Impact plus 20 hours 47 minutes
Sheppard flew low along the fringes of the huge storm system, giving Simpson an opportunity to take readings.
"Yes!" She pumped her fist in the air. "It's a lot easier to get a position on the emergency beacon from the atmosphere. I thought it might be."
"You got it, Doc?"
She nodded, and pointed. "That way. But be careful. There's a mountain range under all those clouds, and we're going to be flying mostly blind."
The wall of thunderhead came up to meet them -- and their screens were swallowed by gray-white murk. Sheppard was flying on instruments alone. This wasn't something that bothered him; he'd done it a million times before. What gave him pause was that, if Simpson was correct, his instruments might not be 100 reliable in the storm.
Another truly disturbing thing about flying the 'jumper in a storm was that the inertial dampeners cushioned them from the effects of turbulence -- but he could tell from the readouts that they were getting thrown around. He could feel it in the controls, just not in his body, and that made compensating difficult. It was like trying to walk on uneven ground when you couldn't feel your feet. He made a decision.
"Any of you guys get motion sick?"
"No," Simpson said. Ronon just grunted.
Beckett closed his eyes. "Oh, God, what are you going to do?"
"Dial back the inertial dampeners. It's going to get rough, but I can't fly this way, not in this."
He was doing it as he spoke. The shuddering that he could feel in the controls spread to his whole body; then they hit wind-shear and he was flung forward in his seat as the craft plummeted before he managed to level it out.
"Mother Mary, we're going to die," Beckett managed to say through clenched teeth.
Sheppard spared enough attention to say, "We were doing this before; you just couldn't feel it." Then he had to concentrate on navigating an obstacle course of mountains and ravines. "Are we on the right heading, Doc?" he asked when he could relax enough to talk again.
"Yes; in fact it should be right -- there!"
They broke out of a low-lying bank of clouds, and there it was, laid out below them, dimly visible though a haze of swirling snow: the Daedalus. For a second Sheppard just stared, awestruck at the tremendous channel the ship had cut down the side of the mountain. It was lying sideways across the slope, listing towards its downhill side, with a twist in the middle and bits of wreckage scattered around.
Beckett was leaning forward as if he wanted to crawl through the viewscreen. "God," he whispered.
"Daedalus, this is Colonel Sheppard. Daedalus, do you read me?"
The reply came back an instant later. "Sheppard, this is Major Perry, acting commander of the Daedalus. You would not believe how glad I am to hear your voice."
Acting commander -- which likely meant that Caldwell hadn't survived the crash, or at least wasn't in good shape. Which meant they'd suffered injuries, possibly deaths. There were a million questions he wanted to ask, starting with Are Elizabeth and Rodney okay? but instead he said, "We're right over you in a puddlejumper. We've got four more jumpers above the clouds. I'm going to try to reach them on the radio, which might mean taking a short hop into the upper atmosphere -- the storm is giving our communications systems hell. Where do you want us to land?"
"Most of us are in the cargo bay, Colonel. You can probably see from up there that there's a rip in the hull -- if you can find a flat place to land near it, that's how we've been getting in and out. And -- we've got wounded."
"Acknowledged, Daedalus. We have a medical staff with us. We'll be on the ground in a few minutes." Turning his head, Sheppard saw that Beckett was opening his mouth -- probably to ask about Cadman or the others. "Doc, get your gear together. We'll be landing in a minute and I need you ready to go."
Beckett looked as if he wanted to protest, but nodded and got up. Sheppard was glad he hadn't argued -- there wasn't anything they could do from up here, no matter what the answer was about their people on the ground, and they'd find out soon enough.
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Impact plus 20 hours 55 minutes
Keisha's feet slipped and skidded in the snow. At some point her hood had been knocked askew, and her ears were going numb, but she didn't dare stop to put it back up. Cadman leaned heavily on her shoulder, and Keisha shook her gently. "Ma'am? Can you hear me?"
Looking back, she saw that they were leaving a trail of red spots in the snow -- blood dripping from Cadman's injured arm. Her entire sleeve was soaked, and Keisha could even smell it, a heavy metallic reek.
