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Also, I forgot to say this before, but thanks to Erika, aka Emergencyfan, for looking over this story for me.
Impact plus 2 hours 20 minutes
As frustrating as Rodney found the snail's pace of Elizabeth's rescue, he had to admit that they couldn't exactly do it faster. It was like the old game of pickup-sticks that he and his sister used to play when they were very young -- throw down a handful of sticks and try to remove each one without causing any of the other sticks to move. In this game, the cost of a wrong move would not be a lost turn, but the loss of Elizabeth's life.
He could feel the cold creeping into the ship. For the moment, it was just a chilly sensation around the edges -- he couldn't see his breath, could still feel his hands and feet. He found his brain automatically calculating square meters and thermal transfer, trying to figure out how long it would be before the inside of the ship was as icy and still as the world outside.
There were more than enough hands to move pieces of fractured plastic and twisted steel; he only felt in the way here. No one noticed as he left in uncharacteristic silence and wandered down to the cargo bay.
It was a very strange position in which to find himself. If this had been Atlantis, he would have been right in the thick of things, assessing and repairing damage. But right now, Hermiod wouldn't let him, or any of the rest of the crew, anywhere near the ship's systems -- not even Novak. Rodney suspected that the Asgard didn't really trust any of the humans at the moment. He, Novak and Caldwell were the only people who had been let in on the sabotage secret at all ... well, the three of them plus anyone else they'd told, such as Zelenka and, Rodney was pretty sure, Caldwell's second-in-command. And while Hermiod obviously trusted him that far, he still wasn't allowed near the engines.
So here he was, sharpest brain in the Pegasus Galaxy, fetching and carrying for people with IQs half as high as his own. And he couldn't even get one of the so-called medics to give him a Tylenol. He tried again in the cargo bay, accosting Radek's little doctor friend, Ling, as she hurried past. "Excuse me, I'm in a lot of pain here and if you could just tell me --"
"Where are you hurt?" she demanded, all but tapping her foot impatiently. Her sleeves and hands were stained with something dark that Rodney really, really hoped was engine oil. He tried not to touch her, instead pointing at the approximate location of the bruises on his arms and legs.
"Well, here, here, also here ... and I think I may have strained my back --"
She gave him a glare of vicious dislike. "You're as healthy as I am, and there are people with actual injuries who need my attention, so kindly get out of my way."
"Look, just tell me where it is and I'll get it mys-- Hey!" She'd dumped a couple of plastic cases into his arms. "What's this?"
"Medical equipment. If you're healthy enough to complain, you can help me carry it." She was giving him that look again -- like he was something that had crawled out from under a rock. "Have you been checking on your friend, like I told you to?"
"Excuse me, I'm not following your orders -- I volunteered if you'll recall -- get back here!" She was in motion again, and he had to hasten after her, threading between pallets and cots on the side of the cargo bay that had been turned into a makeshift infirmary.
"In other words, you haven't checked on him."
"I -- I was busy! Helping dig out people! Or -- watching -- supervising -- they'll get it wrong if I don't -- Listen, dammit, all I wanted was a Tylenol, okay? I'm in pain!" And writhing, inwardly, at the thought that he'd gotten too caught up in Elizabeth's peril to even think about Radek's. But the idea of having to see Zelenka again, pale and trapped and covered in his own blood -- he didn't know if he could take that again.
Ling spun around and Rodney recoiled guiltily, as if she could read his thoughts. Though much shorter than he was, she glared up at him with a force of anger that could rival Ronon on his worst days. "You know what? In the entire time you've been on this ship, the only thing I've ever heard you do is complain. You're one of the lucky ones who made it through the crash with a handful of bruises, while others are badly injured -- including someone who claims you're his friend. And you want painkillers." Her dark eyes raked over him. "I see you've got a coat too, when we only have a few. What makes you so important, Dr. McKay?"
Anger -- his standard defense against guilt. "Important? Excuse me? I'm only the person who's saved Atlantis from the Wraith -- how many times now? Do you have any idea who you're talking to? Do you know how many degrees I have?"
