I forgot to say this before, but thanks once again to Tazmy and Erika (emergencyfan) for looking over parts of the story for me. And all the reviews continue to amuse, flatter and delight me. The cavalry may be coming, but there is still quite a large part of the story to go!
Impact plus 20 hours 32 minutes
"They came this way, and recently, but the wind's erasing their tracks quickly."
Lt. Armstrong straightened up from studying the marks in the snow. "That's not all, either," he said, turning back to the others with a grim look on his face. "There are wolf tracks overlapping theirs."
As if to punctuate his words, a high shivering cry rose above the wind before trailing off into a series of hyena-like yelps. There was a brief moment's silence after this.
"Then let's find them and get the hell out of here," Caldwell said shortly, urging them onward.
"Rules for engagement, sir?" Cadman asked.
"Use lethal force only in defense of your own life or the hostage's. I don't want this turning into a bloodbath, and I'd like to go back to the Daedalus with two live people to question." Although the longer they were out here, though, the less likely he thought that was going to be.
Caldwell tapped his radio. "Perry? You read this?" Seeing Cadman and Armstrong looking at him, he shook his head. "Storm's playing havoc with the radios."
Which meant they were entirely on their own. If they got into trouble out here, help wouldn't be coming. He'd instructed Perry to pick up Cadman's work of trying to get into the F302 bay, but they were still a long way from success.
A sharp crack from somewhere in front of them made Seavey jump and Cadman look forward intently, squinting against the driving snow.
"That was a gunshot," Armstrong said. "And close."
They broke into a jog, sliding through the snow. Somewhere nearby, another unearthly shriek rose through the screaming of the wind.
----
Rodney was pretty sure he was freezing to death.
He couldn't ever remember being this cold. His ears hurt, his hands hurt, his nose hurt ... even his hair felt cold, if that was possible.
"Are you planning to shoot me or just kill me slowly with frostbite?" he demanded. They were currently floundering through the softer snow under a stand of pine trees, sinking up to their knees. It was exhausting and he was pretty sure that his feet were frozen. Out on the exposed ridges, much of the snow had been blown away and what was left was packed down hard ... but there, the wind cut straight through his inadequate clothing and left him feeling like a popsicle. Six of one, half a dozen of the other ...
"See, the reason why I'm asking is because we've been out here for quite a while, and you have a coat -- which, by the way, I gave you, which I'm becoming more and more convinced is on the top-ten list of stupidest things I've ever done in my life -- but as for me, I'm freezing my butt off, and I kind of need all ten fingers in order to, oh, save our lives on a regular basis, as I do. And I'm thinking that if you really wanted to kill me, we wouldn't have to go nearly this far -- and, while I greatly appreciate the extra minutes of extremely uncomfortable life, I'm starting to wonder --"
"Will you shut up?" The gun shifted and dug into his already bruised ribs.
"So what's the PLAN here, Snidely Whiplash? Because frankly, I'm not really sure where we are -- although I swear I've seen that tree before -- and I don't think you have the foggiest clue either. And while wandering in circles until we both freeze to death or get eaten by gigantic wolves might make sense in psycho-land, back here on Planet Sanity I'm thinking that it doesn't--"
"Be quiet! For God's sake, aren't you capable of shutting up for even five minutes?" Cora gave him a hard push away from her. Rodney stumbled and slid into a pine tree, and turned back to face her, seeing the gun pointed at him.
"So, is this where it happens? This is where you shoot me and leave me for the wolves?" He knew he should probably be terrified, but frankly, after that one moment of weak-kneed fear when she'd first aimed a gun in his direction, he'd been too miserable from cold and exhaustion to even think much about anything else.
"Yes," Cora said, holding the gun in both hands.
"Oh." It emerged as a small sound, nearly lost in the wind. "Um, you know, I wasn't exactly ... urging you to do it, and I think I can deal with the cold for a little bit longer -- My God, what the hell was that?"
The high-pitched scream rose above the sound of the wind. And it was close -- too close. For an instant Rodney thought that it might be someone in trouble; it sounded a little like a woman's scream, but it was too high and went on too long. And then he remembered the wolves.
Looking desperately to Cora, he hoped that the sound had knocked a little sense into her brain -- but the expression on her face quickly got rid of that romantic notion. She looked ... relieved.