She was terrified of pursuit, by either Armstrong or the wolves, but if she didn't stop and do something about the bleeding, Cadman was going to die.
They were currently in some sort of valley. High cliffs helped to cut the wind, as did the pine forest through which they were currently making their way. Keisha stopped under a pine tree and helped the injured lieutenant sit down with her back against it, wishing that she had any sort of woodcraft skills. She'd been through simple wilderness-survival training in Basic, but the only thing she could remember off the top of her head was how to purify water by digging a hole in sand, which wasn't especially applicable to their current situation. She was a city girl, darn it; her only experience in the woods was summer camp, and her main memory of that was nearly drowning when she'd fallen out of a canoe.
Cadman's hood was down, too, and her blond hair straggled limply into her face. Keisha had to call her name several times to get her attention, and she raised her head with a dazed, drugged look on her face.
"Lieutenant Cadman? I need to look at your arm, ma'am. Where does it hurt?"
Cadman stared at her for a moment before slowly focusing. "Shoulder," she said. "Shot in the shoulder. I think."
Keisha partially unzipped the parka and pulled it back. The shoulder of Cadman's uniform was a sodden mess; Keisha picked at the fabric but couldn't tell where the bullet had gone in or whether there was an exit wound.
"Wolves," Cadman said suddenly.
"It's all right, ma'am. I think we lost them."
Cadman shook her head. "No. Blood." She sounded a bit stronger, but her teeth chattered with cold. "If they're like Earth predators, they'll be able to smell blood. We have to keep moving."
Keisha paused from examining the injury to snug Cadman's parka hood back up over her head. "We have to rest for a moment, ma'am, and I have to take care of your wound. Do you have anything we can use for a bandage?"
"First aid kit in my vest."
Keisha found it, and bound the shoulder as tightly as she could. Cadman bit her lip and hissed softly in pain, but didn't move.
"I think the bullet might still be in there, ma'am, but I can't do anything about that."
Cadman nodded, and then she tugged at Keisha's arm with her good hand, getting her attention. "Listen, you saved my life back there. Twice. Thank you."
Keisha looked away. "You would have done it for me, ma'am."
Cadman laughed a little. "I'm not so sure of that. I froze up, do you know that? I knew that Armstrong was going to kill me and I just ... couldn't make myself shoot someone wearing the same uniform as mine. I just kept thinking, this is Dennis, I know him, it's got to be some kind of mistake ..."
"I still can't believe it, ma'am," Keisha said fervently. "Airman Ludwick, and Lieutenant Armstrong ... how is it possible?" She paused, swallowed, as a frightening thought occurred to her. Looking up and meeting Cadman's eyes, she saw that she wasn't the only one.
Cadman spoke quietly. "There could be more of them, back on the Daedalus. And Armstrong may be headed back there right now. We have to get back and warn them."
"Colonel Caldwell will ..."
"Airman, we don't even know if he's still alive." Cadman grabbed at the trunk of the tree, dragging herself upright. Keisha scrambled to her feet and tried to help. "We have to get back, have to let them know what happened." She reached awkwardly across her face to tap at her radio. "Daedalus, this is Cadman. Daedalus, come in, please ... It's no use. Even without the storm, all these cliffs would block our radios in any case." Looking around, she said slowly, "Er, Airman, where are we?"
Keisha gulped. "I was hoping you wouldn't ask me that, ma'am. I have no idea."
Cadman stared up at the cliffs around them. Their tops were lost in the blizzard; it was impossible to see the mountains at all. Then she looked back over her shoulder. The wind had already wiped out their trail.
"I think we might be in trouble," Keisha admitted in a tiny voice. "I'm sorry."
"Not your fault, Airman." Cadman looped her good arm over the younger woman's shoulders, easing her weight onto Keisha's solid frame. "We know which way we came from. Let's see if we can cut over and get on top of these hills. We might be able to orient ourselves that way."
Keisha nodded, and the two of them began to move, awkwardly, through the snow.
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TBC