Just a bit of clarification on the last chapter -- when the nurse Cora says that there's only one person on the ship with a medical degree, she's talking about the CMO, Dr. Ling -- not herself. There are also an unspecified number of corpsmen, such as Cora, who are basically enlisted men and women who have been given medical training by the military and assist the doctor. (I'm probably using the wrong word because I don't think they're called corpsmen in the Air Force, but ... oh well.). Anyway, Cora and Dr. Ling are two different people, in case anybody was confused -- I know I have a LOT of original characters running around in this story and it can get difficult to keep track of everybody.

Also, I know I'm starting to sound like a stuck record, but thank you SO much to everyone for reviewing!

Impact plus 0 hours 48 minutes

"Colonel? We've reached your position, sir. We're ready to blow the last set of doors. You folks might want to get behind something."

Faintly, a pounding sound came from the emergency doors sealing off the bridge.

"Acknowledged, Cadman. Wait for my mark." The bridge crew, isolated from most of the rest of the ship and sealed behind more bulkheads, were one of the last groups to be freed. As Perry quietly and efficiently directed the evacuation of the wounded to the far side of the bridge, Caldwell leaned down beside Airman Seavey. The young soldier seemed to be taking her responsibility to the injured Dr. Weir very seriously -- she had remained crouched at Elizabeth's side, rubbing the woman's cold hand and talking to her softly. Sensing her CO's presence at her side, she looked up with wide eyes.

"At ease, Airman. Suggest you take cover."

"Yes, sir, but ..." She looked down at her hand, still folded over Elizabeth's, dark skin on pale. "What about her, sir?"

"She's more sheltered than we are, Airman." If only that were true. The debris over Elizabeth had shifted and settled several more times as the Daedalus trembled from Cadman's detonations. So far, nothing important seemed to have moved, but Caldwell could sense that the pile of rubble was in precarious balance. Elizabeth's life hung by a thousand threads -- each one suspending a piece of debris that could crash down and sever a limb, an artery.

"She's been awake, off and on, sir," Airman Seavey told him, reluctantly relinquishing her position at Elizabeth's side as Perry tugged on her shoulder. "I think she's conscious now, but she's just listening. She's been quiet."

Caldwell nodded thanks to Perry, who led the young woman to join some of the others behind an intact console near the forward viewports, and leaned forward to lay his hand on top of Elizabeth's. It was strange and a bit awkward, lending this sort of physical comfort to someone with whom he'd always had a much more distant working relationship. But he'd been in enough combat zones to know how human contact could calm fear and pain, even between strangers -- or relative strangers such as the two of them. It would be better for Elizabeth if one of her friends were here to hold her hand. But none were, and so her cold, shaky fingers curled around his own.

"You're not Keisha," said the soft, quizzical voice of the trapped woman.

Elizabeth had somehow managed to get on a first-name basis with half his bridge crew just in the few short hours she'd been on the ship. "No, Seavey's taken shelter. They're about to detonate explosives to open the doors to the bridge. Then we'll be able to dig you out."

Quiet, so quiet he could barely hear her: "You're not doing me any favors with half-truths, Steven."

And deliberate use of his first name. They'd never been Steven and Elizabeth to each other, would probably never be. Calculated, as everything she did was calculated -- but, then, he understood that side of her because he was the same way himself. And he did respect her, even if he thought she sometimes allowed emotion to make her careless, deeply careless with her responsibilities and the lives that depended on her. One of his responsibilities had been to bring her and the other civilians back to Atlantis safely, and because he had failed, he owed her the truth. "No, you're right. There's a very real possibility that this is going to destabilize what's on top of you, maybe bring it down."

And so these might be her last seconds of life. He'd been in that position more than once; he knew how it felt. Generally it was different for civilians, but not so much in certain occupations. Police officer. Firefighter. Pegasus Galaxy diplomat. The only response from Elizabeth was a soft sigh, and she asked, "Is there anything I can do to, er ...?"

"Shore it up from underneath?" At her soft affirmative sound, he said, "I don't think so. I've asked the engineers, but it's not as if we can get them up here to take a look, and ... it's pretty much a mess. Can't tell where anything begins or ends."

