"Carson. Carson!"

The doctor jerked awake, blinking away the gray at the edges of his vision. Damn, how long had he been out? It couldn't have been more than a few seconds. "Rodney, what did he say? I missed that last bit," he whispered, rubbing his eyes with the back of one shaking hand.

"He just promised you everything but his firstborn child! Maybe you should pay attention here, Carson! From the sounds of things he's starting to figure out you're jerking him around. I think we're out of time."

Oh, we're out of time all right, Carson thought in despair as the gray threatened to take him again. The IV solution was long gone. He was hanging on to consciousness through sheer willpower, but he'd reached the end of his endurance.

The most galling part of failure, he decided, was not that he'd ensured his own death, but that he'd failed to protect his friends. Carson wondered if that kind of thinking made him brave.

He could see movement in the clearing now, blurry, indistinct figures massing around Linel. "My patience is at an end, Doctor," the first minister called. "I'd hoped we could settle this like civilized beings, but you're determined to drive me to violence. Major Kiton," Linel gestured. The blurry soldiers began moving towards the jumper.

"Dammit!" Carson jammed the P90 against his shoulder and fired a burst into the dirt at the Kalerians' feet. The recoil sent fresh waves of agony through his abused torso. "Ah, God, God," he sobbed into the P90's stock. The Kalerians had moved back a few feet, but were advancing again. "Stay back, damn you!" Carson screamed, firing another round of warning shots.

And then his hands were empty.

He blinked, his fuzzy mind struggling to make sense of what had happened. The soldier who had crept up alongside the jumper and yanked the P90 out of his arms suddenly appeared in the doorway, grasping Carson's jacket and pulling. Carson's madly fumbling fingers closed around Rodney's sidearm. He raised it and shot the soldier in the chest at point blank range.

Beyond strategy now, he aimed the gun at the blurry mass of Kalerians and pulled the trigger until he ran out of bullets, all the while sobbing from fear, pain, and unadulterated rage. He could hear shots ringing out, lots of them, and Rodney was shouting something behind him, but Carson could only think about holding off his attackers for one more minute. He scrabbled blindly through the closest jumble of equipment and debris, coming up with a hard plastic case the size of a computer monitor. Climbing painfully to his knees, he swung it with all his remaining strength at the looming figure in the jumper's doorway. His momentum spun him completely around when he missed, and he all but collapsed in the man's arms. He struggled against the hands holding him, digging for traction with his sneakered feet and screaming obscenities.

He was hyperventilating, his heart racing like he'd run a marathon. Voices surrounded him. Hands held him firmly despite his frantic attempts to escape. Finally, large hands captured his face and held him still. Carson looked up and saw a blurry face surrounded by swaying dreadlocks.

The last of the fight went out of him, and his body went limp.

Until hands touched his distended belly, and then his back arched, a scream gurgling from his throat. "Sorry, Carson, sorry," he heard. He recognized the voice as belonging to one of his staff, Dr. Ruiz.

"Carmen," he muttered. "Sheppard hasn't been oriented. Rule out. Skull fracture."

"I know, Carson, we'll take good care of him. Try to relax."

An oxygen mask settled over his face. He tried to move away from it, but Ronan's huge paws held his head still. Carson moaned in frustration – there were things Carmen needed to know. "Rodney," he panted, "Fractured. Clavicle."

"Don't worry, Chief, we're on it," said another voice he knew. Rick Baker, a cheerful young nurse from the American Midwest, was the only one who called him Chief. "You just worry about you right now. Can you tell me how you're feeling?"

Carson blinked, feeling the gray creep over him again. "Awfy peely-wally…"

Baker was busy starting an IV in Carson's right arm, the one in the left having been torn out during the firefight. "Sorry, Chief, you're gonna have to help me. What's that mean in English?"

"Done," Carson whispered, sliding into darkness. "I'm done."

A/N: Thanks, everyone, for the very generous reviews. Sorry the chapters are short, but that's the only way I can post so frequently. Hope the tradeoff's worth it! I'm aware I've been spelling Ronan's name wrong. It's not that I don't care, it's…okay, it's that I don't care. Not enough to go back and change it, anyway, so I opted for consistency over accuracy. Better luck next story, guy!

One more chapter should do it, I think. Thanks for reading!