35. No One Comes Out Unscathed

Dex refused anesthetic, the very thought of which made Mer’s stomach curdle in sympathy pain. He could put up with a lot—days without sleep, tasteless food from the mess, off-the-shelf military boots—but physical pain was a step too far. The operation took less than fifteen minutes, surprisingly, and Carson snuck in a local when Dex passed out for a few seconds, and then the giant, filthy Runner was stumbling out of the gateship and asking for Sheppard.

“Teyla’s helping him get here,” Mer waved a hand back behind him, where Teyla was laboriously coaxing the crumpled ball of fragile paper that was John Sheppard towards the landing site. Sheppard had, of fucking course, refused a gurney and insisted he walk off the Hive ship, for given values of “walk” that Mer defined as “hobbling piteously with a distinct leaning tower of Pisa affect.”

Dex growled at him. “You let him?”

“Sheppard’s his own man, Dex, you better figure that out right quick and—

“I mean you let him touch the Emmagen?” Dex looked at him like he was flat out insane, then jogged off to intervene. Mer figured that if not for the recent back surgery, Dex would be running. He shook his head.

“What’s that about then?” Carson stepped down the ramp, rubbing lotion into his hands. Mer admired how soft Carson’s hands were; he remembered a time when his own were immaculately manicured and soft as silk. He had been in Pegasus awhile, though, and such luxuries were unknown to him. He figured he’d go for the full extravagant mani-pedi with the toe-nibbling fish at that one spa he loved back in Vancouver once the Wraith were eradicated. So, maybe in ten to twenty years, then. He grimaced.

“Mer?” Carson looked at him quizzicly.

“Sorry. Lost in thought. It’s been a long day.”

“Aye. We thought you were all gone, for good. You missed the dial in, and when we got there all that was left were…well.” Carson stopped there. Mer knew they had found the desiccated bodies of the people who had not made it onto the Hive ship. He patted Carson’s shoulder.

“We got out.”

Carson gave him a comically wide-eyed expression. “That’s not ‘getting out,’ man!” He waved his hands towards where the Hive ship was a fractured, hulking mess less than a mile off. “That’s bleeding insane, is what that is! Land a Hive ship? What possessed you?”

Mer rubbed his face. “Six thousand people trapped on board.”

Carson paled. “Six…six thousand? Bloody hell, what we garn do wi’ all t’em?” His brogue went into overtime as the numbers sunk in.

“English, Carson, or something like it, please,” Mer sighed, rolling his eyes.

“Oh, you! You!” Carson poked at him with a finger. He stopped when he finally saw Sheppard, who by then had been transferred to Dex’s not-quite-loving care—it was pretty obvious they were yelling at each other about whether Dex was just going to carry him or not. Teyla had simply walked off, heading towards Mer and Carson. By the time she got there, some kind of détente had been reached, with Dex holding Sheppard up like a rag doll with his hands in Sheppard’s arm pits. It was ridiculous, and Mer was not happy about how comfortable Sheppard seemed with Dex pawing all over him.

“Teyla, love, it’s so good to see you alive!” Carson exclaimed, distracted from starting at Sheppard and pulling her into a hug. He was in fact the only person who was allowed to hug her, although Carson probably did not even know that. It was simply that “cuddly” was his default setting, which Mer thought kind of set back the fierce reputation of the Scottish highlanders a few centuries.

“I am, Carson, thank you. It was Mer and Sheppard who did this, though—I would never have thought…or dreamed…” She waved her hand at the Hive ship. Mer wondered if the ship was sending out some kind of energy wave that rendered people speechless. But Teyla’s expression was one of unconstrained joy. “Thousands of people, Carson! Thousands! Never has such a rescue ever been sung about!”

“Oh aye, I’m sure of that.” Carson grimaced as he looked back at the Hive ship.

“Hey, Doc.” John drawled, pushing Dex off of him at last, walking the last couple of meters to the gateship on his own. “Looks like a party.”

“Lord, you mean you look like Hell. Stay there, let me get my kit!” Carson ran back into the ship just as another gateship appeared overhead.