There was a smile in her voice, but no bitterness, as she said, "So we cross our fingers and hope."

"That's about the size of it." At least she wasn't panicking, though in a way the eerie calmness was more difficult to take than if she'd been screaming and wailing against her fate.

"Sir?" Cadman, on the radio. "Are you ready?"

"We're ready, Lieutenant."

Elizabeth spoke in a soft, dreamy voice. She seemed to be drifting away again, and considering what might happen in the next few seconds, perhaps it was just as well. "Shouldn't you be, I don't know, taking cover somewhere?"

"We aren't that close to the door," Caldwell said, and his grip tightened -- because no one, no matter the personal difference that he had with them, deserved to die alone.

After all of that, the actual explosion turned out to be a bit of an anti-climax: with a WHOOMPH! not much louder than the muffled blasts they'd been hearing from other parts of the ship, the sealed bridge doors shifted inward as if from a giant's kick. "All clear -- could use some help over here!" Cadman yelled through the opening, and several of the bridge crew ran to assist in prying the doors back until there was enough of a gap to admit two medics -- including the CMO, Dr. Ling -- as well as Cadman's impromptu demolitions team.

"Very nice work, Lieutenant," Caldwell told her. Weir's hand had gone unresponsive in his own; he hoped it just meant she'd passed out again, since the debris had not seemed to shift, but there would be no way to know until they dug her out. He dug a finger into her wrist, located the flutter of a pulse, and only then straightened to return the Lieutenant's salute. "How's it going in the rest of the ship?"

"Pretty much done, sir." Cadman dragged a hand across her face, wiping away soot and sweat. Blond hair straggled limply down her forehead. "We've freed most of the trapped personnel -- there are just a few individuals in different parts of the ship that we still have to locate. We've been assembling people in the cargo bay, except for the wounded; we're generally leaving them where they are."

Caldwell glanced at Ling for confirmation of this. His CMO nodded. "We have no power to the sickbay; it's not as if we could do any more for them if we took them there. In a lot of cases, it's better not to try to move them." Drawing a deep breath, she added, "I have a few surgeries to perform. I needed to take a look at the situation up here first, but -- I'll be busy for a while, Colonel."

Surgeries ... without electricity or decent lights, with the temperature steadily creeping lower inside the ship. Caldwell didn't like those odds. "Do what you need to, Major."

Ling nodded briskly and turned to attend to the soldier whose leg had been severed -- they had made her as comfortable as possible, but the heavy metallic tang of blood overlaid even the dust and reek of cordite from the explosives. Caldwell went to give her hand a squeeze and offer her a few words of comfort, then moved among the bridge crew, a bit numbly. So many injured, and the rest of the crew were the same. Only five people were actually dead, according to the reports he'd gotten back from the different sections, but without adequate medical care, they might have more soon...

He finished his circuit to find Cadman, Kleinman and Perry deep in a discussion of how to dig out Weir, and he left them to it, stepping carefully through the half-open doors into a dark, silent hallway. He had a flashlight in his coveralls, but didn't bother with it -- he knew his ship well enough to walk its corridors blindfolded. But his ship was different now, the familiar corridors twisted and half-clogged with debris. After stumbling several times, and ripping his finger open on a jagged edge of metal, he had to stop and get out the flashlight to continue.

Changes. Never anything the same. He moved through the shell of his ship like a sleepwalker, feeling the growing chill in the air as they bled heat to the outside. Heat ... they'd need to do something about that. Food, they had in abundance -- they carried enough to feed the entire crew for a month, and if they hadn't come up with a way to contact Atlantis or Earth by that time, then they were all in a lot of trouble. Water ... they had some, but without life support, they would end up relying on snow for most of their --

"Colonel Caldwell? This is Novak."

"Caldwell here." He realized that he was wandering without purpose, and that wasn't good. Raising his hand to his forehead, he brought it away wet and sticky. Should probably have talked to Ling before leaving the bridge, but she'd been busy with people far more injured than himself.

"Hermiod would like to see you in the engine room, sir. Lt. Cadman says that the bridge doors have been opened."

"That's right. I'll be down shortly." He wiped his hand across his eyes, sweeping away blood. It had been less than an hour since the crash, according to his watch.

