Hey! Sorry to keep you all waiting again. Here's a longer chapter to keep you happy, even though it's a gloomy one.

Thanks to all of you who sent in a review for the last chapter. C'mon guys… I need a little encouragement here! Real life is being rather cruel at the moment and I need all the help I can get with this story.

Please R & R!

General Disaster.

By LetitiaRichards.

Previously:-

Bauer issued his orders like bullets from a P-90 and then retreated to his office to hope and pray that his actions weren't too late to save Hammond and O'Neill; and to figure out the nightmare of how to retrieve Dr. Jackson and Major Carter.

Chapter 6

Jack woke with a deep groan. First off, he tried opening his eyes but that was harder than he thought. When he did eventually open them, it was pitch black and he couldn't even see his hand when he brought it up to rub across his face to chase the cobwebs away from his mind. He hissed in pain when he encountered a deep gash down the right side of his face; the blood still sluggishly oozing towards his ear and through his hair. Deciding to take stock of his other injuries, he gingerly began testing his limbs and body, working out what hurt and what didn't.

At least his left arm seemed relatively mobile and didn't hurt as much as the right. Not that he could feel that one much anyway, he was lying on his front with it trapped beneath him; awkwardly he added mentally. It was when he moved to roll off it that most of his body protested. He gasped in pain and had to lie still for a moment or two just to be able to breathe. Oh, he knew so well the feeling of a broken rib or maybe two; been there, done that, yadda, yadda. He felt the air around him was filled with dust and having disturbed it, it was now irritating his throat and lungs and he wasn't looking forward to the tickle building up inside. He tried to hold the inevitable cough back but it would not be stopped and exploded from him in a cacophony of pain.

'Crap,' he muttered to himself when he'd managed to bring his breathing under control again, 'Okay, sooo not gotta do that again anytime!'

He slowly shifted his abused body to a more comfortable position and then tried to move his legs. His left knee hurt, but then that was nothing new there. The right leg was a different matter altogether though. As soon as he moved it, he was almost overtaken by nausea, and blackness swarmed at the edged of his vision...if he could see any difference in the dark that was. He held his breath and waited for the pain to subside.

As he lay there, his mind tried to recall how he'd come to be where he was. He tracked his last movements in his aching head. There was an earthquake as such; he recalled that. Running back into the room and ordering his team out, pronto. Then he remembered turning back to help... Oh god! Hammond!

"General?" he yelled. Where the hell was General Hammond? He had to be down here somewhere, and if he wasn't speaking, then he had to be injured too, perhaps...? "No!" Jack cried in denial; he wasn't going to think that. His CO had to be alive. "George!" he yelled louder and was rewarded with a grunt of pain coming at him from somewhere out of the darkness.

He fumbled for his P-90, stretching out his left hand to feel for it, before he realised he was still lying on it, with his right arm pinned under it. "Oh great!" he sighed, knowing that to move it he would have to shift his weight. He gritted his teeth and waited for the pain. It was hard, and it was excruciatingly painful but he managed to get the weapon free by rolling off it. The exercise left him breathless and more nauseated than before.

Tamping down his own feelings of agony and hoping that he wasn't going to barf any time soon, he tried for sitting up. It was at that point he realised that there wasn't enough headroom above him as he hit his sore head on a lump of alien concrete suspended over him.

"Owwww!" he cried. "That hurt!" he muttered with another, "Crap!" when he realised what he'd done. By feeling above his head, he found that he could sit up, but he had to keep low which wasn't the most comfortable of positions. Hoping his light still worked, he felt his way along the P-90's barrel until his fingers encountered what he knew was the lightswitch. He flicked it on, blinking in the sudden brightness that flooded the immediate area. He shone it round the room until he could see General Hammond's body lying awfully still just a few feet from him; and from the angle he was seeing him in, it looked as if he was worse off too.

He turned the light onto his legs and swore when he saw the damage to his shin. The front of his pants below the right knee was shredded and torn away revealing a very ugly looking injury, his inner flesh and bone were exposed to the world and it was caked in dirt and dust. He winced at the sight, but he didn't think the leg was broken, he wasn't seeing any jagged bone sticking out for which he was more than thankful and although it hurt, it didn't hurt like a broken leg would have done.

Another groan from his superior, had him sliding carefully inch by inch from under the huge slab of ceiling that by some miracle hadn't landed on him. He pulled back, wincing with the movement, but he needed to check on the General.

Undamaged hand behind, dig in his good heel, lift and drag. It seemed to take him ages to move just that few feet to where his commanding officer lay in a crumpled heap. He'd switched off his light and let the P-90 dangle from his neck while he moved, and only stopped when he came into contact with the warm body behind him.

Flicking on the torch again, he ran the beam over the General, looking and feeling for injuries. It was difficult holding the heavy weapon with his damaged arm, but he pushed the pain away out of concern for the older man.

A broken ankle by the feel of it, he could feel the bones grate when he'd felt it and the funny angle it was lying gave it away too. His hand moved upwards, and with relief found nothing else wrong with the leg. Moving over to the other leg, he could see that the lower leg bone or bones were broken. The General must have landed pretty heavily on his feet then pitched forward when his leg and ankle broke under him.

Jack edged his way up the lax body and felt no other abnormalities until his fingers encountered a sticky wet patch on the General's brow.

