The vent was dark, dirty and incredibly cramped. Avril flicked her hair out of her eyes for the umpteenth time, trying to ignore Kavanagh as he talked constantly. For the first fifteen minutes it was bearable. He was relatively quite, but it seemed as soon as he realized that Avril could not turn around in the tight vents and smack him, he turned into an absolute chatter box.
"I now know why the U.S. Government sends many military personal to Antarctica! Now if you would please, SHUT UP!" Slightly stunned silence followed. "Thank you?"
Several minutes later Kavanagh cleared his throat and spoke up again. "Dr. Blancheflour?"
"What do you want?"
"Do you act this way to the rest of the scientists in your department or do you just hate me?" Kavanagh was not earning brownie points right now.
"To tell you honestly, I just hate you."
"Oh." Finally the conversation lapsed into silence again and Avril was left to stew over the fact that she disliked getting dirty, didn't enjoy dark enclosed spaces, and really hated the person who paired her with Kavanagh.
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"So what was your specialty anyway?" Dr. Carl Raginmar asked as he slid down another set of ducts.
"I am an Egyptologist. Um, are we going in circles?" Dr. Perez asked again.
"We are not going in circles. So, where did you do your doctoral work at?"
"University of Liverpool…Are you sure we are not going in circles!?!"
There was a muffled thud. "Yep."
"How could you possibly know if we are going in circles or not? All of duct panels feel the same and it is really dark in here."
"We just hit a dead end."
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"…Well one of the reasons that scientists are really excited about this mission to Europa is the possibility that there could be a liquid ocean of water or ethanol underneath the ice shell caused by the gravitational pull of Jupiter and the other Galileo moons. Some scientists are grumpy about the mission, though, because it pushed back a mission to Pluto when Pluto was the closest to the sun that it would be for…"
"Eaton would you please be quite." Mckay whimpered. "Head really hurts."
"I thought it was kind of interesting." Zelenka commented with out bothering to open his eyes.
"You guys are awake." Eaton suddenly perked up.
"Head hurt." Mckay wined.
"But you awake and I am not alone anymore. What should we talk about now?" Eaton was happily preparing to launch into another speech about the merits of exploring space. While Mckay just pressed his hands to his aching head and wished he could just go to sleep.
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Grodin was now wishing that he had been partnered with someone as he squeezed through the forking duct. It was starting to get eerily quiet. He never realizes how noisy it was on Atlantis. No matter what time of day or night there was always someone working on something or Mckay yelling at someone. In a way Atlantis had not only become a home, it had taken on a life of itself.
The penlights bulb sputtered and blinked out. With great relief Grodin saw a sliver of light a head of him and started hearing the rumble of voices. He crawled faster and started yelling for help. Once he got to the vent he could see the Major Sheppard, Dr. Beckett and a host of other personal working on clearing debris.
"MAJOR SHEPPARD!" Grodin yelled at the top of his lungs. Sheppard looked around confused.
"Did anyone else hear Dr. Grodin?" But before anyone could reply Grodin took aim and chucked the penlight at Sheppard head. If that doesn't work, he thought, I throw my sock at him.
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"Did anyone else hear Dr. Grodin?" Sheppard was staring to think maybe he didn't get enough sleep last night and he wasn't thinking straight when he felt a sharp rap on the back of his head. While he pressed his hand against the throbbing pain, he looked up and spotted a face looking through the vent. "Dr. Grodin is that you?"
"Yes it is me and would you mind getting me out of this duct it is rather unconformable."
"We'll get you out as fast as we can." Sheppard glanced over his shoulder and saw his men creating a makeshift ladder. Then a sobering thought hit his mind. "Dr. Grodin, report on the rest of the team."
"Who did we lose?" Beckett added mournfully.
"No one last time I checked, but there are four people left in the room, three of which are in pretty bad shape. It is a real possibility that we will lose them if we don't work fast."
At that point Beckett closed his eyes in relief. They were alive, and now that they had a way to access the wounded, he had the ability to try to keep it that way. Beside him, Sheppard activated his radio.
"Elizabeth, I have some really good news."
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Authors note-Thank you for all your input. I hope you enjoy this chapter, as you can tell things are looking up...for now.