With the inertial dampers dialed back as far as they could safely go -- leaving just enough to shield their bodies from excessive g's on the hard turns -- the puddlejumper bucked and shuddered in the wind. Sheppard could feel the sweat trickling down the back of his neck as he struggled with the controls. Ronon, thankfully, was a silent and undemanding passenger. This would have been next to impossible with Rodney complaining about every bit of turbulence.

Rodney ... God. What was going on? What had happened back on that ship?

The first time the LCS gave him a cluster of life signs, he broke out of the clouds and swirling snow just a few dozen yards above the shaggy backs of a herd of large, yak-looking animals with wide spreading horns. "Sorry," he muttered as they scattered under him, their bleats of fear audible through the ship's external sensors.

The second time, it was a pack of some kind of huge, wolflike predators, their lean bodies coursing rapidly across a snowy hillside. His attention focused on them, Sheppard very nearly flew into a cliffside that loomed suddenly out of the white-out. He wrenched the controls and went into a vertical climb with feet to spare, massively grateful that he wasn't actually flying any sort of Earth craft because a stunt like that would probably have stalled him out. The cliff went up ... and up ... finally topping out, only to reveal still taller mountains dangerously close behind. Sheppard kept climbing until he felt safe enough to level off for a moment, but the wind continued to fling the jumper around.

Short of being actually shot at with RPGs, this was probably the most dangerous piece of flying he'd ever done, and that included some pretty hairy search-and-rescues, even the time he'd helped rescue some fisherman from a swamped boat in a hurricane. But the hell with that -- they didn't leave people behind, and seeing how bad it was out here confirmed his decision to get Rodney, Caldwell and anybody else who was out in this mess back to the Daedalus.

He glanced over at Ronon. "You want to go back and get dropped off, just say the word. We're putting our necks on the line here."

Ronon just gave him a look as if to say, How dumb are you? And that was it for any talk of leaving him behind.

Unfortunately, with visuals all but down, it seemed he was reliant on the puddlejumper's not-very-reliable LCS. Rodney could probably have calibrated it to pick out human life signs, but Rodney wasn't here.

After a couple more false alarms, though, he came out of the swirling snow nearly on top of two small, parka-clad figures toiling their way up a ridge. Relief made him weak; he kept his grip on the controls tight, though, as he banked and brought the jumper down in one of his hastiest, sloppiest landings ever. He and Ronon slid on the tilting deck and jumped out into knee-deep snow to see that the two people were slogging in their direction, one leaning heavily on the shoulder of the other.

A few yards away, they stopped and the obviously less-injured of the two drew a .9mm and pointed it at Sheppard and Ronon. Sheppard noticed out of the corner of his eye that Ronon had already drawn his gun.

He could see from here, though, that the person holding the gun was young and female, and obviously afraid. Her hand trembled on the weapon. "At ease, uh ..." He tried to see any rank insignia, but her parka covered it up. "Soldier," he finished. "We're here to help."

"You'll forgive me if I don't trust anybody right now, sir." She slogged another couple of steps closer, and the person leaning on her shoulder raised a blond head. Sheppard could have laughed aloud with relief -- it was Cadman, and her eyes slowly focused on him with recognition.

"Colonel! I'm not hallucinating, am I?"

"Nope. Good to see you too, Lieutenant. Want to tell your friend that we're the good guys?"

Cadman looked blearily down at the arm holding the gun. "Keisha, stand down. It's Colonel Sheppard, from Atlantis."

"They could be in league with Armstrong, ma'am."

Cadman raised a hand weakly, folded it over Keisha's. "No. Not him. We're safe."

Her knees buckled then, and Ronon moved even faster than Sheppard, getting an arm around Cadman while Sheppard supported Keisha as she sagged, too. Letting her down onto the jumper's tilting floor, he closed the back door and they were enfolded in warmth and stillness -- a massive relief after the screaming wind outside.

"Where are the others?" Sheppard asked over his shoulder.

