Sorry for the delay! Work this summer has just been insane. So, I started on three or four different chapter 8s, and I didn't much care for any of them. So this is what I came up with, which was not at all what I sat down to write, as I try to figure out how I want to advance the story next. I'm hard at work on Chapter 9, which jumps back to focus on the Atlantis side of things and how they're going to deal with the new arrivals.

Sorry to those of you who don't care for the Shepard/Liara pairing - but I could never see pairing Femshep with anyone else!

Thanks for all the comments, pms, and follows.

Chapter Eight

Cerine leaned against the wall, waiting for the elevator to reach the top. Here she was, in another underground facility with a stargate apparently; she couldn't deny the similarity to the place where this adventure had all began months ago. At her side, the one called McKay was chattering away about something; she'd stopped listening at least five minutes ago. Finally, the elevator clicked into place and the doors slid open.

Dr. Beckett was on top of it, rushing into the room with some nurses and gurneys to get the wounded out as quickly as possible – deciding who needed one of the gurneys. He began directing the nurses and marines he'd brought into assist to start taking people out of the room to the stargate or to be beamed aboard the Hammond. "Come on folks, let's get these patients where they need to go," he said.

She approached the elevator, followed by her shadow, McKay, and watched as more of her wounded exited the elevator. Carson nodded to her as he left the room pushing a gurney with one of the more seriously wounded patients – a quarian who's enviro-suit had some nasty looking breaches.

"Doctor, you must be careful. She's a quarian. They live in sterile environments. Their immune systems are weakened and they're extremely vulnerable to infection," Cerine counseled.

Beckett nodded. "Right, thank you, Lt."

She wanted to help but had quickly discovered she was just getting in Beckett's way, which he'd told her in a most impossibly polite way. More of them exited the elevator, a couple on gurneys, others limping along supported by the less wounded.

"Subdermal?" McKay asked, not patiently, standing beside her, tapping her lightly on the shoulder.

Cerine was silent as she watched her people go past them.

McKay cleared his throat.

Cerine sighed and looked at him. "I'm sorry. What?"

He pointed to her omnitool. "You said it was subdermal?"

She nodded.

"What's the method of data transmission?"

"I'm quite sure I have no idea, Dr. McKay," she replied. This was certainly a lie, but after spending the last 10 minutes discussing omnitools, she had quickly discovered that if she showed herself to have any knowledge of something dozens of questions would follow. She would have to give Daniel a very special thank you for sending him to see if she needed anything while she waited for the rest of her companions to be brought up.

McKay's brow furrowed as he pondered the device. "You know I think something like that is just what I need. I'm always having to lug these laptops around, but this could finally be a tool that could keep up with my genius."

"That's fascinating no doubt," she replied and smiled exuberantly when she saw heard a curse come from the elevator. Anything to break up the conversation was welcome – even Jack.

"Damn! Watch my head!"

She couldn't hide a grin when Sinc emerged, Jack in his arms, and placed her hand over her mouth in a terrible attempt to stifle her laugh. She hadn't known Jack long, having met her only a couple of months ago during the attack on Grissom Academy, but she knew her well enough to find plenty of humor in the sight, and after the way the last twelve hours had gone, she could use a good bit of humor, and this was perfect.

"This is fucking ridiculous," she deadpanned, arms crossed like a pouting child.

"I thought we settled this already. There weren't enough gurneys, Jack, and you can barely bloody walk."

"Now, that is romantic!" Cerine chirped.

Tax emerged from the elevator. "I made a similar observation about the significance of carrying a person across a threshold. My observation was not well-received."

"You're lucky I can barely walk," Jack replied with an eye-roll.

"Odd couple… trio," McKay said with a cock of his head.

"I wouldn't say that too loud if you like your organs intact," Cerine suggested offhandedly.

McKay walked closer to Tax, his face alight. "This thing is cool."

"Yes, I am," Tax replied.

"She's not too bad off, but we do need to get her some attention," Sinc said.

"I'm fine," Jack countered.

"Jack, working support for your little biotic squad, you saved my life at least three times I can remember. How about you let me try to return at least a little bit of the favor?"

Jack shrugged, then her face softened. "It was four times," she muttered, and she looked to Cerine. "How's Shepard?"

"Is this based on the same technology as your omnitool device?" McKay interjected.

