Lips pressed tight, Carter didn’t reply. Instead, she reached up and touched a hand to Daniel’s face, then to the pulse point in his neck. “He’s shocky.”
“I know. We need to warm him up.”
“Here, sir?” She glanced around. “Shouldn’t we hole up somewhere first? We’re very exposed.”
She had a point, they were pretty exposed, but Daniel’s need was urgent. “Teal’c?” Jack called. “You see anything moving out there?”
Teal’c looked back at him from where he stood studying the misty hills. “Nothing, O’Neill. I see no tracks but our own, and nothing to indicate that the Stargate is in regular use.”
“Well it wouldn’t be,” Jack muttered, “not without a DHD.”
He sensed Carter shift uncomfortably, but didn’t say anything to reassure her. Distance, he reminded himself. He was creating distance and undermining trust. Pulling a foil blanket from his pack he spread it out on the ground, kicking up a cloud of dirt in the process. Coughing, he waved the dust away from his face. “Carter, on three,” he said, and together they lifted Daniel onto the blanket and wrapped the rest of it around him. Better than nothing, yet far less than he needed.
But at least the movement jostled some life back into him. He groaned, tried to lift his head. “Jack… ?”
“Hey, how’re you doing?”
Daniel’s eyes fluttered open and then closed again. “Infirmary… ?”
“Ah, not exactly,” Jack said, casting a quick look at Carter. “Looks like we misdialed.”
“What?” Her face was a startled picture of hurt and offence. “Colonel, I didn’t misdial.”
He gestured around them. “And yet… ?”
“No,” she said, scrambling to her feet. “No, I dialed it right. I know I did…” But then she frowned, raking a hand through her hair. “I mean it was difficult, I had to reach up —” A flash of doubt crossed her face. “Oh God, what if I misdialed? It was hard to see from the angle I was at and the incoming fire was —”
“Carter!” He cut her off before she went any further, partly because he felt guilty for what he was doing — what he had to do — but mostly because there were times for self-recrimination and this wasn’t one of them. “I don’t care how we got here. I just need you to get us home.” He jerked his head toward the Stargate. “Can we dial out manually?”
Biting down on whatever she was feeling — and it was always difficult to tell with Carter — she said, “Maybe.” She threw the cockeyed Stargate a dubious look. “It depends on whether it still has any residual power.”
“Then go find out, Major.”
She nodded, pulled one of her gadgets from her tac vest, and headed over to the gate. Meanwhile, Daniel was gamely trying to sit up. He still looked bone-white, but at least he was lucid. Thanking heaven for small mercies, Jack helped Daniel to sit, getting in behind to support him. “Teal’c,” he said, calling him over. “You got some water there?”
“I do.” Crouching before them, Teal’c pulled out his canteen and held it to Daniel’s lips. “Drink what you can. You have lost a great deal of blood.”
“Ah,” Daniel said, sipping at the water. “So it’s not a hangover then… ?”
“If it were,” Teal’c said. “You would feel worse.”
In different circumstances, that would have made Jack smile, but not here with the snow falling and no damn DHD. He shifted a little, bracing Daniel’s back while he took a moment to assess the situation. It was bad. They had no idea where they were, no idea what threats the planet posed, and no way to contact the SGC. But ultimately none of that mattered because, wherever the hell they were, they had to get home fast. He’d reached the limits of field medicine and Daniel needed a hospital.
He glanced over at Carter and hoped she’d pull another one of her famous miracles out of her… hat. But she’d climbed up onto the rim of the weirdly angled Stargate and was frowning down at her scanner. He recognized that frown and it wasn’t a good sign. Given the beat-up appearance of the Stargate, things weren’t looking good for a manual dial out. Which left what, exactly? Either they wait for a rescue that might never come or they find another way off this sorry-assed excuse for a planet. He didn’t much like the odds on either option. “Carter?”
She looked up and shook her head, balanced on the rim of the gate and bracing herself against it with her free hand. “Sorry, sir, there’s nothing. The gate’s dead. I don’t think it’s been used for decades.”