"We don't know, sir," Keisha said, huddling in her parka and dripping half-melted snow on the floor. "We were all split up. When I last saw them, Dr. McKay and the Colonel were together. Mike ... Mike's dead, so's Cora. And Lieutenant Armstrong ..." She swallowed, and huddled deeper into her coat.

Ronon was stripping off Cadman's parka. "Got a bad bullet wound here, looks like," he reported. "She's about bled out. Need to get her back to the ship."

He hated leaving without Rodney, hated it with every fiber of his being, but Ronon was right. "We'll drop you off, come back," he told his passengers as he felt the wind catch the ship. "And I think I need to hear what happened. Last I heard was some kind of crazy story about Rodney taking hostages."

Cadman snorted weakly. "Bunch of lies, sir," she said, and keeled over on Ronon.

On the short flight back to the Daedalus, Keisha filled them in on the basics of the events that had taken place -- the betrayal by Cora Ludwick and Lieutenant Armstrong, the fight and subsequent flight into the wilderness.

"You're saying there could be others on the ship," Sheppard said over his shoulder, diverting as much attention as he could spare from flying to listen to her.

"I'm afraid so, sir. There's no way to know. I'd've never pegged Airman Ludwick or Lieutenant Armstrong for traitors either."

Wasn't it bad enough to deal with a raging blizzard and a ship full of injured people without this too? From the sound of things, his people on the Daedalus were in as much danger as the ones out in the storm. By the time the spaceship's bulk came in view, Sheppard knew what he was going to have to do. He couldn't take off again without leaving behind someone he could trust who could handle a gun. Ronon wouldn't like it, but that was just too bad.

He set down in the same spot as before, noticing that two of the jumpers were already gone, while Lorne supervised the loading of the other two. As he climbed out with Cadman's arm over his shoulder, Lorne hollered at him over the wind, "We didn't wait for orders to leave, sir! Simpson says the main body of the storm is heading for us. In half an hour or so, we may not be able to take off, so we're sending out the worst wounded as quickly as we can."

"Elizabeth?"

"She was on the first jumper." He nodded towards the Daedalus. "Except for Doc Zelenka, all the most critically injured have already been evac'd. We're loading the less wounded now."

"Well, I've got another one for you. She needs a doctor pretty quick, if you happen to have one hanging around."

Taking Cadman's weight from his shoulders, Lorne acknowledged her with a quick, relieved, "Lieutenant." He peered past Sheppard into the depths of the jumper, seeing only Seavey and Ronon as they joined the Colonel in the snow. "The others?"

"McKay and Caldwell are still out there," Sheppard said grimly. "If we don't need this jumper for critical cases, I'm staying behind, going back for them."

"Sir, you really need to talk to Simpson about the storm."

"I'll do that. First I need to see Beckett. Where is he?"

"Engine room." Lorne pointed, and then helped Cadman to one of the jumpers. Sheppard gave Seavey a gentle shove in the direction of the Daedalus. "Go get some dry clothes and food, Airman. And ... nice work out there."

She smiled over her shoulder at him, a bit shyly, and then hurried off towards the ship.

Sheppard went the other way. The engine room turned out to be easy enough to locate, because a jumper had been pulled as close to the side of the Daedalus as it would go, and power cables snaked from its open hatch into another hole in the side of the ship. Sheppard climbed up and found himself in what must once have been a ventilation shaft. He slid down and dropped out to find himself in a scene of startling devastation. If the rest of the ship looked like this, it was amazing any of them had survived; he even saw scorch marks on the bulkheads. At the moment, arc lights had been set up around the room, and he saw Simpson talking to Hermiod and Novak over by the wall. In another direction, he located Beckett at the hub of a bustle of activity that appeared to be centered on ... Good God. Vaguely aware of Ronon behind him, he stepped over a humming, portable heater and knelt down next to Beckett, who was holding an oxygen mask over the scientist's face.

