SpacePirates Chapter18
Elizabeth had left Peter Grodin and Sergeant Lee back in the control room to wait for news in her office. She felt bad for not being out there with her people, but she needed the moments of calm and privacy. She had not slept in almost seventy-two hours and the strain of sleep deprivation and worry for her the expedition members had worn on her. The stress of the last hour had brought her dangerously close to breaking down. She had not let anyone see how close to the edge she had come, but she knew herself well enough that she knew that the time had come to pull back.
At the moment, she could do nothing. After Stackhouse had contacted them from the then-unexplored indoor dock on level four, she sent a full medical team and an additional security team down to the newly discovered area.
Sergeant Lee's team had swept the area for Wraith activity, but had come up empty so far. Elizabeth had ordered the search broadened, but didn't expect them to find anything. It seemed certain that the Wraith Dart hadn't carried anyone but members of the expedition. She was just doing her job in making sure. Now Dr. Biro was doing her job checking out the rescue team. The preliminary report from the medical team had indicated several injuries.
There was a knock at the door, interrupting her musings.
"Come in!"
The door opened and Sergeant Stackhouse entered. He looked dishevelled and seemed to have come straight from the infirmary. He was down to a tee-shirt and fatigue pants. He had a bandage over one of his eyes and spatters of blood on his pants.
"Dr. Weir?"
"Yes, Sergeant. Take a seat." Elizabeth pointed to the chair opposite her desk.
"How are you?"
"A bump to the head, but Dr. Cooper said it's only a minor concussion. He wants me for observation over night, but after that, I should be fine. I came to give a preliminary mission report."
"I appreciate that. We were rather surprised when your team showed up in a Wraith Dart." Dr. Weir replied.
"Yes. I can imagine that." Stackhouse smiled, than winced when the move pulled at the stitches in his forehead. „I'm sorry to say, but we crashed the Jumper on the planet where Sheppard's team was stranded. A fire fight with the Wraith. We were unable to repair the ship. If there was a Gate on this planet, we couldn't find it. We defeated the Wraith on the planet, after that we located their ship and used it to fly to Atlantis. We had no other choice because the Major and his team were in pretty bad shape. Dr. Beckett said they didn't have the time we needed to repair the Jumper." Stackhouse summarized for Dr. Weir.
Elizabeth listened to the summary of the rescue mission.
"We'll consider the recovery of the Jumper. What do you know about Dr. McKay?"
"I don't know what happened to him. He wasn't with the Major's team when we came to the planet. Carson spoke to Ford and Teyla about him and they told him, he was still on another planet. We had to return to Atlantis to save their lives."
"You made the right choice." Elizabeth reassured him.
"What happens to Dr. McKay now? Is he going to be declared MIA now?" Stackhouse asked.
"Probably. I will have to talk to someone from the Major's team who know what happened to him, but yes, he'll probably be declared MIA. Another mission to the planet where the Major was help is be too risky. We already lost one mission to that planet."
oOo
Carson tried to ignore the throbbing in his right arm. He had been right before, his right forearm had been broken. Other than that Dr. Cooper, that assistant doctor on duty had diagnosed him with a concussion and had ordered him to stay for 24-hour observation. He knew he should rest, his aching head and the barely medication-suppressed nausea were clear signs. But the worry for his patients kept him restless. He knew that Teyla and John suffered from the after-effects of a Wraith feeding. He recalled Teyla's account of her people's experiences with survivors of Wraith attacks. They would have to find a way to counteract the Wraith poison in their system or they would die from internal bleeding. It would next to impossible to come up with a counteragent to the still unknown Wraith substance in the time that Teyla and Sheppard still had, their best bet would be to try and get their hands on the herbal remedy 'Therasia' that Teyla had talked about. If they were lucky, they would find it on Athos, the original planet of the Athosians.
Carson sat up, he needed to do something to help Sheppard and Teyla, even if he only talked to Weir or Biro, but he needed to help his friends.
Carson swung his feet over the side of the bed and pushed himself to stand up. His head swam dangerously and he had to grab on to the foot of the bed to steady himself, but he managed to get standing. His head ached and he felt pretty nauseous, but after a minute, he was sure that he could remain standing on his feet.
"Dr. Beckett? You should be in bed." Dr. Biro's voice sounded from somewhere behind him. She sounded exhausted. He turned around to see her tired form standing a few feet behind him.
"I know, but I need to talk to you. It's urgent. It's about the Major and Teyla."
"I figured. Dr. Cooper and I are not having a lot of luck. If you know anything, it would be great. But I don't want to tax you too much." Dr. Biro said.