"I don't care how many degrees you have -- all I've seen you do since we crashed is stand around and try to tell everyone else what to do, in between whining about your bruises." She snatched back the plastic cases from him. "Thank you very much for the help. Now kindly stay out of my way. I'll find your Tylenol when I can spare the time." Turning her back on him, she knelt down beside a semiconscious man with his leg twisted at an odd angle, and laid her hand gently on the heaving chest, ignoring Rodney.
He wanted to yell at her. He wanted to find the anger again. But instead, it was draining away, leaving him feeling small and cowardly and pathetic.
"So, I'm just gonna go -- check on Radek," he said to her back, and fled.
Outside, twilight was deepening around the bulk of the ship. Rodney gathered the coat around him -- damn the woman, now he even felt guilty for that. He slid and floundered in the loose snow around the ship's hull.
"Dr. McKay!"
The voice came from behind him. Rodney looked around, confused and annoyed, until he caught sight of a tall figure in a parka slogging up the hill towards him. The hood was down and short pale hair whipped in the wind. It was the blond engineer -- what had his name been?
"Armstrong?" Rodney guessed, and then he noticed that the man was carrying a gun. He tried to recoil, but Armstrong closed the distance between them and grabbed him by the arm, tugging him around. What the hell was this -- an abduction? Wraith saboteur! his subconscious shrieked at him. Oh God, they were kidnapping him for his brain -- Rodney yanked his arm free with a panicked shout of "Hey!"
"Huh? Oh, sorry, Doc." Armstrong saw the way Rodney was staring at the gun and holstered it, but kept his hand near it. "Just trying to get you inside. It's not safe out here. I've been taking a look around, and the ship appears to be attracting predators."
He couldn't believe it -- the situation had actually managed to get worse. "Like ... what? Wolves?"
"Wolves that are about twelve feet long," Armstrong said grimly. "Which way are you headed?"
"Engine room. Er, have you actually seen these, uh, mega-wolves?"
"I saw their tracks. Seems to be a whole pack of them around." As he spoke, Armstrong shepherded Rodney towards the ventilation shaft leading into the engine room. His hand never left the butt of his pistol. "I caught a glimpse of one -- huge ugly sucker, kind of like a cross between a wolf and a reptile. Spikes on its neck, claws the size of a bear's --"
SCREEEEEK!
The sudden, shrill screech nearly made Rodney jump out of his skin. He spun around, searching for the source of the sound. A loose piece of metal on the ship somewhere?
"... and they shriek too," Armstrong said, giving him a light shove towards the shaft.
"You've been out here with those things?" Rodney yelled as he scrambled wildly inside. "Are you crazy?"
"That wasn't very close. The sound carries a long distance." Armstrong climbed in behind him. "I think they're afraid to approach the ship. I don't know how long that'll be the case, though. Luckily we have guns. I suggest you start carrying one too, Doc."
"Gladly," Rodney muttered. With saboteurs running around, and now giant shrieking wolves, he'd been deeply regretting having to give up his Atlantis-issue sidearm while on the Daedalus. Next time he saw Caldwell, he was definitely getting a gun. A big gun. Maybe a P90. Maybe two of them.
Rodney dropped out on the slanting floor. After the bitter chill outside, it actually felt warm in here. But, then, the engine room had had a lot more heat to lose in the first place. The room was nearly deserted: basically Hermiod's fault, the Asgard having kicked out all the engineers. (And Rodney still maintained that this was a stupid idea; they couldn't all be saboteurs.) Glancing around, he spotted Hermiod half-visible behind an open panel in the wall, while Novak, her arm splinted, guarded him or handed him tools or something. Teacher's pet, Rodney thought resentfully.
Sgt. Packee, the wounded engineer, was invisible behind a sheet the medics had hung across the room for privacy. Light behind the sheet cast wavering shadows across it as people moved around and did ... things Rodney probably didn't want to know about. Instead he crossed the sloping floor to Zelenka, huddled in a nest of blankets. Okay. Check to see that he wasn't freezing. Sounded easier said than done. One of Zelenka's feet was sticking out from under the blankets; Rodney poked at it with a cautious finger.
The foot twitched and Radek grumbled sleepily, "Rodney, I am not casserole. Stop checking to see if I am done."