“Elizabeth’s here,” Mer said unnecessarily. Sheppard nodded then leaned against Dex like they were doing a Star Wars cosplay, Han Solo and the Wookie style. “Oh, don’t get comfortable. She’s going to want the AAR in triplicate.” Mer stomped off, motioning for them to follow and ignoring John’s pained huff of annoyance.

By the time Carson came back out, Mer, Teyla, Sheppard and Dex were heading for Elizabeth’s gateship which landed just a few meters away. Carson moved to come over but Mer pointed to the Hive ship. “Find Ford!”

Carson frowned but nodded, and trotted off with his Marine escort in tow.

When the ramp to Elizabeth’s gateship lowered, Mer’s little group came face to face with three heavily armed Marines who did not look happy.

“It’s us. Just us,” Mer snapped. “The Wraith are all in the really big ship committing mutual suicide.”

“Gentlemen.” Elizabeth’s calm voice worked like parting the sea and the Marines stepped aside. Lorne appeared, obviously amused. Mer assumed he had been piloting the ship.

Elizabeth looked startled when she spotted Sheppard limping over. “Mr. Sheppard, please, come inside and sit down.”

Sheppard nodded, trudging up the ramp like a condemned man, Ronon hovering behind as if to catch him if he toppled. The Marines bristled but Mer gave the “he’s an ally” hand signal to Lorne, who subtly motioned the Marines to back down. They were not too subtle about keeping their safety switches off, though, and Mer could not blame them. Ronon looked like a comic book barbarian, dirty and splattered in Wraith blood with wild hair.

Sheppard did not make it to a bench, collapsing slowly a few steps past Elizabeth. Lorne and Ronon both reached out, helping Sheppard make it to the floor without landing like Humpty Dumpty. When he was settled Mer turned to Elizabeth and gave her a combination AAR and sit rep. Her expressions were almost funny, if they hadn’t been so genuine. She went from shocked to amazed to appalled as Mer wrapped up the story and let her know the numbers.

“Six thousand people?” She asked weakly. “We have to transport and shelter six thousand people?”

“I’m open to ideas,” Mer snapped.

“Six thousand people, a third again as many Wraith, a dying ship! What! How?”

Mer stared at her, too surprised to form a reply. For all the times they faced impossible odds and imminent death, he had never seen her unable to talk in complete sentences or waving her arms around. Teyla was nodding in sympathy with Elizabeth, which wasn’t much help, and Lorne stood next to her, just as lost for words—although whether that was due to Mer being alive or Elizabeth being incoherent, it was hard to tell. Lorne really knew how to play the poker face, even in the middle of a crisis.

“It’s simple. We send in advanced team of Marines and field medics to pull people out of the cocoons and kill any Wraith who get in the way. We set up Marines and Athosians along the exit path to keep the lines out orderly and moving. We get everyone off the damn ship first, then deal with transport.”

The three of them looked down to where Sheppard was speaking, sitting on the ground, his legs bowed out in front of him, holding his head in his hands with his elbows on his knees. Mer could not even tell if his eyes were open or closed.

“McKay.” Sheppard paused. “The spacegate—can we just move it onto the planet? If we can set it down on the ground next to the ship, it will make evacuation that much easier.”

“What? No, of course we can’t. Gates are calibrated…well, maybe. No. But if we…wait, it might work.” Mer’s brain sorted through dozens of scenarios before he turned to Elizabeth. “Getting it onto the planet is the problem, we can’t just tow it in.”

“The Daedalus is weeks out.” Lorne offered.

“That! Yes, yes, the Daedalus can scoop it up and move it—”

“It’s still a long time to keep those people planet side,” Elizabeth murmured.

Sheppard never looked up. “We can get, maybe, twenty people or so onto a puddle jumper. That’s over 300 jumper trips to get them moved. If you think it will take less time to do it that way, then do it. But we only have, what, seven people certified to fly the jumpers? They’d each have to do 50 trips, give or take.”

“What the hell is a puddle jumper?” Lorne asked no one in particular.

“The gateship. Whatever.” Sheppard waved a hand around. “Anyway, it’s doable. Your main issues, whether you keep them on the planet or moved to the beta site, are potable water, waste disposal and food. That problem isn’t going to be solved no matter how fast we move ‘em.”

Mer watched curiously as Lorne unconsciously moved closer to Sheppard.