"Damn," Sheppard whispered, staring at the jagged edge of metal protruding from Zelenka's shoulder.

"Aye," Beckett agreed. "He's in bad shape. We're just about to begin cutting him free."

"Elizabeth?"

"She's already on her way to Atlantis." Carson's face said clearly that he wished he could have been there, but knew he was needed here. "She's stable, at least, if not good. As soon as we get Radek stable, we'll be taking him as well. Did you -- ah ..."

"We found Cadman."

"Oh, thank God." He sagged a little against the wall. "Is she all right?"

No point in sugarcoating it. "She's been shot, actually, but Lorne's getting her onto a jumper."

"Shot?" Carson's face darkened. "What the bloody hell went on here in the last twenty hours, Colonel?"

"I'm still putting it together myself," Sheppard said softly, "and I'm not liking the picture that's coming up. There were saboteurs on the Daedalus, Carson -- at least two of them, possibly more. One of them is out there in the blizzard, and so are Rodney and Caldwell."

"Carol's given me a bit of a primer on the sabotage situation." Beckett looked down as Zelenka stirred restlessly. He laid a calming hand against the scientist's forehead. "She said there's a contingent of arseholes -- pardon my language, but I think the term fits -- among the military who blame Rodney for it."

"Yeah, so I heard. The upshot of it all, Doc, is that Rodney's out there in a blizzard with a killer, and you people aren't necessarily safe here either. I'm going to leave Ronon to watch your backs." He heard a soft rustle of leather and an intake of breath from behind him. "No arguing, big guy. You know I don't have a choice."

"Not letting you go out there alone," Ronon replied, with his implacable "just try to change my mind" face on.

"The hell you're not. I'll be in a warm, safe jumper, with sensors and drones. I need someone here to keep an eye on things -- someone I trust. You want some creep with a gun to jump the Doc from behind? You want to see some helpless geek strung up by a mob and know you could have done something about it if you'd been here?"

Ronon looked away.

"I left Teyla on Atlantis because I needed her there." The low note of command in Sheppard's voice drew Ronon's eyes to his face. "Well, I need you here. There's no point in two of us going in the jumper, especially when only one of us can fly it."

In a voice pitched for Sheppard's ears alone, Ronon murmured. "I hate this."

"I know what you mean." And he did. Scattered, isolated, alone -- this wasn't how the group of them were meant to be. Their strength was each other.

Zelenka moved suddenly and made a soft sound in his throat, drawing Sheppard's attention away from Ronon's too-naked eyes.

"Don't try to talk, then," Beckett soothed.

Radek reached up and nudged at the oxygen mask until Beckett, reluctantly, lifted it away. "You came," he whispered.

Carson smiled, just a little. "Was there ever any doubt?"

"Lots of doubt ..." His voice started to trail off sleepily, then he looked past Beckett, at Sheppard, and managed to focus again. "Where's Rodney?"

Carson pushed him back against the wall as he started to lean forward. "You let the Colonel, here, worry about that. You've got your own concerns at the moment."

Radek looked blearily around the engine room, and mumbled, "Oh hell. I'm still here."

"Not for long, we hope. Just lay back and we'll be giving you something that should make you feel a lot better."

"I feel fine," Radek murmured. "It doesn't hurt. Where'd the Colonel go?"

"I'm here." Sheppard leaned over Carson's shoulder. "You listen to the Doc ... Doc. You'll be fine."

Carson tried to replace the oxygen mask. Radek batted at it feebly. "Colonel, you tell Rodney -- tell him, when you see him -- tell him he's not ..."

He started coughing; Beckett supported him until the spasms eased. "Son, for the love of all that's holy, will you stop talking!" Looking over his shoulder at Sheppard, he added in a soft voice, "Colonel, Simpson says it'll get worse out there before it gets better. You'd best be gone."

Sheppard nodded, reluctantly, and straightened up. Radek noticed the movement and redoubled his efforts to get the oxygen mask off. Shoving it to the side, he looked up at Sheppard and slurred, "Tell that pitomec his social skills are pitiful, but he's still not as bad at certain things as he thinks he is."