Rodney jerked his hand back guiltily. "Look, don't blame me. I'm just trying to keep Terrible Tessa the sickbay harridan from ripping my head off if you freeze your limbs on my watch."
Zelenka squinted at him, looking bleary. "Are you talking about Carol? What did you do to annoy her, Rodney?"
"Hey! What makes you think it was me?"
Zelenka just snorted and closed his eyes.
"Oh, that's a stupid way to win an argument, Radek. As if I'm letting you get away with that. You know you can't out-argue me and this is a pathetically transparent attempt to avoid a debate you're well aware you can't help but lose because you haven't got the brains for it. Er ... Radek?" Getting no response, Rodney began tentatively patting at his face until Zelenka opened his eyes and glowered at him.
"Rodney, you are worse than my grandmother's cat. What are you doing?"
"You're cold," Rodney said, too worried to even be annoyed.
"It is cold in here."
"No ... no it's not, Radek. It's actually kind of warm, and you're wrapped in enough blankets to insulate Frosty the Snowman in July, which means you're probably in shock, which means ... oh, God."
"If you hyperventilate, Rodney, I do not think the Daedalus stocks paper bags, which means I will have to call one of the very large soldiers to throw you into a snowbank to calm you down." Studying Rodney from slightly glazed blue eyes, he asked, "How are you doing, anyway?"
That was a great question, coming from someone with a piece of metal sticking out of his chest. "Oh, I'm fine, Radek. No one will give me any Tylenol and I just found out there are apocalyptically huge, shrieking wolves outside."
"Shrieking wolves?"
"Yeah, it's a treat." Rodney settled down against the wall next to the other scientist. "Some of Caldwell's people have been scouting around outside, it seems ... antagonizing the local wildlife. By the way, Lt. Armstrong is my current suspect for saboteur."
"You mean Dennis? Why?"
Rodney shot him a disbelieving look. "Are you on a first-name basis with every person on this ship?"
"Unlike you, I actually take the time to get to know my co-workers as individuals rather than as potentially useful brains with a body wrapped around them." Radek shifted a little against the wall, apparently trying to find a more comfortable position; he winced and relaxed back into his original slumped pose. "And you did not answer my question. Why do you think Dennis is the saboteur?"
"Because he's friendly," Rodney said promptly. "Too friendly. People who act friendly for no reason are evil. Just look at the Genii."
"Kolya did not seem particularly friendly."
Rodney rolled his eyes. "Well, obviously they're evil if they act evil from the beginning, Radek; use your head."
"So, let me see if this is straight. If they're friendly, they're up to no good, and if they aren't friendly, they're also up to no good."
"Exactly," Rodney said, satisfied that Zelenka seemed to be following his reasoning.
"I can see why you did not become homicide detective, Rodney."
"Oh, for crying out -- Look, Radek, people don't act friendly just because they're, well ..."
"Friendly?"
"Exactly! There is no such thing as a truly nice person. Everyone wants something. If they act nice when they first meet you, that just means that they're willing to lie to get what they want. Which means they're clearly up to something." Rodney sat back and folded his arms, pleased with himself.
Radek just stared at him. "The inside of your head must be a dark and scary place, Rodney," he said, and closed his eyes again.
"Hey!" Rodney leaned forward. "Wake up! I don't think you should be sleeping."
Without opening his eyes, Zelenka retorted, "That is for concussion, Rodney, not for spike through chest. I would honestly rather sleep through this, thanks very much."
"I know that, but --" Rodney floundered to a halt; he didn't have a good reason except that Elizabeth wasn't much of a conversationalist at the moment and he felt terribly, horribly alone. "We were talking about sabotage theories," he said lamely.
"And if you come up with one that makes sense, be sure and let me know," Radek mumbled, and then added something in Czech, switching on the fly in a way that made Rodney suspect he didn't know he'd switched languages.
"Yeah, well ... don't die or anything." Rodney patted him awkwardly on the ankle, reminded yet again that as far as comforting bedside manner, the illustrious Dr. McKay ranked somewhere between Josef Mengele and Attila the Hun.