"A Wraith fed off of them. It must have introduced some sort of agent into their systems that's slowly killing them. I talked to Teyla back on the planet and she told me that the Athosians knew of an antidote. Unfortunately, it doesn't grow on the Mainland. They grew it on Athos. The preparation of it is supposedly quite complicated and only their healers know how it is done. She mentioned a man named Eiran." Carson sat back down on the bed as a wave of dizziness assailed him.
"Don't overdo it." Dr. Biro cautioned. „You helped us out a lot. I was going to make my report to Dr. Weir anyways now. I'm going to recommend she send a team to Athos right away."
Carson looked Dr. Biro in the eye.
"We don't have time to search for the antidote. Teyla said it took days to prepare. Sheppard and Teyla don't have that much time."
"I agree, but there is nothing you can do, Carson. I'm going to see about getting Eiran here from the Mainland. Maybe we can speed up the process. If it is a simple matter of purifying antidote, our equipment can help." Dr. Biro said in a calming tone. „ Get some rest, I'll talk to Dr. Weir. You have done a good job. They would not be alive without you."
Carson shook his head. There was so much left to do. There were so many unanswered questions. He didn't understand why they hadn't died after they had crashed into the ocean. That answer could wait, but his friends couldn't. Sheppard and Teyla were dying while he was lying in bed, nursing minor injuries. Part of him knew that it was for the best, if he left them to the capable hands of Dr. Biro and Dr. Cooper. They knew about the antidote on Athos and would do all they could to get it to them in time. Nothing less than he would do. Yet he couldn't let go. Too much had happened. He owed it to his friends. He thought back to the vision of Sheppard back on the planet. He had promised that they were going to see Rodney again. The vision had seemed so real, but no that the adrenaline rush was wearing off, Carson was starting to doubt what he had seen. He had been sure that something more than they knew was going on. The mysterious rescue from a certain death in the ocean surrounding Atlantis only seemed to confirm that.
oOo
Elizabeth was relieved and terrified when Dr. Biro finally called her down to the infirmary to give her the preliminary report on the status of the returned team. She had heard the report of the severe injuries and had seen in what condition Sergeant Stackhouse had been. It left her with a bleak perspective.
She took a deep breath and knocked on the doorframe of the physician's office.
"Dr. Biro?"
"Dr. Weir, come in and have a seat. I'm afraid I have little good news for you. I spoke to Sergeants Stackhouse and Markam and Dr. Beckett. They filled me in on some details of the mission."
"Yes, I spoke to Sergeant Stackhouse briefly."
"Both the Sergeants should be fine within the next few days. I'm going to keep them for observation for the next twenty-four hours, but I'm confident that they will be back on duty within a week. Sergeant Markham described an interesting experience to me when he piloted the Wraith Dart. Apparently the Wraith ships use a mental component similar to the Puddle Jumpers. Sergeant Stackhouse confirmed that Markham was unresponsive for a considerable period of time, but aside from slightly heightened neural activity, I could find nothing wrong with the Sergeant. We'll run further test during the course of the next few days, but as far as I can tell, interfacing with the Dart had no serious ill-effects."
"I'll consider that assessment. We'll need to study the Dart further to gain insight about the Wraith technology. If the technology is indeed harmless to us, I'll have to go-ahead to further tests on the Dart." Dr. Weir said.
"Lieutenant Ford suffered several severe cuts that were started to get infected. He has lost some blood and has developed a fever, but we already had some success in bringing it down. The next few hours should show how well he is responding to the antibiotics. I'm rather optimistic about his prognosis. The rescue team got him back to Atlantis in time. He was conscious for a brief time earlier and was lucid. I'm less optimistic about the major and Teyla. We haven't assessed their other injuries yet in favour of supporting care for their severely weakened systems. From what I have gathered from the remaining team members, both were attacked by Wraith on the planet. The Wraith didn't feed off of them long enough to age them, but long enough to transmit a apparently dead substance into their systems. Dr. Beckett was able to give me some valuable information about a possible antidote in traditional Athiosian medicine. It grows on their original home world, Athos."
"Athos has a Stargate, I can have a team there immediately. But we won't know what we are looking for."
"You will have to contact Halling on the Mainland. It is probably better if you informed Teyla's people about her condition. It's very serious. The Wraith itself did only minimal damage, but this substance that the Wraith leave behind in their victims systems inhibits the bloods ability to clot and to bind oxygen. It ensures a slow death of everyone the Wraith feed off."
TBC