“We’re not ready to handle those numbers, not at the beta site. Not anywhere planetside,” he said directly to Sheppard.

Mer looked over at Elizabeth, who seemed to be as fascinated with the power play unfolding in front of them as Mer was.

“I know what you’re thinking, and it’s a bad idea. We don’t know who is in those ranks, they might not all be friendlies. We don’t want them on Atlantis, even if it is the only sewer system in Pegasus that can handle that many people.” Sheppard looked up at Lorne. “Sateda.”

Lorne looked surprised then turned to Mer. “It’s a ruin. Can it handle 6,000 evacuees?”

“Better than the beta site. We’ve mapped out the central city, we know what’s where. It was bombed to hell ten years ago and been rotting away ever since, but at the very least people can throw their shit down the sewer drains. Water might still be an issue.”

“The Whollarkgut.”

They all turned to stare at the Runner, who had been forgotten in the discussion. Mer crossed his arms. “The what?”

“The Whollarkgut.”

Mer pointed at his ear. “The word isn’t translating. Try again.”

Dex frowned. “The ‘training city’?”

“What, like a military base?” Sheppard asked.

Dex nodded. “Yes. Only used once a year, closed up otherwise. Training ended before the Wraith came. Need to check the water filtration system, find a way to power the grid, but it will open up. Can hold up to two thousand people, easy. Six thousand will be a stretch.” He shrugged.

“It wasn’t bombed?” Elizabeth asked, mirroring Mer’s stance.

“It was empty. No reason for the Wraith to take it out. I’ve been raiding the stores for years. Food’s no good anymore, but everything runs if you can power it. There’s corrosion but it’s not like Raxtrunny.”

Elizabeth frowned. “You mean the capital.”

Dex nodded unhappily.

Elizabeth nodded again, decisively. “Dr. McKay, get your team together and go with…who are you?” She turned back to Ronon.

Sheppard spoke up from the floor again. Mer wondered if he was even able to stand. “Specialist Ronon Dex, meet our, uh, High Commander Doctor Weir.”

Mer could tell that Sheppard made up the “high commander” crap on the fly, but Ronon bought it. He dropped to one knee and stared up at her fiercely with a fist over his heart. “Commander Doctor. I am yours, if you will have me.”

Mer and Lorne grinned at the way it was phrased, Sheppard coughed into his hand, and Weir went scarlet but she rolled with the punches. Mer loved her sometimes. “Ahh, thank you, Specialist Dex. We welcome your assistance.” She spoke formally and motioned for him to stand up. He glanced at Sheppard, who nodded towards Lorne as if ordering him to take Ronon along, and that was when Mer really understood who was in charge, whether anyone else did or not. Although the look on Elizabeth’s face suggested she saw the same thing he did.

As Mer watched Ronon trail Lorne out of the jumper—gateship, Sheppard sat up straighter. “McKay.”

“What?”

“The stargate is still the fastest way to move people, and time is an issue here.”

“You heard her, the Daedalus is weeks out.” Mer motioned at Elizabeth, who nodded.

“What about the beamy thing?”

Mer exchanged looks with Elizabeth, who seemed to agree that Sheppard was just this side of delirious.

“I mean, the beam the Wraith use to cull.”

"Absolutely not, I won't have these already taumatized people go through the process of being culled again, even if it is in everyone's best interest," Elizabeth said firmly. "No."

Mer nodded in agreement. "They'd probably riot the minute they saw us doing it anyway."

"No, I mean for the gate. Cull the space gate, drop it here." Sheppard squinted up at him.

Mer shook his head. “It only picks up humans. Not things.”

“That has to be a setting.” Sheppard persisted.

Mer shook his head. “Maybe. But we’d need a dart, and…” Mer tailed off, realizing that the list of “things I need to be brilliant” were right at hand. “Well, huh. Be right back.” He went out to find Haworth and a spare platoon of trigger happy Marines.

It wasn’t until five hours later—with survivors already lining up to be moved somewhere and after Lorne learned how to pilot a dart well enough to get out of atmosphere, “cull” the Stargate and restore it near the Hive ship where Mer and four minions hot-wired the gate’s configurations so they could dial Sateda—that Mer learned that moments after he walked off the gateship, Sheppard puked on Elizabeth’s shoes and then passed out completely.