Four hours after the accident and the technicians were beginning to rotate breaks so they could grab a cup of coffee or a bit to eat. Sheppard's rescue team was working hard, but people were starting to make mistakes. An engineer had already been sent to the infirmary from dropping a beam on his foot. It looked like everything was coming to a stand still when Weir was called from her office.
"We have gotten the biosensors up in the room." The technician from the Ukraine beckoned Dr. Weir over to the computer. "I think we have a problem. How many people were in that room?"
"Eight, seven department heads and a chief scientist. Why?" But when Weir saw the screen she understood. Her heart sank; there were only seven glowing dots. "We lost one."
It my just be my opinion but I really think there should be more girls in science. We can be just as effective as any of the guys and some times we can do things better. I have been very useful on a Speleology mission because I am smaller and thinner built then the guys. Does that change things in the outside world? No. Out of the eight science department heads only two of us are female.
Bec woke up feeling moment above her. She bumped her elbow into the body above her and heard a groan. "Everyone, I think Zelenka's coming to." Most of the scientists immediately dropped the jury rigged tools they were working on and rushed over.
"How are you feeling Radek?" Grodin bent over the Czech as opened his eyes and was surprised to see panic.
"Can't breathe…Can't breathe." Zelenka pushed feebly at the table that pinned him.
"Whoa, hold still Radek. Calm down, we got you. Just don't…" Zelenka flailed his one free arm, hitting Bec in the head, hard.
"Nytah! That really hurt." Bec covered her head with her hands and squeezed her eyes shut to keep them from tearing. "Please don't do that again."
"Where is Dr. Thomason?" Dr. Zelenka asked clearly still out of it. He strained his neck to try to see her.
"Well, Bec's underneath you, Dr. Z." Eaton popped his head into Zelenka's line of sight. As his world started to turn gray he realized that he was partially laying on something warm and lumpy.
"I really think you better get us out from under this table." Bec whimpered and everyone finally listened.
----------------------------------------------
"One, two, three, PUSH." Eaton, Kavanagh, Grodin, Perez and Raginmar bench pressed the table while Mckay and Avril quickly pulled Zelenka and Bec from under the table before it slammed back down on the floor. By the end of the extraction everyone was exhausted, but the air in the room was continuing to fill with smoke. If they were going to try to make an escape, they would have to work fast.
"Okay, people we need to some how get the cover off the vent. Have not been able to right the table, what other options do we have?" Grodin tried to bring everyone's groggy minds back to business.
"We have some chairs, and we have some people. What if we stacked them?" Avirl suggested. "With the resources we have, I think that that might be our only option."
"I say we try it." Eaton piped in.
Within fifteen minutes they had organized a system to remove the vent cover. Every ten minutes they Eaton, Kavanagh, Grodin, Mckay, Perez, and Raginmar rotate standing on the chair with either Avril or Bec on their shoulders. The women would then use the pocket knife to unscrew the cover. The hunk of metal finally started to come loose on when Mckay had the privilege of being the bottom of the latter.
"Can't you hurry up any faster? My back is really hurting again, I think I must have pulled a muscle or something during the explosion. I should probably lay down until Dr. Beckett has a chance to look at it."
"I am sorry, Mckay. I am working as fast as I can. And would you stop complaining you didn't spend over two hours trapped under a table."
"But…"
"Would you please stopping it, Rodney?" Zelenka asked from the corner, where he was propped up.
"Easy for you to say, you aren't on the bottom of a human ladder."
"Hey I don't weigh that much. I am only a hundred and thirty pounds, and once again you weren't stuck underneath a table for two hours. And will you STOP MOVING!" Bec finished with the last screw, and passed down another cover to Grodin. Peeking over the lip of the vent Bec announced. "The vent looks clean. No debris. I think we have a mode of escape."
Bec didn't know that a moment later Kavanagh 'accidentally' bumped Mckay, but she did noticed when he suddenly disappeared from beneath her. At the last second she thrust her right arm onto the vent's ledge. As she slipped of the ledge she felt a sharp shard of metal slicing down the length of her forearm and across her palm, then she landed on top of Mckay with a sickening thud, leaving Bec a limp lump of flesh a growing puddle of blood spreading across the floor.