Part 7
Sheppard spied a dark, crumbled form just at the entrance to their little cave. With wheezing breath, and aching legs he picked up his pace. His boots bit through the snow and ice, gripping true and allowing him to kick off with more vigor.
Ronon's solid footfalls crunched just a half second behind.
The dark lump took on the shape of a body. Even through the heavy winter gear, the gentle curves and swells of the hips, shoulders and chest took recognizable form.
Female. Teyla.
Sheppard closed the distance quickly. His eyes rapidly surveyed their narrow surroundings. No obvious danger lurked about, however, he left the true assessment to Ronon.
The colonel dropped to his knees and utilizing his teeth, quickly freed his hand from its mitten. He worked his hand between the multiple layers of Teyla's clothing and found her neck. Warm flesh met his fingertips. Within seconds, educated fingers found a steady, quiet pulse.
"Well?" Ronon's deep voice sounded like distant thunder in his ear.
"She's alive."
"Where are the others?"
Sheppard glanced around the entrance, his gaze resting at the solid block of freshly collapsed snow, ice and rock that effectively obstructed any entry to their former camp.
He tapped his radio and called repeatedly for McKay, then Beckett and finally Jones.
Static was his only reply.
With his heart in his throat and anger coursing through his veins, Sheppard turned his attention back to the Athosian. Her left cheek was marred by a large bruise and associated swelling. Her goggles were askew, but her oxygen mask remained in place. The colonel quickly checked the pressure and found it adequate.
Teyla began to moan. Incoherent at first, the un-articulate sounds slowly morphed to muttering. Her deep brown eyes fluttered open, rolled, closed and repeated.
"Teyla." Sheppard gently tapped her cheek. "Teyla." His quiet calls were laced with urgency.
After a bit her eyes remained open, and through her protective lenses she focused on John and then Ronon.
"Teyla?"
"Rodney? Carson?" she whispered, trying to push herself upright. Her arms shook and her body trembled. She managed to sag heavily into John.
Sheppard guided her up and supported her weight, knowing it went against basic first aid. However, they didn't have time to play it safe. Not yet.
"Do you know where they are?" Ronon asked peering down over his shoulder at the two while he stood just at the archway of the cave, watching for movement outside.
"The camp. They were in camp," Teyla muttered, bringing a heavy hand to her head.
Both Sheppard and Ronon stared at the blocked narrow tunnel. Tons of boulders and ice jammed and gorged the corridor. The smell of freshly disturbed dirt, snow and rock filled the air.
Teyla kept her head down, fighting the swirling that seemed to dominate her vision.
"What happened, Teyla?" Sheppard softly coaxed.
"I don't….I don't know," she softly admitted, lifting her head slightly to meet Sheppard's concerned look.
Ronon strode by the two and examined the wall of fallen rock and ice.
"We will not be able to get through this."
Sheppard sat back on his haunches supporting the Athosian. He stared at the collapsed tunnel and then back out into the snow.
"They might have made it to the back tunnel."
"We do not know where that led to," Teyla quietly stated. Her head swam. Fine focus was just out of reach.
"I'm not assuming they're buried in there," Sheppard bit.
"Nor am I," Teyla mollified. Bile rose in her throat. She wished not to vomit. Not now. Not ever really.
"We should head up over the ridge, see if they come out the other side," Ronon opinioned.
"If they don't," Sheppard stared up at the light blue sky. Not a cloud marred the horizon. The weather would hold. "You get Teyla back to the gate and bring help."
Ronon didn't bother arguing, though a fight sat just at the tip of his tongue. Sheppard appreciated the ex-runners show of control, but also dreaded the fight that was sure to follow should they not find the others.
-------------------------------
"Rodney?"
McKay scrunched his face. A dull ache racked his head.
A soft hand patted his cheek. McKay rolled his head away from the touch. He just needed a little more time to sleep. It would set him right. Sleep normally did that, siphoned out nausea, cleared away headaches, leeched aches from his muscles.
Sleep was often much like caffeine in curing all that ailed him.
"Rodney?" The voice persisted, mangling his name, but the cadence and intonation were accurate enough to make the attempted pronunciation identifiable. The hand continued to tap his cheek. Though gentle, its persistence was maddening.
It had to be Carson, or the Colonel.
"Go," McKay mumbled with a distinct air if displeasure.
"Sshhh." Panic laced the sound. The hand continued to tap his face but with a little more vigor.
"Quit," McKay grumbled with more authority and volume.
"Rodney," There was a pause and in it that silence exigency was conveyed.
McKay groaned. Since when don't they have trouble? He paused at the 'they'. Who was the 'they'?
"Please, Rodney." There was a panic in the rasping and a touch of an accent. Scottish. Carson?