It felt like a year.

------

Impact plus 1 hour 4 minutes

The drugs hadn't taken away the pain -- the beast still crouched at the edge of his awareness, waiting to roar up and take him down again. The only difference the drugs had made was that now he didn't care. He lay still, because he was afraid to move, and gazed up at the bright bars of flashlight beams dancing in the smoke-filled air. They looked solid enough to reach out and touch. Half-formed phrases rose and submerged in the dark waters of his subconscious, words to describe the beauty of the roiling smoke and the wonder that sufficient particles in the air could make light visible. He felt a little poetic and a little drunk, and knew it was from the drugs, but again, he didn't care.

Something sank down next to him with a loud sigh. Rodney. He thought about turning his head, decided that it wasn't worth the risk of waking the beast.

"Radek?"

Of course, Rodney was never capable of simply leaving a person alone. When Zelenka ignored him, an insistent hand prodded at his uninjured shoulder until he gave up and mumbled, "Some of us are trying to sleep."

"In English, Radek," Rodney snapped in a voice that sounded strained and ragged.

Sometimes he couldn't tell. He tried to sort out the different languages in his brain. "Is this English now?"

"It must be, since I can understand you. Well, to the extent that I can ever parse what passes for coherent thoughts with you." The hand stayed on his shoulder. This worried him more than anything else so far. McKay was trying to be nice to him ... and that didn't bode well at all for the state of his health.

He moved his head at last, because he couldn't keep staring at the ceiling forever, and also because he wanted to see if Rodney was hurt -- consumed by his own pain, he hadn't even wondered, up until now, about the others here. Elizabeth Weir, Greta Estvaag -- no, Estvaag was dead, wasn't she ... he'd seen her die, her head erupting in a spray of blood in those crazy moments when everything went slow and he saw death coming to meet him with a tearing screech of metal.

He lowered his gaze from the ceiling to see Caldwell and Novak standing close together at the far side of the room, speaking to each other in low urgent tones. Sweeping his eyes slowly to the side, he saw that Rodney was watching them, the blue eyes half-lidded and focused far away. There was an ugly bruise down one side of McKay's face, along with smudges of soot and streaks of blood that didn't seem to be his own, and fine lines of stress surrounded his eyes in a way that Zelenka hadn't seen since the Wraith siege. At some point he'd managed to acquire a military-issue parka; it was unzipped and hung open.

"Rodney?" He wasn't sure if he'd spoken aloud, but he must've made some noise because Rodney's head turned towards him, the eyes coming back from wherever they'd gone. "What happened?"

"We crashed. You've asked me that before."

Everything was foggy. He couldn't get hold of his thoughts. "I know," he said, although he wasn't sure if he'd known or not.

Rodney sighed and leaned closer, speaking in a low murmur with his eyes on the people across the room. "We were sabotaged. And you'd better have your head screwed on straight enough not to go blathering about it to anybody else, you hear me? I know it wasn't one of us -- us Atlanteans, I mean -- but there's no telling who they might talk to. Don't know about Caldwell's people, wouldn't trust his grunts farther than I could throw them. It might not have been any of us. It's Wraith technology."

"Wraith?" Zelenka wondered if he'd heard right, or if his brains were even more scrambled than he'd thought.

"The hyperdrive's been sabotaged. Hermiod found a Wraith decoupler, similar to the ones they use in their drives to divert the --" He broke off, apparently remembering that he was talking to one of the few people in the galaxy who actually understood the difference between Wraith and Asgard drive technology. "Anyway, it shorted out our drive for a few seconds and dropped us out of hyperspace. It wouldn't have been a problem if we hadn't been passing through a star system at the time. What are the odds, hm?"

Zelenka tried to pull together his scattered thoughts. "Someone ... wanted the ship intact."

Rodney looked around and snorted. "Yeah, that plan backfired a tad, didn't it?"

Zelenka laughed a little, broke off with a wince. The hand tightened involuntarily on his shoulder. He pretended not to notice. "You think there are Wraith coming, Rodney?"