"Finally," she sighed, raising the gun to point at him. "They'll get rid of your body. No one will ever know."
Rodney found himself strangely clear-headed, thinking quite rationally about all his various options for ducking and running and hiding and just standing there and letting her kill him. Which of course meant that he was completely unable to do any of these things, since all the options seemed equally unlikely to result in his survival. A minute later, he realized that she still hadn't shot him yet.
"I just don't know why this is so hard!" Cora burst out. "You're an enemy and it shouldn't be this difficult! All I have to do is pull the trigger and you'll be dead. But I can't!"
Rodney straightened up slowly. "You know, in normal civilian circles, that's considered ... sane."
"Shut UP!" She pulled the trigger, and Rodney flinched violently, positive that he'd just sealed his fate ... but the bullet hit where it had been aimed, raising a small puff of snow from the ground at his feet.
The wolves cried out again, even closer. Rodney lowered his arms, which had flown up instinctively to cover his face -- as if human skin and bone could stop a bullet. His teeth were chattering from the cold, and he was starting to get more than just a little bit angry. It was bad enough to be kidnapped by someone with the stated intention of killing him -- but she could at least be a halfway competent kidnapper. "Are you planning on shooting me or annoying me to death?" he demanded. Oh, good work, Rodney -- upset the person with the gun. Your mouth is really going to kill you one of these days. Like ... today.
And then the miracle occurred.
"Freeze!" a voice shouted from under the trees.
------
Cadman braced herself against a tree with her assault rifle in hand. She'd never for a moment thought that Rodney was capable of doing the things they said he'd done, and now here was the proof: Rodney, looking cold and lost and scared, with Cora Ludwick, alleged hostage, standing a few feet away holding a gun on him. Unfortunately, Rodney was between Ludwick and the five members of the search party, who were ranged out in a line under the trees. It would be difficult to shoot her without hitting him.
"Freezing, thank you, is exactly what I'm doing here," Rodney said in a voice that somehow managed to combine annoyance with massive relief. "Could you people possibly have been any slower, by the way?"
With his head twisted over his shoulder, he wasn't looking at Cora -- but Cadman saw something terrified and ugly in the young woman's face as her eyes went back and forth between the guns pointed at her. Keeping Rodney's body between herself and the others, Cora lunged forward and pressed her pistol into the back of his neck.
"I said freeze!" Caldwell snapped.
Cora gripped a handful of Rodney's jacket, holding him against her. "Stop! Any of you move, and I shoot him!" Her wild eyes settled on Armstrong, and a tremendous expression of relief washed over her. "Dennis. Oh, thank God. I'm sorry I've messed up so badly. You'll take care of things now, won't you? You'll fix it, won't you? Like with Stark? Please?"
Cadman turned her head to look at Armstrong, to see him staring at Cora with a combination of anger and pity. Cora was babbling, she couldn't have meant -- Cadman's eyes started to slide to Caldwell, just in time to see shock register on the Colonel's face as a gunshot went off with a loud crack.
Cora staggered away from McKay and crumpled into a heap in the snow. Rodney fell to his knees, gasping.
"Yes, I'll fix it," Armstrong said aloud. A small wisp of smoke curled up from the tip of his rifle. "I'm sorry you had to say that, Cora. The rest of them could have lived, otherwise." And he spun, firing as he did so. The next shot took down Airman Warner, a single shot to the chest; he crumpled in the snow with eyes wide open. And now the gun was swiveling towards Cadman -- and she found that her shock was so great that all her training had deserted her, and she couldn't even move. Your own people weren't the enemy. You didn't kill your comrades-in-arms -- she couldn't make herself fire at him even as his rifle pointed at her body --
Something slammed into her from behind, and her knees buckled as a great impact tore through her shoulder. Cadman plowed into the snow, face-first. Airman Seavey had leaped at her, knocking her down. She couldn't move her arm and the rifle fell from her limp fingers. She could feel her own blood soaking into her sleeve, hot and wet.
More gunshots, right over her head. Raising her face from the snow, she saw Caldwell shooting at Armstrong, and Rodney just kneeling in the snow, looking stunned. Since he was unarmed, he'd obviously been left until last.
And that was when the mega-wolves attacked them.
