own private and sordid menagerie of ghouls was my short-lived and former commanding officer, Colonel Marshall Sumner. Dead by my own hand. Sure, the Wraith began the process that had resulted in his death, but I was the one who provided the finishing touch. It was my bullet that finally stopped his heart. Maybe I cut short his agony when I abruptly stopped the Wraith from feeding, but in hastening his demise and by killing the hive keeper, I only succeeded in awakening all the hungry Wraith. The extensive culling activity that has since occurred on every planet of this galaxy since those life-sucking vampires came out of hibernation was a direct consequence of my actions. All those people fed upon, all those lives lost, they rested on my conscience. Mine alone. Yep, when I screw up, I do a bang up job.
Perhaps, I should have ignored Elizabeth's offer to join this expedition. If I had minded my own business and never sat in that blasted Ancient version of a La-Z-Boy, I would still be stationed at McMurdo, ferrying supplies and personnel back and forth across the Antarctic wasteland. Of course, my career would have dead-ended in the cold, snow covered continent, but at least more people in the Pegasus galaxy would still be alive. All those humans already making their home among the many planets listed in the Ancient database were not the only casualties of the latest mega-culling. Many of the scientists and soldiers that were members of the Atlantis expedition died in the city's defense during the recent siege. Some I knew very well, some I didn't. But all were my responsibility, and I had failed them miserably.
Among them was Aiden Ford, my former 2IC. An ammunitions expert in the Marine Corps, the young, eager-to-please lieutenant inherited me as a boss when his original CO, Colonel Sumner, met his untimely end. He could have easily resented me. I know Sergeant Bates did to a degree, following my orders with a slight undercurrent of annoyance. Not that I blame him. In his shoes, I might feel and act the same way. But Ford, on the other hand, took the changeover in command in stride, easily shifting his allegiance to me. His youthful exuberance, skill, and loyalty made him an asset to my flagship team. I knew I could count on him, and he never let me down. But that all changed after the Wraith came calling on Atlantis. While I was off attempting to play kamikaze bomber on the Wraith hive ship, Ford was busy defending Atlantis from the invaders. A chance encounter with a Wraith changed his life forever. Spared from a life-draining feeding by a flash grenade, Ford instead was sentenced to an existence in which an alien enzyme held dominion. Driven by his uncontrollable need to fuel his newfound super powers, my former right-hand man was now an interplanetary nomad on the run. So he technically wasn't dead, but the life he once knew was gone. Maybe forever. I was the one who did this. I had to live with this. I brought the Wraith to our door. The blood of all those destroyed by them was on my hands. And dear God, I don't know if I could ever make amends.
It's not like I didn't try. I made it not only my professional duty, but also my own personal crusade to protect everyone who walked the halls of Atlantis. No matter what sacrifices that particular quest demanded of me. Call it foolish, call it driven, call it an impossible dream if you want. I couldn't stand to lose any more friends. I had already lost too many. Enough was enough. I could not bear to witness one more person I cared about perish as a result of some action I took or did not take. No matter what, I had to keep them all safe or die trying.
As I lay there in pain-induced introspection, I felt the jumper level out and noticed the ride was much smoother. McKay must have cleared the planet's atmosphere and was now heading out into deep space on route to Atlantis. I overheard him patching through a call on the radio's subspace frequency.
"Atlantis. Come in. This is Jumper One. How do you read me?" He tried to sound calm as he actually adhered to proper air to ground communication protocols.
"Jumper One. This is Atlantis. We read you loud and clear. What is your status?" Not surprising, Elizabeth's familiar voice filtered through the console speakers as she answered his call.
"Oh, Elizabeth. Thank God you can hear me. This is Rodney. We have a medical emergency." Okay, so much for McKay sticking to protocols.
Elizabeth sounded concerned as she replied. "We copy that Jumper One. What is the nature of the emergency?"
"Sheppard's been shot. We are on route to Atlantis now. ETA in roughly three hours. Have Carson standing by!" McKay's voice was beginning to rise, as was probably his blood pressure.
"Shot? I thought M5J-346 was uninhabited. What happened? How badly is he injured?"
Even I could hear the shock in Elizabeth's voice. I was willing to bet the worry lines were already creasing her brow. I hated being the cause of her concern once again. She had enough to deal with running the city without me adding to her stress levels. She shouldered far too many burdens already.
"How do I know? I'm a PhD, not a medical doctor! I don't practice voodoo. It's bad, okay? It's bad. He's bleeding, unconscious, and in a lot of pain. That's all I know. We ran into an unexpected difficulty with the local welcoming committee. Turns out the planet was not as deserted as we thought, and they didn't like visitors. The rest will be in my report later."
McKay was revving up for a monumental rant since he thought I could not hear him. My eyes had been closed to conserve my strength when he left me, but I wasn't out for the count quite yet.
"Okay, Rodney. Just calm down. Panicking won't help the situation. I have Carson and his medical team on alert and waiting for your arrival in the jumper bay." Elizabeth appeared calm on the surface, but I knew her better than that. She was getting tense and was probably tapping her fingers against the control console. She always did that in an emergency situation.