Sheppard snorted. "Is there anything Rodney thinks he isn't good at?"

Radek grinned a little; his head slipped to the side. "Just tell ..." His voice faded as Beckett got the oxygen mask back over his mouth.

"Sheppard." Ronon looked up at him. "What are you waitin' for ... Spring?"

He looked down at them, at Carson unwrapping the blanket from Radek's injured shoulder, at Ronon looking up at him with eyes that contained too much. He hadn't had an unhappy life on Earth. Never felt like something was missing. All he ever wanted or needed was to fly. And now ... now all that he wanted, all that he needed, was here in this room, and back on Atlantis, and out there in that blizzard.

He almost hadn't come to this galaxy. It had turned on the flip of a coin.

"Sheppard," Ronon repeated, impatiently.

"Yeah. Going. See you guys later."

And he went.

Coming out of the ventilation shaft, he nearly ran into Perry and Ling. Perry saluted him quickly. "Still no sign of Colonel Caldwell, sir?"

"No, but I'm going back out." Sheppard paused, remembering Perry's earlier accusations about McKay, and as he passed the man, he added, "We did find Cadman and another of your people, and it was a very interesting story they had to tell, regarding just who exactly was a hostage out there, and who wasn't."

"I heard," Perry said shortly. "I suppose we'll get the full truth of it when the Colonel turns up. You have to admit though, sir -- you can see how we might have made the mistake."

Sheppard stopped. Didn't turn around. "What do you mean by that, Major?"

"No offense intended, sir. But you work with Dr. McKay; you must have noticed that he's ... not the most personable man."

"And that has what to do with his value as a scientist or as a human being, Major?"

"Nothing, sir. Good luck out there."

Perry turned away, and muttered something under his breath. If the gusting wind hadn't chosen that moment to die briefly away as it changed directions, his comment would probably have passed unnoticed; as it was, though, Sheppard heard it loud and clear. "No great loss if you don't find him."

Sheppard spun around, quick as a striking snake, but Ling was faster yet -- by the time Sheppard had reoriented himself, Ling was already in Perry's face. "We've served together for years, Jason, and I'll pretend I didn't hear that -- as long as I never hear anything like that from you again."

Looking from Ling to Sheppard, seeing the anger on both their faces, Perry looked stunned, and sheepish. "It's been a hell of a long day. I was out of line." To Sheppard: "No offense, sir."

"Offense taken, Major." Sheppard realized that he was visibly shaking with anger, and stilled himself by force of will. There was a time and a place to give in. This wasn't it ... for one thing, because he outranked the man; he had recourse other than violence, satisfying though it might be. "Listen to the lady, Major. Nobody talks about my--" friends "--people that way. Not in my hearing and not behind my back. Do we understand each other?"

He could see that Perry was taken aback at his quick defense of McKay, and perhaps more so at Ling's; she was bristling next to Sheppard like a little tiny bulldog. "Yes, sir," he said quietly, and then, "If you're going to be flying in this, you should take survival equipment with you. I'll have someone bring you a parka and boots."

Sheppard nodded, briefly, still angry, still trying to swallow it. "That'd be good." He turned on his heel and walked away.

The quick crunching of snow behind him let him know that he was being followed. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Ling's dark, snow-speckled hair. "Nice to see that Rodney has one defender on this ship," he said.

Ling laughed softly. "Not at first, believe me," she said. "Let's just say that I saw something in him I never thought to see -- and I can understand why you would defend him so fiercely. There is ... just something about him."

Sheppard smirked in spite of himself. "You don't know the half of it."

"Here's hoping I get the chance to find out." She stopped at the base of the jumper's ramp. Sheppard couldn't help thinking, for a moment, of Teyla back on Atlantis, forced to stay behind, depending on him to do what she could not. Bring them back safely, John.

He would. He swore he would.

------

TBC