Unlike Earth wolves, they didn't fear humans or guns. They only understood that their territory had been invaded by strange, alien predators who could not be eaten. The Daedalus was too large to attack, but finding an isolated group of these small, soft-looking alien creatures, the wolves jumped on their chance to defend their range against the invaders.
Huge white bodies coursed from the trees. Caldwell and Armstrong both reacted on instinct, and rather than shooting at each other, turned to fire on the wolves. The first of them went down in a heap of fur and spraying blood; the others split off to the sides, snarling. One jumped on Warner's corpse. Cadman staggered to her feet with blood running down her arm, staring around her in a daze.
"Get her out of here!" Caldwell shouted at Seavey, pointing to Cadman. Seavey nodded, wrapped her arm around Cadman's shoulders and led her into the trees at a stumbling run. One of the wolves broke off to chase them; Caldwell strafed it with gunfire and it crumpled, cut nearly in half. As he fired, he was running -- towards Cora Ludwick's body. He bent over it and began tearing off her coat.
Rodney snapped out of his paralysis to ask, "What the hell are you doing? My God, you're robbing her corpse!"
"Shut up and put this on!" Caldwell threw the blood-stained coat at him, along with Cora's gloves. He spun around to shoot down another wolf, then added some cover fire at Armstrong, who had gotten a brief respite from attacking the animals and had taken advantage of the opportunity to turn his weapon in their direction again.
"Run!" Caldwell yelled, giving Rodney a hard shove in the back as he struggled to put on the coat.
McKay was making tiny sounds of disgust as he tried to put the coat on without touching the bloodstains. At this, he looked up with huge eyes. "You're not supposed to run from wild animals! It makes them chase you!"
"When they're bigger than fucking Siberian tigers and trying to kill you anyway, McKay, you run!"
The two of them slid over the edge of a low embankment and dropped into the snow on top of a frozen creek. A wolf stuck its head over the top of the bank -- it was the size of a bear's head with serrated ears and baleful yellow eyes. Caldwell snapped off a few single shots; one of the ears vanished in a spray of blood, and the head flinched out of sight with a high-pitched yelp.
Caldwell grabbed McKay by one sleeve -- he was still trying to get the coat on; it was only over one of his arms -- and half-dragged him for a few steps until he got his legs under him and could run.
"I -- what -- we --" McKay looked at Caldwell with wide, stunned blue eyes. His face and hair were splattered with Cora's blood; the front of the coat was sodden with it. "Did Lieutenant Armstrong just try to kill us?"
"Looks that way." Caldwell risked a glance over his shoulder. The snow was falling thickly now and in the near whiteout, he could only see about five yards behind. He could hear the distant sound of snarling and high-pitched howling. If they were lucky, Armstrong had been killed in the attack. But he didn't think they'd be that lucky.
"Er ... thanks, by the way." Rodney's fingers shook as he tried to fasten the coat -- partly from cold, partly from adrenaline and fear, but he kept missing and having to start over. "This is not exactly going down in history as one of the top-ten most successful rescues of all time, but it's the thought that counts."
"Don't thank me 'till we get out of this." They were running, as fast as they could, down the narrow, twisting course of the frozen stream. Caldwell hoped that McKay would have the sense to shut up and run, but heard a sharp intake of breath next to him and braced himself for the tirade to come.
"You thought I sabotaged the Daedalus, you son of a bitch! You thought I killed Stark!" Rodney turned around so that he was stumbling along in a backwards sort of jog, in order to look Caldwell in the eyes.
"Could we not have this conversation now, McKay?"
"Oh no! I think this a perfectly fine time to have this conversation! You owe me one hell of an apology! You're lucky Sheppard's not here--"
At that point Rodney discovered why trying to run backwards wasn't a good idea, because all of a sudden the ground wasn't under his feet anymore. The twisting streambed had turned into a vertical drop-off. Only Caldwell's quick grab for Rodney's coat saved him from going off the edge. The Colonel yanked him back onto more secure footing, steadied him and then let go, leaving him standing and gasping like a beached fish. "Uh ... That ... I ... wuh ..."
"And now I saved your life ... again," Caldwell said with a hint of a grin, and looked over the edge. It was quite pretty, really: a series of frozen waterfalls dropping away into a canyon. At the bottom, the black ribbon of a half-frozen river could be glimpsed between blowing veils of snow.