"Yes, it is," Sinc replied. "Though Tax is far more advanced than an omnitool."

"You two… shut up," she snapped. "Asil, how is Shepard?"

"Hold on…" McKay started off.

Sinc shot him an alarmed glance and shook his head slowly and emphatically that succeeded in shutting him up.

Cerine glanced at her omnitool for updated messages. "The last thing I have from Sgt. Vakarian is they were working to stop some of the bleeding. I honestly don't know. It appears though that everyone else will pull through, though some will have a long recovery."

"Well, that's a bit o' good news," Sinc said cheerfully.

"Doesn't mean shit if Shepard dies," Jack said.

"Of course, how stupid of me," Sinc said dismissively.

"Go on, you better get her on through," Cerine said. "Dr. McKay, perhaps you would like to lead them through? Lt. O'Shea is an engineer; he can provide you much more information about omnitools than I possibly could."

"Hell, give me the right tools and I can build you one, mate" Sinc offered. "Can even install a bootleg Shepard vi if you want."

"There'll be plenty of time for that later. I'd hate to deprive you of my charming company," McKay replied with a smile.

"Of course," she replied curtly. "Off you go, Lt."

"Yes, mam," Sinc replied and headed toward the gate.

Jack glared at Sinc. "Seriously? You follow her orders? She doesn't even outrank you. The reason I had to save your life so many times was that you never listened to me," she scoffed.

"What can I say, Jack? It's more fun when you're angry at me," he said with a wink.

Less than ten minutes later they were moving through the halls of Atlantis, nearing the medbay, led by a marine.

"Kind've reminds me of the Citadel," Sinc said.

Jack merely shrugged. "Not my type of place. Too clean and way too bright."

The marine turned and gestured to an open door into the medbay. "Right through here and they'll get you taken care of, Sir."

A team of four heavily armed marines stood guard outside the door.

Sinc nodded appreciatively and walked in.

"I don't think they trust us," Jack smirked.

"Anyplace I should put this?" Sinc asked with a chuckle, ignoring her comment.

"I will never forgive this, Lt.," she replied.

"Strike one, Sinc," Tax said, floating just behind them.

"Yeah, thanks buddy."

"He can be kind've cute from time to time," Jack said, eyeing the drone. "You know, in a robot sort of way. You should take lessons in charm from that thing."

"Apologies, I am not a robot but a fully articulated artificial intelligence," Tax informed her.

Sinc shot a disapproving glare towards Tax. "Damn it, Tax. Virtual intelligence. Virtual intelligence, how many times we gotta cover this? AIs are illegal. They'll reset you to factory settings if you don't keep your voice down."

"What's wrong, Lt.? Is your little floaty ball smarter than you?"

"Markedly," Tax said.

"Not smart enough to know what's good for 'im," Sinc replied.

They stood there for a moment, until they realized no one was paying them much attention. Medical staff were rushing about in all directions, grabbing this and that, shouting instructions to one another. Directly ahead of them was Kaeta assisting Jennifer as she attempted to clamp the last gushing artery.

"Oh hell, she doesn't look good," Jack muttered, more concern in her voice than she cared to show.

"Looks like she's in good hands, Jack," he reassured her.

"Fuck you, Sinc," she said absently.

Sinc gritted his teeth to keep himself from smarting back. He'd only been working with Jack for a few weeks, and there were somedays he thought he'd finally gotten on her good side, had figured her out – then other days she was a riddle of stubborn silence broken up sporadically with flung curses – usually in his direction.

"Strike two, Sir."

"Alright, let's get her under the scanner stat!" Jennifer shouted, pulling her blood-covered gloves off. The two nurses assisting her quickly rushed her over to the scanner.

Jennifer looked to Kaeta who stood there blankly, obviously unsure of what to do with herself. "That was good work. Thanks for the help. Are you a doctor?"

"Someday. For now, just a combat medic," she replied, deflated. "I'm not even a xeno-certified."

Jennifer reached across and grabbed the young turian's forearm. "Listen, I don't know exactly what I'm dealing with here, and I don't know who you are. But I'm going to assume that you're damn good at your job. You can drop that 'just a' from your title. You hear me? What's your name?"

"Sgt. Kaeta Vakarian."

"Right now, Sgt., you know more than I do about this patient, and I need you."