"Sorry. You know how I react in a crisis. I tend to run off at the mouth. I am..um..just worried about Sheppard." Hell, McKay wasn't the only one who was.
"I know, Rodney. We all are. I'm going to put Dr. Beckett on the line so you can get him up to speed on the colonel's condition." There was a pause as she transferred the call over to Carson's headset.
"Rodney, it's Beckett. Can you tell me a wee bit more about Colonel Sheppard's injury? Where is the location of the gunshot wound to begin with, laddie?" His brisk brogue filled the airwaves as he came on the line.
"He was shot in the left side midway down his ribcage. I have a pressure bandage on the wound, but he's lost a lot of blood. I started an IV and administered one dose of morphine earlier. He's been conscious on and off. Right now, he's unconscious from what I can see from the pilot's seat. I also have him on oxygen, and he's covered with a blanket." I heard McKay give Beckett my medical rundown in his usual rapid-fire delivery.
"Aye, that's a right job you've done so far. Can you be telling me how his breathing is, son?"
"Ah, his breathing has been very labored and raspy. It probably didn't help that one of the local gunmen also kicked him in the ribs. Just before we made it back to the jumper, he was struggling to catch his breath to the point his lips were blue. The oxygen seems to have helped in that respect. Not much, but somewhat". His tone held a trace of self-recrimination as if he blamed himself for my current state of health.
You got that right, McKay. Air was at a premium, and I couldn't get enough. My head was spinning as I tried to take in the oxygen needed to meet the demands of my starving lungs. I heard McKay's voice grow progressively fainter until it faded away. I followed along with it, slipping back into the blessed relief of unconsciousness.
I'm not sure how long I remained out cold or how far we had traveled before I once again slowly regained consciousness. I wasn't able to stifle a groan when my nerve endings flared into full, painful alertness as I awoke. I was only dimly aware of my surroundings as I moved around listlessly. I remember seeing McKay's face suddenly appear above me, staring at me with a look of intense fear and apprehension in his eyes. He looked fuzzy at first, as if I were trying to view him through a hazy lens. Maybe I was delirious by then, because everything within my vantage point took on a dreamlike quality. I vaguely recalled thinking that I hoped McKay had remembered to engage the autopilot before he left the cockpit to come check on me. I may have been half-dead, but my pilot's instincts weren't gone yet.
He gently held me down to prevent me from thrashing around and pulling my IV loose or further injuring myself. I needed to say something and batted weakly at the oxygen mask still covering my face so I could speak more freely. McKay impatiently pushed my hand away and moved the mask aside for me. His expression spoke volumes about how awful I must have looked. If I looked anywhere near as bad as I felt, I probably gave the worrywart quite a scare.
"So cold...I'm cold, McKay...it's freezing in here. I can't get warm. Think you can turn the heat up a bit?" My teeth were chattering and I shivered uncontrollably, all my muscles quivering against the growing chill as I whispered to him.
"I'll see what I can do, Colonel." He grabbed another blanket from the overhead storage compartment and placed it over me in an effort to ward off hypothermia.
Tapping his headset, McKay immediately called Beckett to give him an update on my condition. As usual, the doctor answered almost immediately and listened as my caretaker filled him in on my rapidly declining health.
"Aye, laddie. I don't like the sound of that. The colonel is probably going into shock from blood loss, and it sounds like an infection may be starting in the wound. I'll be wanting you to start a second IV and keep him as warm as possible. You won't be able to do much else until we can get him into surgery to stop the bleeding and administer a broad-spectrum antibiotic." Carson instructed.
"I already covered him with another blanket. I'll get the second IV started in his other arm." McKay spoke into his headset.
Oh great! McKay was going to turn me into his own personal voodoo doll again. If I had the strength, I would have been sorely tempted to pop him one when I saw that needle coming my way. But this time, I didn't even have the wherewithal to flinch as the second IV port was inserted into my arm.
"Good, Rodney. Let me know if anything changes. I will see you when you arrive." Beckett said over the speaker.
After shutting off his headset, McKay changed the blood-soaked bandage on my side, then checked my pulse and readjusted the oxygen mask. As he watched my eyes flutter while I gamely tried to stay alive, he grabbed my hand and hung on to it for dear life.
"Hang in there, Colonel. We're almost home."
I murmured faintly in response. "Not going anywhere, McKay. Hope your landing's better than your take-off."
Despite the worried look in his eyes, his mouth quirked up in a smug grin as he replied. "Oh, that's very funny, Colonel. Don't give up your day job just yet to do stand-up. Unless of course, you plan on using your comedic wit as a tactic against the Wraith. Slaying them with bad humor. Yes, that might just work. But have no fear, my landing will be smooth as glass."
Well, I sure as hell hoped it would be. I didn't think I could handle a crash landing at this point. My day just did not need to get any worse. I wanted to shoot back a snappy comeback just to prove his theory wrong, but my tongue suddenly felt as if it were clogging my throat. My eyes no longer would stay open and slid closed even as I fought to stay awake. I was losing ground fast and spiraling down into an uncontrollable death spin. The darkness rushed up to meet me, and I let myself go. I felt a quick surge of pain and then nothing more.
(TBC)