"Well, there's no going that way," Rodney said in a decisive tone, apparently having recovered his verbal as well as his physical feet. "Now, let's get back to this whole thing where you accuse me of murder and then send me out into a blizzard with the real killer -- eek!"
The squeal at the end was due to Caldwell swinging around and pointing a gun at him -- or rather, at the parka-clad figure which had just popped up over the edge of the streambank behind him, carrying an assault rifle. The rifle swung towards them and Caldwell fired off a short burst. The figure vanished like a knocked-over target in a shooting gallery, but Caldwell didn't think he'd hit him.
"Now what?" Rodney yelled, covering his head with his arms.
"Armstrong. I think." Caldwell grabbed hold of his unwanted companion by the sleeve and tugged him towards the edge.
"Hey! Wait! Where are we going?"
"We are climbing down into the canyon, unless you'd rather go up there with Armstrong and the wolves and lord knows what else."
"I hate you, you know."
"Hate is a strong word, McKay. You go down first; I'll follow you." He offered Rodney a hand, which just got a suspicious stare.
"Why me first? So if I fall, you'll know where not to step?"
Caldwell tried and failed to suppress a sigh of exasperation. That Dr. McKay was brilliant, he had no doubt, and he'd even seen glimpses of the actual human being under all the snarkiness and complaints. But there were still times when he truly wondered how anyone on Atlantis managed to put up with him. "No, so that I can shoot at the guy with the gun who's trying to kill us, without accidentally shooting you."
"Oh." That took the wind out of his sails. Rodney looked over his shoulder, and shuddered. "You know, I'm not good with heights..."
Scanning the tops of the streambanks, which remained Armstrong-free for the moment, Caldwell put all the drill-sergeant bark into his voice that he could muster. "Get moving, McKay!"
"Fine, fine ... no need to shout ..." With a little assistance from Caldwell, Rodney managed to lower himself over the edge. Immediately he lost his footing and slid about ten feet, coming to a stop with his boot wedged against a still cascade of ice. He made a tiny, scared sound.
Armstrong took advantage of Caldwell's distraction to pop up and open fire. With a muttered curse, Caldwell threw himself over the edge as bullets scattered in the snow. He had no chance to even try to get his feet under him and tumbled considerably farther than Rodney before fetching up against a pine tree clinging to the side of the bluff. He wiped the snow out of his eyes with a shaking hand, noticing that he'd somehow retained the presence of mind to hold onto his P90.
"This is a really bad idea!" Rodney's terrified voice filtered down from above. Caldwell looked up to see the scientist splayed out against the snow like a large, ungainly spider. "Have I mentioned this is the worst rescue ever?"
Caldwell looked over his shoulder, at the alarmingly long drop down to the river. Privately, he was inclined to agree on both counts ... but they didn't exactly have any other options open to them at the moment. It was either climb down the cliff or go back up and contend with Armstrong and the wolves.
Armstrong's head appeared over the edge and disappeared immediately when Caldwell fired off a couple of single shots. The recoil from the P90 almost cost him his grip on the pine tree. Scattered chunks of snow, dislodged by the movement, tumbled into the abyss beneath him. Rodney had flattened himself to the snow as if he intended to become part of it.
"We gotta go, McKay! Either climb up or go down, but either way -- move!"
"I really, really hate you." Rodney's boot twitched and began to feel around for a toehold. Promptly losing his grip, he slid down another few feet. Snow cascaded down around Caldwell, pelting his face and torso.
"We're going to die," Rodney said in a fatalistic tone.
"That's the spirit, McKay." Caldwell carefully swung himself down beneath the pine tree, hanging the P90 over his shoulder so that he had both hands free. The slope wasn't entirely vertical, and there were actually quite a lot of little trees and bushes, half-covered with snow. If it had been summer, the climb would have been relatively easy. What made it difficult was the snow -- covering up handholds, just generally being slippery and unstable.
"Hey! You can't leave me here!"
"I'm not leaving you, but I can't exactly climb for you, either. You've got to do this on your own. And you'd better do it soon; I imagine the Lieutenant has no intention of letting us get back to the Daedalus." As he spoke, Caldwell was scrambling farther down the slope, a move calculated to galvanize McKay into action as the source of his protection got farther away. And it worked; glancing up, he saw the scientist unhappily clambering into motion. He'd seen Sheppard handle McKay; he had a pretty good idea of how it was done.