Oh, what had Sheppard landed him into now? McKay tried to pull his blanket up over his shoulders and turn away from Beckett and his IVs and palpating hands. The man was really much too touchy feely for McKay.
"Rodney." The urgency was unmistakable. His name however, kept getting mangled.
McKay furrowed his brow. Carson sounded more than a bit panicked. Why did everyone rely on him, Rodney McKay, to solve the galaxy's problems?
The weight of being a genius. It was burdensome.
A string of incoherent, unarticulated nonsense was breathed just adjacent to his ear.
The close proximity of the voice unnerved him, and Rodney rolled away, swiping a stiff arm up and around. His forearm and elbow connected solidly with something that groaned.
McKay opened his eyes and found himself in pitch darkness. Not the infirmary. Not the Daedalus, and certainly not Atlantis.
He began to panic.
Then Carson was at his side, putting his chilled hand over his mouth and whispering desperately in his ear.
McKay shook him off and tried shifting away to create more distance between himself and the doctor. Beckett was being just a bit too clingy. Then his mittened hand bumped into the flashlight.
With a sigh, McKay snatched it up and flicked the light on.
Their small dark world suddenly came aglow in the dim light.
An uncovered oxygen bottle lay bare in the sand, adjacent to his ankle.
Carson crouched beside him. His eyes unbandaged, swollen but open and stared down a tunnel that forked to their left.
"Should your eyes be…," McKay started.
Carson heatedly hissed at him, waving his hand in a silencing motion. The physician stared at the dark tunnel to their left and narrowed his eyes as if trying to focus deeper into the blackness.
Something was in the tunnels with them. Bear tracks, McKay remembered seeing alien bear tracks.
"What? What is it?" Rodney asked. "A bear?" For some reason a circus bear came to his mind's eye, twirling on its hind feet----wearing a pink tutu. That frightened him. He stared in the same direction as Beckett. He took orders from his teammates but not many others. However, he understood and appreciated the body language of panic and fear.
Carson was exuding both.
Beckett merely pointed and held a mittened hand to his mouth in a shushing gesture.
McKay complied as he swung the light over toward the tunnel.
A set of gleaming eyes with horizontal pupils reflected the light back at them at their seated level.
"Oh God, dead men," McKay whimpered.
Beckett nodded, vigorously.
Rodney fumbled for his .9mm while keeping his gaze locked on the set of pupils that stared unblinkingly at them.
He groped for his holster with both hands, managing to unsnap the safety strap but never taking his eyes from the shadow enshrouded creature.
The horizontal pupils disappeared and a hissing breath seared forth as sand suddenly shifted.
McKay heard rather than saw the creature lunge.
He squeezed his eyes closed, bracing for a forward attack. He yelped when a body blind-sided him from the left. Carson.
McKay's head snapped to the left, banging off his own shoulder as Carson's shoulder embedded itself in Rodney's flank.
The flashlight was knocked from Rodney's hand and rolled a few feet and stopped.
The light focused on the far wall. A small dim halo of illumination browned the area.
McKay struggled to free his sidearm while partially pinned beneath Beckett and the monster.
Beckett fought and kicked at the creature that slashed at him with tooth and claw.
Hissing and snarling filled the area. Beckett's rasping screams were lost in the sounds of the attacking animal.
Under the flurry of flying limbs and snapping teeth, McKay pulled his gun. Kicking himself free of the struggle, he latched onto Beckett's coat collar and brutally yanked the physician to the side and into the cavern wall, freeing him from the creature.
The dim flashlight silhouetted the creature.
Bipedal. Apish bipedal. McKay found some satisfaction that he had labeled the tracts correctly. Genius.
It stalked toward the scientist, white furred shoulders bulging and knotting with each swinging step it took. McKay shuffled back, raising his gun.
With a dropping of its head below its shoulder, the cave creature lunged.
Rodney began firing. The explosive discharge of the weapon in closed quarters was deafening. He kept on firing even as the monstrous weight slammed into his chest and drove him to the ground. His finger continued to squeeze the trigger.
Squeeze…gently squeeze the trigger, don't yank, don't pull…gently apply pressure. Sheppard's voice rang in his head, both admonishing and with a hint of junior high teasing and innuendo.
Fetid, humid breath washed over his face. Screw squeezing the trigger. McKay pulled the trigger with all his strength.
The deafening report of gunfire was suddenly replaced by an empty clicking.
The flash of teeth, orange tinged saliva and red irises were suddenly shoved from view by a flying body in a torn parka.
Carson. Damn man thought he was one of the flying Codona brothers.
Something solid connected harshly with McKay's jaw, stunning him.
The .9mm dropped the sand with its empty chamber coiling blue grey whisps of smoke.