"I'll let the utter stupidity of that question pass, since you're drugged." McKay stared across the room at Caldwell and Novak, who had now been joined by Hermiod as well. "Of course they're coming. We know they want to get their hands on an Earth ship to study it. This is probably their latest attempt. We also found a transmitter which Hermiod's deactivated, hopefully in time. The big question is how they managed to sabotage the ship in the first place."

"Perhaps when Caldwell was --"

"Caldwell was a Goa'uld, Radek." While not entirely common knowledge on Atlantis, the story had become known among the various departments' upper echelons. "They're not working with the Wraith. At least, I hope they're not ... Besides, I know the SGC goes over these ships with a fine-toothed comb every time they're in port. Even the U.S. military couldn't be incompetent enough to miss something this obvious. This had to have been added after its last trip back to Earth ... which would tend to point to a saboteur on board."

"A Wraith on the ship," Radek whispered.

"Or a Wraith sympathizer, yes."

"Or someone who wants us to believe they are Wraith sympathizer."

From the brief, startled hesitation before Rodney spoke again, he hadn't even thought of that. "Well, yes, or it's a decoy, obviously. I'd dismissed the idea because I find it hard to believe that anyone on the Daedalus staff could have gotten their hands on functional Wraith technology."

Good comeback, except ... "Rodney, we could have -- on the planet with the crashed ship, where Brendan --" Zelenka broke off at the look on Rodney's face, resumed hastily: "The point is, galaxy is full of crashed and abandoned Wraith technology on various worlds. Daedalus people, Atlantis people, go back and forth all the time. Anyone could have picked something up on one of the worlds through the Stargate."

"Regardless of the possibility," Rodney said irritably, "it still brings us back to the idea that someone on the Daedalus caused the crash, for whatever reason. The possibility of a stowaway is remote, not on a ship with this many inboard sensors and so few places to hide. Hermiod would have to know about it, if nothing else." He paused. "It couldn't be Hermiod ...?"

Zelenka stared at him. "An Asgard? I am the one on drugs, Rodney, not you."

"Right." Rodney shook himself. "Although I find it hard to believe the Asgard are that advanced. They must have criminals among them. Their PR department just hides 'em when the Earth dignitaries come to visit. Where was I? Oh, right, saboteurs. Hiding. Or hiding in plain sight."

"The SGC screens its personnel very well, Rodney." The debate should have worn him out, but instead, he felt stronger. There was a rightness to arguing with Rodney. This was the way the universe was meant to work. "Obviously not perfectly, since you got through --"

"Oh har. In Sheppard's absence, I can see that you've decided to pick up the slack..."

"--but one of the crew, working with the Wraith? It is hard to imagine."

"Considering that Caldwell walked around for, what, months? as a Goa'uld, I wouldn't count on the acuity of the U.S. military to keep Wraith sympathizers out of their ranks," Rodney said dryly. "I'm thinking we trust no one on general principles -- I mean, except for our own people, obviously; though I admit that it's possible a Goa'uld might have --"

Rodney broke off as Dr. Ling approached them. He hastily withdrew his hand from Zelenka's shoulder, as if guilty to be caught in a moment of weakness, but stayed close.

Of all the crew on the Daedalus -- outside the engineering department, at least -- Carol Ling was the only one that Zelenka knew. He'd known her before Atlantis -- not well, but they'd had a passing acquaintance and had seen each other occasionally at conferences. She had a background in the hard sciences in addition to her medical degree. When he'd learned that she was now serving as the CMO on the Daedalus, he hadn't been in the least surprised.

Carol knelt down next to him and laid her hand on his leg. "How are you feeling, Radek? Any pain?"

"Maybe it would help if you alleged doctors would remove the giant fucking piece of metal from his chest."

"Rodney," Zelenka said, rolling his head to the side so he could look at both of them, "no one asked you. I am not feeling much pain, Carol, no."

"You're on a first-name basis with her?" Rodney asked, startled.

Zelenka decided to ignore that, although the only other thing he had to focus on was the sensation of light pressure as Ling probed gently at his shoulder. He couldn't see what she was doing, and he was just as glad.