Kaeta was taken aback, speechless. Her interaction with humans had been limited, and she'd heard no shortage of jokes about humans in the turian military, but this woman impressed her. "Yes, Doctor. Tell me what you need me to do."

"Sorry, Doc, I hate to interrupt," Sinc said, approaching Jennifer. "Any thoughts on where I can toss this lass?"

"Lt., if you throw me, I will nail you to the wall with a singularity."

Jennifer smiled uneasily and pointed to a doorway. "I think we still have a couple of empty beds through there. If your wounds aren't critical it may be sometime before we can get around to you."

"Don't worry about me. Just fix Shepard," Jack replied.

"No worries, Doc, I'll look after her till someone comes along," Sinc said.

Jennifer nodded to excuse herself, grabbed Kaeta by the arm and pulled her over to the scanner. "There is a lot of metal throughout her body," she said, pointing to spots on the screen.

"She died once… before, as I understand it. My brother, he was or is her most trusted officer, he told me some of it. A group of human scientists used advanced technology to bring her back to life. It required the use of extensive cybernetics."

Jennifer shook her head gloomily as she studied the scans. "We don't have technology like this, and I'm not an engineer."

"Cybernetics? I might be of some help there," Sinc offered.

Kaeta and Jennifer turned to him.

"I'm not an expert by any means, but the least I can do is run some scans and see how well they're functioning. If I can hack in and interface with them directly, could be a help," he offered. "If the cybernetics are worth anything, they may have some ability to self-repair – built in nanotech."

"The problem is," Kaeta explained, "the cybernetics are working overtime to keep her alive and are at risk of total failure and then we lose her. If we can stabilize her, it is possible the implants themselves will recover. I've been using medi-gel to help, but her wounds are so extensive. We need a more hands on approach. Why don't you get her settled in and then come back over?"

"Agreed, we may need you," Jennifer said then looked to Kaeta. "Well, I don't have medi-gel, so a hands on approach is what I specialize in. If you're telling me I should ignore the implants for now and focus on what I can fix… I can do that. Let's hope it's enough. She's lost a lot of blood." She turned to the nurses. "We need to get some fluids back in her. Get her to surgery. Let's start an i.v. and a transfusion." She directed Kaeta, "I'm going to need you out of that armor and into some scrubs. That goes for you too…"

"Lt. O'Shea," Sinc said with a broad smile. "Pleased to meet you. I'll just get Jack here taken care of and be back before you know it."

In a back corner of the other room, Sinc found an empty bed and gently lay Jack down on it. She grunted in pain before unleashing an unbroken stream of curses that made Sinc blush.

"Sorry, Jack," he said.

"Just forget it," she replied and laid her head back, closing her eyes. She'd been awake for a long time and couldn't deny how comfortable the bed felt.

Sinc glanced around the room and spied a cart of water bottles. He ran over and grabbed a couple. Coming back, he tapped Jack on the shoulder with the bottle. Opening her eyes, the sight of the water bottle was not unwelcome. She grabbed it, popped the top and took a swig big enough to make her cough.

"Easy there," he cautioned.

"I just got shot at by a damn Reaper… I'm not scared of a little water."

Sinc grunted. "If anything the water is probably a little scared of you, Jack."

She couldn't help a laugh which made her clench her teeth as pain shot through her side. "Pretty sure you can add broken rib to the list."

"Negative strike," Tax said, cheerfully.

"I was wrong, he's annoying as hell," Jack said.

Tax blinked his large eye. "I do not understand."

"We'll have you patched up in no time. No worries. You'll be back to ripping Reapers apart with your mind. Sorry, I can't sit here with you. But…"

"Get the hell out of here, Sinc. I don't need a nursemaid. Go help, Shepard."

Sinc sighed and shrugged. "Sure, Jack, whatever you say. Tax you stay with her, I've got work to do."

She clenched her fists, trying to talk herself out of it, failing, she reached up, with no small amount of pain, and grabbed the collar of his armor, pulling him towards her. Much to his shock, she kissed him, and bit his lower lip for good measure. She pushed him away. "Now, go help, Shepard."

Sinc, blushing with a half-cocked grin, nodded and headed off without a word.

"Fuck," she said inaudibly to herself as she watched him walk off.

"Fascinating," Tax mused.