There was a small flurry of snowflakes at the far end of the room and he saw Armstrong giving a helping hand to someone coming through the ventilation shaft. It was the young blond medic -- Cora Whatsername. She'd just been outside, wearing nothing but a jacket with a Daedalus patch, and he could see her shivering from here. Snow crusted her pants and lightly dusted her hair ... short, blond, Sam Carter hair.
Rodney closed his eyes for an instant, then got up. "Hey, you, ah -- Cora?"
She looked up at him with the same tired, hostile look that he'd been getting from all the medical staff -- the word about him appeared to have spread. Rodney gritted his teeth and hoped that he would get some major karma points for this, as he shrugged out of the parka and realized that it was, indeed, chillier in the engine room than he'd realized. He thrust it at her as if it contained live coals. "Here. Take this. I'm really too hot, I'm naturally very warm-blooded so I don't need this, and you keep going outside and -- fixing people, and stuff. Also, you gave Radek drugs, although not very good drugs. Speaking of drugs, do you have any Tylenol?"
She blinked at him, trying to parse this, and took the coat without losing the puzzled line between her eyebrows. "Er ... thanks. Dr. McKay, was it?"
"Rodney." He smiled hopefully.
"Dr. McKay, yes ..." She dug in her pockets, while he drooped a little, only to perk up when she came up with several plastic packets and held them out. "Here, take two of these every four hours."
"I could kiss you," Rodney told her, and at her horrified look, added hastily, "But of course I won't. Unless you want me to. Which clearly you don't. Er, thanks."
"You're welcome. Thank you for the coat." She gave him a final puzzled look, and disappeared behind the curtain, while Rodney mentally kicked himself a few hundred times. Well, hopefully she would remember that he'd given her the coat, not that he was an idiot with a terminal case of foot-in-mouth disease. And she had given him Tylenol, which meant that she couldn't hate him too much.
On the other hand, she'd given him Tylenol ... which meant that according to the Nice Guy theory of villain detection, she was in the running for the Saboteur-of-the-Year award.
The whole thing made his head hurt, even more than it already hurt. Wasn't being trapped on an ice planet bad enough, without having to look over his shoulder constantly for a traitor? Why couldn't any sort of life-threatening situation ever be simple?
If hallucinations of Sam Carter showed up this time, he was throwing himself to the wolves.
------
Impact plus 2 hours 45 minutes
It had been more than fifteen minutes, but still, Sheppard was impressed by how quickly they'd managed to pull together five rescue teams and equipment on such short notice.
"There are over two hundred people on the Daedalus, counting the scientists," Simpson said as she slid into the seat next to Ronon on Jumper One. Since Sheppard had requested a scientist on the search-and-rescue, she'd insisted on being the one -- and since she was currently the ranking scientist on Atlantis, there wasn't anybody around to overrule her. Sheppard could have -- and he actually thought about it; he hated the idea of Atlantis's entire contingent of senior scientists being stranded in a potentially Wraith-infested solar system -- but in the end decided that it was her choice to make. Besides, she was second only to Zelenka at understanding the jumpers' systems, which would be good if they had to make changes on the fly.
"Two hundred people..." Sheppard prompted her when she trailed off and lost herself in the calculations she was scribbling quickly on a pad of paper on her knee. The Colonel was helping Beckett run down a checklist of medical equipment in the back of the jumper.
"What? Oh ... yes. I'm thinking we can carry anywhere from twelve to fifteen people in the jumper for a trip of that duration. Maybe fewer, if some of them are badly wounded and have to lie flat with room for medical personnel to work on them. It's not going to be comfortable, but we can make it work."
"Twelve to fifteen?" Sheppard repeated, swinging into the pilot's seat while Beckett, very reluctantly, took the copilot position. "That's it? A Black Hawk can take twenty passengers in an emergency, if not more, and the engines on this thing are much more powerful--"
"Yes, but a helicopter doesn't have life support." Simpson shook a piece of paper at him. "The last thing we want is to overwhelm the scrubbers and choke on CO2 ten hours from the gate."
"Point taken." Sheppard shook his head, running his fingers quickly over the controls as he went through his mental preflight checklist. "That means we can only evacuate, best-case scenario, about a third of the Daedalus's crew on the first trip. Let's hope they're in a position where the rest of them can hold out for the next wave of jumpers."