"There is fairly significant bruising and trauma, but you don't seem to be bleeding much and it's not threatening any internal organs," she told him. "I'm sorry, Radek -- I'd love to get you free, but we just don't have the resources to do it right now without causing more damage. It will be a risk to move you, a significant one, and I'd rather not take that risk unless I absolutely have to in order to save your life." She looked at the piece of paper that Cora the medic had taped to the wall by his head -- it seemed to be what they were doing for the trauma cases in lieu of formal medication charts -- and, inserting a needle into his IV, she added, "I'm giving you a little more painkiller to make you more comfortable. I don't want to depress your body's metabolism too much because of the cold, though. You'll probably sleep a little, and that's good, but try to move your limbs every half-hour or so, and let someone know if you start to experience numbness." She turned to look at Rodney. "Are you his friend?"

Rodney looked startled. "Define 'friend'. Are we talking about the sort of friendship where you might admit in public that you know them, or do you mean 'donating a kidney' class friendship?"

Dr. Ling gave him one of the puzzled-annoyed looks that new people tended to give Rodney the first time he opened his mouth around them. "I mean the sort of friendship in which you stop by every once in a while and make sure he hasn't frozen his feet."

"Oh. That. Er, there's not going to be anything -- medical involved, is there? Because I'm not good with that."

"Yes, Carol," Zelenka said, drawing her attention back to him. "He is a friend. A very annoying one. And he will check on me. Difficult part will be making him leave."

"No one asked you, Radek," Rodney snapped.

Carol Ling looked back and forth between them, momentarily at a loss for words. She seemed to snap together, pull herself upright, and resume her usual businesslike manner. "All right then. Remember, tell someone immediately if you have any numbness or difficulty moving any part of your body other than the affected arm. I will be down here for a while -- I'll be operating on Sgt. Packee." She nodded towards the badly injured engineer, the other person besides Radek that they hadn't evacuated during the fire. One of the other medics was setting up lanterns and laying out a tray of tools on the slanting floor.

Rodney's voice rose in a squeak. "You're doing that here?"

"Because I have no choice. She's bleeding to death internally." Ling's mouth tightened. "Considering the circumstances and the present condition of the sickbay, I think the odds are marginally better if we don't try to transport critically injured people -- especially from here, where we'd have to do it through a ventilation shaft and then outside. We're treating the worst injuries where they are. If we get the power back up, it might be different ..."

As she stood up, Rodney realized that there was something he hadn't asked yet -- something important. "Elizabeth. Dr. Weir. Do you know if Elizabeth ..." Survived the crash, he was going to say, but faltered and fell silent. He was a rational man and knew that admitting a fear would not make it real. But he couldn't quite bring himself to articulate it. "Is she all right?"

Ling looked down at him grimly. "She's on the bridge. The roof caved in and she's trapped. She is injured, but we don't know how badly. She's conscious --"

Rodney was scrambling to his feet. "Why didn't anyone tell me?"

"They've been a little busy, Rodney," Zelenka said quietly. But he felt guilty, too. He hadn't even wondered where Elizabeth was -- or even how the rest of the ship had survived the crash.

Rodney glanced down at Zelenka, looking torn. "Radek --"

Zelenka snorted, managing to raise a hand, from under the blankets, to wave him off. "Please. It is not as if you could do anything to help here. Are you a surgeon? Go, get your medical degree and come back ... then you will be useful."

"Kindly remember not to freeze while I'm gone, Radek, because then you'll have to deal with these butchers amputating your limbs -- probably without anesthesia, too."

"I will remember." The new painkiller seemed to be taking effect, because the floating feeling had deepened, and his eyelids felt heavy. He allowed them to fall shut. Sleep might be good, right now.

"Radek?" The strained note was back in Rodney's voice. "You'll, ah, be here when I get back, right?"

He grinned a little, wanting to giggle and knowing it was the drugs. "I don't think it is possible for me to move, Rodney. I am nailed to wall."

"That's ... not what I meant."

Reluctantly, Radek blinked open his gritty eyes to see Rodney staring down at him with naked worry on his face. Worry which he'd probably deny to his deathbed, but it was clearly visible at the moment. "Yes, Rodney, I will be here." And, closing his eyes, he stopped holding on and let himself drift away.

------

TBC