"Ah!" Jack sighed. That would account for his lack of response. "Nice concussion there sir?" he muttered to the darkness, acutely aware that the General probably wouldn't hear him.

He tucked his fingers under the General's chin and felt for a pulse. It was a little sluggish, but at least it was there. He patted the General's back and told him to hang on in there. Then he tried his radio.

"Carter? Daniel? Teal'c? Anyone there?"

There was a lot of static and nothing else. He tried a few times more but gave it up as a bad omen. They were stuck there until help arrived, and he could only hope that his team had escaped the ruins and gone back to the Stargate for help.

He shifted his pack from his shoulders, relieved that he was still wearing it, and rummaged around by feel, until he came across his first aid pack.

He laid the P-90 on the rubble strew floor and proceeded to pour a little alcohol over his leg wound. It stung like crazy and he bit through his bottom lip, trying to hold the pain in. He gasped, holding his breath as much as he could and eventually managed to let go when his lungs were fit to burst. Then, taking one of the field dressings, wound it round the damage as tightly as he could to stop the blood loss. It was awkward to say the least especially trying to cope one handed as he was; his right arm was practically useless.

Having tied the bandage, he looked to fixing the General's leg. He shuffled down towards the older man's feet and inspected the wound closer, deciding that he would have to turn him over to get a better angle. He wasn't looking forward to doing this; he knew it was going to hurt like the sonovabitch, but he had to set it. He had no choice.

Fixing the ankle first to his satisfaction, he then roughly splinted the broken leg, and then rolled the General over onto his back. His first sight of the break was worse than he though. There was bone fragments poking up through the skin and he winced in sympathy. There was also a lot of blood leaking from the sight which meant he had also severed a vein or something; it didn't look like it was anything worse like an artery.

He flicked the cover off his watch and saw that by his estimation they had been down there for over two hours, and it confirmed his thoughts that if it had been an artery the General would probably be dead by now.

"So," he sighed loudly, "Here we go General. I'm sure this is gonna hurt me more than it is you," he winced again. Biting his lip with a mixture of sympathy and determination, he pulled on the foot to straighten the leg, seeing the bone slip back into position. He just hoped he hadn't made it worse.

The General groaned out loudly and tried to move away from the pain.

Jack talked his commander through it, ordering him to stay still.

"Don't move General!" he yelled, "Stay still sir. You've got a busted leg."

Hammond stilled, but Jack didn't know if that was because of his yelling at him, or the fact that the General was now fully aware that his leg was broken and couldn't bear to move it.

"Sir?"

Hammond's thoughts were sluggish, but he'd heard the advice, though he was unable to process where he was or how he'd broken his leg.

"Colonel?"

"Yes sir," Jack responded automatically. "Try not to move General. You've broken your leg and the other ankle. I'm gonna strap it up as best I can for now until help arrived.

General Hammond couldn't think straight. He could feel Jack touching his leg but the pain was too intense for him to worry what the colonel was doing.

"Help arrives? Wha...what happened?" he asked, trying to think past the pain.

"There was an earthquake and the floor collapsed underneath us. Oh, and I reckon you have a nice concussion there too sir."

"Tell me about it!" he muttered. So that's why his head hurt?

"I'll come and see to that cut now General. I'm done with your legs."

He'd managed to bandage them up, tying them together to make it almost impossible to move them at all. Jack half slithered, half shuffled back towards his CO's head, dragging the pack with him.

He played the light over the General's wound and then propped it up so that he could use his good hand to clean the bloody mess away and then he could slap a dressing over it.

Hammond felt awful. He had a headache the size of the Grand Canyon. Whenever he opened his eyes he felt the room was spinning despite the fact he couldn't see a damn thing in the dark. Until he had seen Jack wielding the torch around, he thought for a moment he'd gone blind. His leg was killing him and so was his ankle.

He could hear Jack's laboured breathing and suddenly realised that Jack wasn't in any condition to be looking after him.

"Jack?"

"I'm right here sir." He felt Jack touch his shoulder.

"How're you?"

"Oh, I'm just peachy sir."

"Colonel!" he said a little sterner; at least he'd tried to, but it was little more than a croak in the dusty atmosphere. He coughed and then felt the cool rim of a canteen at his lips and Jack was tipping water into his mouth. He swallowed it gratefully. "Thanks!"

"Can't give you too much General. Don't know how long we'll be down here before help arrives."

"You didn't answer me Jack? What's wrong with your chest?"

Damn, thought Jack; he'd noticed.

"Is that an order...sir?" he quipped, trying to deflect the General.

"Colonel!" Hammond warned.

"I think I have a coupla busted ribs. In fact I know I definitely have a couple of broken ribs, sir." Jack frowned in the darkness. He wouldn't mention the fact that he'd also torn his leg to shreds on some damn sharp rock or whatever it was, nor would he mention that he had a bum arm and a probable concussion too. The General had enough problems of his own to be worrying about him as well.

Jack sat in the dark, having turned his light off to conserve the battery, Hammond seemed to have either passed out again or hadn't got anything to say to add to the situation. He could only sit there and wait for the cavalry to arrive and hope they made it before the General's condition worsened... or his for that matter; his chest was hurting and breathing was getting harder.

TBC