"I'm reading that your air supplies are about halfway," Claire reported in.

"Okay, we're just about done here," Ali reported back.

"We've got two more decks to do," Narla added.

"Need any help?"

"I never turn down help."

"Just don't find any more bombs," Wood said.

"Your faith in me is staggering," Ali deadpanned.

"I'd say it's accurate," Narla's soft voice was relaxed and clearly amused. Ali knew there was nothing she could say to adequately stop it, and given that she was normally the one making such jokes, she figured it was easiest to shrug it off. She and Waarlm were just putting their cargo down at the shuttle airlock when they heard Narla gasp. "I think… I think there's someone in there."

Ali and Waarlm shared a look and confirmed that they were on their way as they overheard Wood and Narla try to ascertain where the weak signals they were getting were coming from. They met up with them in the depths of the ship, well away from any large sections of destroyed hull, but the damage was still shocking even this deep. Bulkheads had buckled and debris was strewn across the corridors.

"What've we got?" Ali asked as they found Narla scanning and Wood examining the barrier that had fallen across the corridor. Ali didn't think it was one of the emergency seals, or if it was, it wasn't at the angle it was intended to be at.

"Ensign Laytoa, trapped between a series of bulkheads and barriers that I can't believe have held enough to give her a pocket of atmosphere," Narla explained. "She's conscious but I have no idea how we go about getting her out."

"How long have we got?" Ali asked though the look Narla gave her didn't inspire confidence, before passing Ali the scanner. Laytoa had a quarter of an hour of air in the gap at most. "The easiest solution would be to beam her out."

Narla didn't look convinced. "Not only is she pinned and trapped by the debris, it has also punctured her torso and leg. Her vitals are weak."

"Then why not take the whole lot?"

"If we get it wrong, and the debris slides, she'll be crushed when she rematerialises."

Ali took a steadying and focusing breath. They couldn't beam Laytoa out on her own or she'd bleed to death before the medics could stabilise her. They couldn't beam Laytoa out with the rubble because of the likelihood that they'd crush her unintentionally. "Then we need to get someone in there with her," she determined out loud as she glanced back at her scanner. The thick emergency bulkheads weren't helping her scans. She took a different approach. "Narla, Waarlm, I've got some coordinates to try triangulating our scanners to get a clearer picture of the cavity."

Ali didn't have to directly order either, they quickly agreed and made their way to the coordinates she'd sent them. Right now they had one option, and that was to beam one of them - most likely Narla - into the bubble that was keeping Laytoa alive. However, to do that they needed a good enough picture of what it looked like. They couldn't beam in otherwise because they'd be risking someone rematerialising partially inside a bulkhead or worse.

Whilst she waited for the data from Narla and Waarlm she moved to where Wood was stood next to the bulkhead and giving Laytoa an update on their progress. He switched to a private channel as Ali stood next to him with an unhappy look on her face. "How bad?" He asked.

"We still have some options to explore."

"Isn't that the diplomatic way of saying we're screwed?"

If it wasn't such a serious situation Ali might've given a wry laugh at that. "It means that until we have more data, we still have one option. If we can beam one of us in there…" She trailed off, even if they were able to, there were no guarantees and she wasn't about to start lying now.

"And if we can't?" Wood asked, turning to her. Ali didn't have an answer as he studied her expression where it was just visible due to the lights on their spacesuits.

"We give her the choice, and respect her decision."

"Are you prepared for what that might mean?" Wood asked. Ali closed her eyes as if she could deny the whole situation by doing so. She nodded. When she opened her eyes again she saw Wood nodding. "Just once, just once I'd like the universe not to screw with us."

"Wood -"

"Don't," he warned, "I know this isn't our fault, but I'm sick of coming close to saving people and not being able to." He said, and Ali could hear the frustration in his voice. She couldn't blame him for that. She hated it too. She could almost feel the frustration pouring off him like a physical energy and so she placed a hand on his shoulder.

He turned at the vague feeling through the spacesuit and just looked at her hand for a moment, before switching comm channels again to indicate that they were done talking about this and roughly pushing her hand away. If it weren't for the lack of gravity and the debris strewn around their feet nothing unusual would've happened as a result as he stalked away from her. However, the motion had been enough to make Ali take a step to try and regain her balance, the debris prevented her boot getting a seal so the motion of putting her foot down just pushed her backwards and up against what was left of the corridor wall. It would've been comical in another situation.

