Everyone stopped in shock and stared at Bec in her puddle of blood. Grodin was the first to move. He quickly felt Bec's neck and rocked back when he felt a quick thready pulse.
"She is still alive," Grodin examined her arm, "but it looks like she has an arterial bleed. We need to get some pressure bandages on this now." Eaton stripped off his t-shirt and handed it to Grodin who pressed it hard on the arm.
Avril was the next to move, and she was on the war path.
"Kavanagh! Are you and idiot!?!" She stormed over to Kavanagh and punched him in the face, feeling cool satisfaction with his nose snapped under her fingers. She then started yelling at him at the top of her lungs in French.
"Is she swearing?" Eaton stared at usually reserved French scientist, who was now the scariest woman that he had ever seen. Perez skin paled a few shades, and Grodin was staring at the ground as he pressed his lips together trying not to laugh.
"Swearing would be putting it mildly." Grodin continued to try to choke down his laughter, but it soon stopped as he gently lifted Bec off of Mckay. "Bec doesn't look good; I don't think she has much time."
Avril stopped yelling and quickly came over. Bec did look bad, and so did Mckay for that matter. She suspected that everyone here needed some level of medical help after morning, even if it was with Heightmeyer. Her point was proven when Raginmar starting to wretch in the corner.
"I think the best bet would be stick with the vent plan." Eaton spoke up, staring at his shoes. "It looks like at least three of us physically will not be able to make the trip and an able person will have to stay to be the bottom rung of the human ladder. So that means that we will have five people to try to find people under an open vent."
It was relatively easy to pick who would do what in the group. The Perez and Raginmar were going to pair up because they trusted each other. Avril and Kavanagh were paired because no one trusted Kavanagh with the injured, and Avril had clearly scared him spit-less. Grodin would go on his own through the ducts with the penlight, leaving Eaton to keep an eye on Bec and try to wake up Mckay and Zelenka. It didn't take long for the men to boost Avril into the vent, who the pulled Kavanagh up next to her. Soon the three groups were in the duct and crawling away from the smoke filled conference room.
Eaton sat down on his heels next to his injured colleagues. "I don't know if you guys can hear me, but it is starting to get a little claustrophobic in here so I really need to talk, even if the conversation is really one sided. So what should I talk about? Have you guys ever wondered about space? Well I mean other then Mckay. I am sure that he knows something about it being an astrophysicist and all. Well I am going to talk about spaces." Eaton took a deep breath and started. "Did you know that before we left NASA was planning a mission to Europa. You know the ice Galileo Moon of Jupiter. We were working on the probe designs while in Antarctica and they were really cool. What else…"
----------------------------------------------------
"Doctor Weir! Doctor Weir! We are losing them." The tech's voices closed to a whisper as little dots continued to disappear. Finally it stopped blinking out leaving four lonely dots.
"Major Sheppard, is there any way that you can get to the conference room any faster?"
"We are going full tilt here. I doubt we can clear the debris any faster. Is their something we should know?"
"I am afraid that we weren't fast enough. Beckett will need some body bags." Weir's voice almost choked.
"How many did we lose? Do we have any idea who we still have?"
"There are only four left. There is no way to figure out who is who, but I want to those four home." Off the radio Sheppard turned to the rescue team and explained why that had to try to work faster.
---------------------------------------------
Author's note: I am very sorry for not posting early. I had a wee run in with my food allergy. That type of thing ends up ruining anyone's weekend. If you doubt me just ask Mckay after someone has handed him a lemon.