He'd instructed Teyla to prepare another batch of rescue jumpers and wait for his signal. If they made it to the planet without encountering Wraith, she was to send them through, so that the remaining Daedalus crew members wouldn't have to wait through a full round trip for the next wave of evacuations.
This was assuming there was anyone to be evacuated. And he wouldn't allow himself to believe differently. He tapped his radio. "Colonel Sheppard here. Are we a go?" Four voices came back with affirmation, and he cast a glance at his current team -- Beckett looking nervous, Simpson distracted, Ronon ready as always.
"Teyla, we're good. Dial the gate."
After a pause, her clear voice spoke through the radio. "We are ready, Colonel."
Sheppard started the launch sequence, and the jumper rose into the air. "Remember, Teyla, dial in and check with us every two hours."
"We will do so."
The jumper bay door irised open and, as the automatic launch protocols lowered them in front of the shimmering blue surface of the gate, Sheppard looked up at the balcony where Teyla stood, her hands locked on the railing. She looked small and alone. One of her hands unclenched and raised in a small wave. He waved back, though he wasn't sure if she could see him.
"May the Ancestors go with you, Colonel."
At any other time, Sheppard might have smiled at the quaint Athosian farewell. Now, he only pressed his lips together grimly and stared ahead as the jumper nosed through the gate. If only the Ancients were actually willing to help, rather than sitting on their Ascended asses and watching the mortals of the universe live out their short and frantic lives. No miracles, no salvation, at least not in this life -- the only thing they could rely on was their own wits, and each other.
The gate spit them out into a starfield, and he felt the controls come alive under his hands as the launch protocols released them. Bringing the jumper around in a circle, he watched the rest of his squad assemble in front of the gate, which disengaged with a burst of light and left them alone in orbit around a strange world. He took a minute to pinpoint the position of the MALP, tumbling slowly through space. They'd need to retrieve it at some point -- MALPs didn't grow on trees, unfortunately -- but not today.
"It doesn't look like there are any energy readings whatsoever from the planet, Colonel," Simpson reported. "Looks like the MALP data was right -- this solar system's dead. On the bright side, there's no sign of Wraith at this point, either."
Dead. Not a good choice of words. "Lorne? Everyone ready to roll?"
"Ready down here, sir."
"Moving out then. Follow me, and stay in touch."
He came around again, laying in the heading that Simpson had given him. Twenty hours waited in front of them, twenty long and tense hours, unless they could reach the Daedalus at some point during the flight. Boosting his radio with the jumper's communication system, he gave it a try. "Daedalus, this is Colonel Sheppard. Do you read me?"
He repeated the call several times, on several channels. There was no response. "Okay, Daedalus, I'm assuming your communications are down, but just in case, here's the situation. This is Sheppard and I'm inbound towards your position with a rescue party." Remembering just in time that it was theoretically possible for Wraith or other hostiles to listen in on their radio communication, he stopped before giving specifics on the number of rescuers or their ETA. Instead, he said, "So, help's on the way, and you need to sit tight, make sure you have enough food and whatnot, and wait for us. We're coming, and we'll be listening for you to call, so give us a yell if you have any intact technology capable of doing it. If not, we'll see you when we get there. Sheppard out."
Letting out a long sigh, he rested his hands lightly on the controls and looked at the others. "Well, I hope you folks brought cards, because the dull part begins now, and I'm afraid I forgot the inflight movie."
This got a faint, worried-looking smile from Beckett, an emotionless stare from Ronon, and no reaction at all from Simpson, who was completely focused on her scanners and didn't even appear to have heard him.
God, he didn't want to admit it ... but he really missed Rodney at times like this. Staring out at the stars and the sliver of planet wheeling away below them, he gave himself over for just a moment to fear and doubt. There were so many possibilities, most of them bad. They'd cheated death too many times -- you could play the odds for only so long before they caught up with you.
Every combat pilot knew that at some point you zigged when you should have zagged. If they kept flying, everybody had a last flight eventually.
With that lovely, comforting thought, he set the heading for an unknown world on the far side of the sun, rested his hands on the controls, and hoped.
------
TBC