Ali paused as she called herself several shades of stupid at misjudging the situation before she pushed herself off the wall again. As she did her helmet display flashed an angry, warning red.

"Ali, you're losing oxygen!" Claire warned over the comm in a startled and frantic voice.

"I know!" Ali assured her as she tried to locate the puncture whilst frantically swearing under her breath as she slowly rolled where she was now floating. "I can't see it!" Her display only gave her a vague location, so she knew it was somewhere on her right hand side, but finding the exact spot was difficult when it wasn't easily within her range of vision due to the suit.

Wood had turned sharply the second he had heard Claire's warning and based on Ali's frantic patting was able to determine roughly where he needed to look. He quickly lifted her arm out of the way so he could locate it before taking her hand and pressing it firmly against the small tear. "Press," he commanded, thankful it was only a small puncture. Ali followed the instruction without question and pressed her hand firmly against the back of her ribs where he had put it, relieved that it calmed the warnings on her data feeds down.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

As Wood rummaged through his pockets for a repair kit he couldn't help but glance where she'd caught herself on the bulkhead remains after he'd knocked her over. Her suit had torn on the debris but they were lucky it was small enough that sealing foam kits would work enough to get her safely back to the shuttle. Ali was too busy focusing on the instructions he was issuing to worry about the cause, she just wanted it fixed.

Finally he carefully removed his own hands after applying the sealant and it looked to have held. There was a moment in which no one said anything before Ali reported in, "the suit isn't detecting any further leaks." She was still floating and used the hand she had braced on the ceiling to turn to face Wood and the bulkhead separating them from Laytoa.

"You're down to a quarter of your supply," Claire confirmed over their comm.

"What happened?" Narla asked now that the immediate danger seemed to have passed and they were free to think and talk again.

"I snagged my suit on some rubble, minor puncture," Ali explained before Wood even had a chance. "How are you and Waarlm doing?"

"I'm in position now," Narla confirmed and Ali checked on her scanner to see that she was receiving data from Narla.

"I should be there in a moment," Waarlm added.

They waited out the remaining time in silence before Waarlm confirmed he was also in place at which point Ali started pressing more buttons on her scanner to utilise the triangulated scans they were taking between them. Hopefully it would be enough to get through the interference of bulkheads and broken ship. Eventually she sighed. "What do you think?" She really wanted one of them to tell her that she was wrong.

"We don't have the precision," Waarlm agreed.

"I believe there is enough room for us to beam someone in, so long as they're crouched, but I don't believe we can do it safely," Narla added. "Of all our options, transporting her out without the debris is the safest one."

"But it'll kill her?" Wood asked.

"In all likelihood, yes," Narla replied. "However, it is the best chance we have. We might be able to save her from the blood loss."

"Can we beam in something to increase her chances? Stims? Coagulants?"

"We could, but it wouldn't help given her condition or circumstances."

Ali sighed and reopened the link they had with Laytoa as she pushed herself near to the bulkhead separating them. "Ensign Laytoa, can you hear me?"

"Yeah, yeah I can still hear you," she confirmed, her voice a little sluggish as if she were struggling to focus. "Do you have a plan? I think I'm running out of air."

Ali hesitated as she braced herself. "We have two bad options. The first is that we beam you out. Our medic says that there is a high chance you'll die from blood loss when you rematerialise. The second is that we beam you out with the rubble around you, but there is an even higher chance that it will crush you on materialisation."

"I guess you can't get in here, huh?"

"No, we don't have the accuracy needed from the beamer. I'm not going to lie, that might affect our ability to beam you out too"

There was a long pause as Laytoa digested everything Ali had told her. "There is a third… you could leave me."

"We could, but suffocation…" Ali trailed off, it was not a pleasant way to go. She hated to think that way, but the other two would be far quicker and therefore probably more merciful. "Our medic believes our best chance is to risk beaming you out on your own, no rubble," Ali explained, "but the choice is yours to make."