"Where do you find these people?" Rodney demanded, groping about for a foothold. "Between Nurse Kevorkian and your trigger-happy pal up there, you've got a full complement of wackos on your crew, don't you?"
Caldwell didn't answer, because it was a fair enough accusation, and it stung. He'd always had the utmost faith in his people ... barring the odd Goa'uld possession or mind-altering device, always a concern when one worked with the Stargate program. But the idea that two, and maybe more, of his crew members, in full possession of their faculties, had orchestrated something of this nature, burned him deeply.
"And you accused me of being a traitor." Despite the obvious strain and fear in his voice, Rodney's smugness seemed to have returned full force.
"You know, McKay," Caldwell said as he divided his attention between hunting for footholds on the cliffside and scanning the skyline for Armstrong's head, "I have a lot of bullets, and you're currently between me and the wacko in question."
"Are you threatening to shoot me? You are, aren't you? You do realize that I'm submitting a detailed grievance to the IOA the minute we get back to Atlantis, don't you? And I intend to include that remark, I'll have you know ..."
He was talking, but he was also moving at a fairly respectable pace, so Caldwell let him babble and tried to ignore it. The Colonel paused for a moment on top of a big rock to rest and get his bearings. They hadn't come very far down the cliff compared to how far they still had to go, and it bothered him that Armstrong hadn't reappeared. The man might be crazy, but he was also very, very good in the wilderness. Caldwell didn't like it.
A moment later, as if conjured by his thoughts, he heard Armstrong's voice above the roaring wind: "Colonel!"
Caldwell didn't answer; he slipped the P90 from his shoulder into his hands instead.
"Colonel!" Armstrong shouted again. "I know you're down there!"
Rodney had almost caught up to him. "Aren't you going to answer him?" the scientist demanded as he slithered down another few feet in a semi-controlled fall.
"Not planning on it, no."
The top of the cliff was almost invisible in the blowing snow. Dimly, Caldwell saw a figure arise from the blizzard. He raised his P90, but Armstrong didn't seem inclined to make any threatening moves.
"Colonel! You think you're safe down there? You think you can escape? Neither of you are going to live to tell anyone what you've seen here. And after I kill you, it'll be the girls' turn next."
Caldwell realized that his teeth had clenched so hard that his jaw muscles hurt. He'd trusted Armstrong. He'd liked him.
"So long," Armstrong called, but instead of shooting at them, he strafed the snow at the top of the hill.
It took Caldwell's brain a second to catch up with what was happening. Avalanche.
"Move!" he yelled, and reached out to seize hold of Rodney's leg, yanking the other man loose from his precarious purchase on the cliffside.
"What are you doing? We're going to fall --"
"Worse than that'll happen to us in a minute!" From above, there was a low rumble, felt more than heard, as the snow overhanging the edge of the cliff began to give way.
In his boyhood, Caldwell and his friends used to dare each other to run down a very steep hill in their neighborhood. You could do it, he'd learned, if you kept running and never stopped -- falter and you'd fall, keep running and gravity would be on your side. He doubted if McKay had been the type to do anything similar, and there was no time to explain the theory, so all he could do was pull the scientist into a run and hope that he got the idea.
"You can't outrun an avalanche!" Rodney shrieked in horror.
"What's the alternative?" Caldwell shouted back over the gathering roar. "Stand here and die?"
Once they started running, there was absolutely no question of stopping. It was really just a semi-controlled fall, getting less controlled every minute, and this was a much steeper hill than the one he remembered. Caldwell lost track of McKay, lost his grip on the P90; it was every man for himself. Desperately, he clutched at trees and rocks, trying to slow his headlong rush towards the bottom of the canyon. He bounced off a pine tree and saw a boulder coming at his head; flinging out his arm to protect himself, he felt something crunch. Then the snow caught him -- he tumbled end-over-end, his arm was a wash of white-hot pain ... and he was lying on his back, half-buried in the snow, staring up at dancing snowflakes and aware that he had lost a bit of time. He couldn't move his arm, couldn't really move much of his body, either. There was no sound from McKay.
We are screwed, he thought calmly. He hoped Cadman and Seavey had had a chance to get away. McKay was right -- as rescues went, this one was shaping up into a world-class fiasco.
------
TBC