The intervening pause as Laytoa considered her options felt like a lifetime in it's own right. "Okay, let's try beaming me without the rubble," Laytoa finally decided. If she was going to die it might as well be on her terms, it might as well be quick. Once a decision had been made Narla leapt into action, opening her comm and coordinating with Etsile on what needed to be in place. It wasn't that she didn't trust her team to manage it in her absence, but she knew that this case would be incredibly tricky so it would be best to have the most experienced doctor available on hand.

Ali almost jumped in surprise as a hand landed on her shoulder and Wood opened a private channel. "How much air do you have left?"

Ali checked. "Plenty."

"You should -"

"No," Ali said firmly, "I'm not leaving, not until it's over." It was an irrational impulse, and they both knew it, but she wasn't walking away whilst it felt like there was still something she could do if it turned out to be necessary. He didn't try to argue the case further.

In the end it was Narla who gave the order to beam Laytoa, and there was a subtle shift in the rubble as her life sign blinked out from their scanners. If the pause where Laytoa made her decision had felt like a lifetime, this time it felt like multiple lifetimes. They didn't move until Ali's air supply flashed up an urgent warning, prompting them out of their hopeful pause.

They were on the shuttle and halfway back to the Endeavour when Etsile reported back in. Laytoa hadn't made it.

None of them said anything as that sank in. Narla closed her eyes as she closed off for a period of quiet reflection as jetra traditionally did. Ali almost folded in half as she leant forward to rest her head in her hands as the hope washed out of her and left her hollow. Wood's hands fisted above his knees as he resisted every temptation to punch the wall in anger - they had been so close and yet they'd been unable to help even one person. Waarlm curled up with his head resting on his front paws as he processed the sheer senselessness of it, but at least they had done what they could, Laytoa hadn't suffered more than she had to, it was all any of them could hope for in death.

~-x-~

"Well, at least you didn't hit the drinks first," Ali observed as she slid onto a seat at the bar.

Wood glared at her so she pointed at his bloodied knuckles from where he'd vented his frustration in the Endeavour's gym. "Did Grey send you?"

Ali shrugged as if it were unimportant as Tun'luh served her a drink. "If I tell you it's not our fault will it make a difference?"

Wood scoffed. He knew it wasn't their fault. That wasn't even what was bothering him. It was the fact that they had been so close to saving something from nothing, to saving someone. Only to fail at the last moment because of circumstances outside of their control. He should be used to that by now, how many times had he had to take the least bad option? He'd just come so close to believing that they might have a good outcome for a change. "No," he confirmed. He knew she had some idea, she wasn't without her own demons. "Unless you need to hear it to believe it?"

Ali shrugged as she put her glass back down. "It is what it is. We did what we could and she made a choice."

"We both know that doesn't make it easy for those left behind."

"It's something to take solace in," Ali corrected, knocking back the rest of her drink.

Yeah, he figured, that was about all they could do. He offered his glass and Ali gave a wry chuckle as she glanced at her now empty glass. He shrugged, what difference did it make? She clinked to their melancholy before asking Tun'luh for a refill. "I'm sorry about earlier," he finally said. Their entire friendship had started with an apology. After she'd settled into her captaincy on the Faraday she'd sent him a line apologising for keeping him in the dark to save his life. He apologised for taking it so badly. From then they sent messages regularly - occasionally video chatted or met up when their schedules allowed - until they were close friends. If she could be big enough to apologise for saving his life in a way that felt like a betrayal, he could apologise for causing an accident that nearly cost her her life. Intention was irrelevant, he knew better than to be careless in dangerous situations.

"It's fine," Ali assured him with the ghost of a smile. He wasn't quite sure he believed her and was about to check. "Really," she added firmly.

Wood decided not to push, he would just have make sure she knew by keeping himself in check in the future. He sighed. "It'd have been nice, you know? To finally have a win."

"Yeah," Ali agreed. Wood turned to her again to correct her, but he stopped as he realised from the look on her face that she knew he wasn't just referring to chasing down Cosmos' Champions before they blew up any more people. She knew he'd been through some crap, even though he'd only told her bits and pieces, she could make educated guesses about the rest. "You should see Narla about those," she said as she got up from her seat having finished her second drink.

Wood glanced at his red knuckles. She was probably right, but he knew he wasn't the only one not thinking in their best interests right now. "You're not going to pull an all nighter with that data, are you?"

Ali shrugged nonchalantly. "Not if I fall asleep in the data lab."