1016: All or Nothing

By Jamie Halliday
100116.16
Immediately Following The Only Step Towards Failure
-=Sibalt=-

Jamie suddenly felt like all the air had been stolen from his lungs, dragged viciously down with Lair Kellyn into this frozen world where it felt like either each or neither would stay forevermore. Every passing nanosecond screamed the words in his ears that a person was dying, sinking ever further away from the warmth and the light, and there was nothing he could do.

Immediately his heart was pounding. Instantly his mind was throbbing. She was falling, he was failing, but Jamie Halliday still didn’t believe that hopeless was a valid word. The line of his sight once an unbreakable iron bar between he and whatever of Kellyn that water still hadn’t taken was in the blink of an eye snapped in two and he desperately scanned his surroundings for the tools he needed.

There was a solution to every problem; for every lock a key. He was a Starfleet engineer; it was his job to find them as long as it took. He always could and always had found them, but by God he needed time. Yet he felt deep within him Kellyn’s lifetime dwindling far too quickly away.

“Help!” he screamed as loud as he could without his breath to carry the words, but it seemed no one could hear.

He needed help; there was nothing here, but he couldn’t run because there was no one in sight that his legs could reach while Kellyn still had any chance of resuming life.

It was suddenly so very clear as he turned in desperate circles around that he was alone in an assault of hollow white. It seemed there was nothing on this entire world but further snow and ice to speed her demise.

“Someone please help!”

Still no one could hear; still he was alone.

He didn’t know what to do now. Someone had to though. Someone always knew what to do. He scanned his every memory questioning who the Hell it would be. Could it be Rada? The Captain? Ashton Ledbetter? No, it couldn’t be him.

Jamie needed help, he needed advice, but more than anything else what he needed was anything other than snow. God, now he knew why everyone had been complaining it was cold. It was cutting down to his bone now; this was the coldest place he’d ever been.

He turned rapidly again to the hole which had taken her; already seeming to have started healing over even though only seconds had passed. He daren’t let himself look in to see how far she’d gone by now. She wasn’t getting any nearer to the surface and nothing else mattered but that. He swore he’d get her out however far she’d gone or lose his own life in the process.

The overpowering temptation was to just jump in but he couldn’t let himself do that no matter how much he wanted it; Kellyn was such a strong woman and if she couldn’t swim to the surface then there was no chance he could if he went after her. He didn’t want to live with the knowledge he hadn’t tried but jumping in would be giving up which he knew was even worse.

He clamped his hands tightly on the sides of his head pulling back his hair as he turned in rapid circles again continuing to scan every detail of this world. He knew he just needed time. He could do anything with time. However he felt like he was out of it already.

Over and over again he promised himself no one would die here. However it was getting harder and harder to believe. There was nothing here, nothing but white, and there was also absolutely nothing that he could do for her. He couldn’t give up though. He would never let himself give up.

Suddenly he was running; running for someone to help him, feeling every step taking him further and further away from where he needed to be.

“Help!” He screamed again even knowing how useless it was.

Then before he knew what happened he was the one who was falling. He fell crashing to the ground; tripped by something hard underneath the snow. Suddenly his face lit up with hope that to anyone else would just have only been a glimmer.

Still flat on his stomach, unobservant of all his own physical pain, he began to quickly knock the snow away with his hands to reveal what it’d been beneath his feet. It was wood; once from a fallen and rotting tree buried by snow but undeniably solid enough to hold his weight.

Aggressively he dug off the snow down its length until he found its end. It wasn’t too long but it was still thick and heavy enough that with a bit of all the fortune he would assume he'd have it could still serve his purpose entirely. Still, it was absolutely useless where he was now.

He’d only made it mere metres away from that awful opening that had captured Lair Kellyn but it was still such a long distance that he’d have to move the log back. He began digging again around the edges, trying to free it from the ground that seemed to greedily claim everything it could. However it wasn’t budging and as the wind kicked up and the snow rained heavily down around him it was just getting buried further again and he felt like he and his hopes were getting buried along with it.

Yet he didn’t stop digging even as he knew it was taking too long. Even though still only seconds had passed it felt like an eternity she’d been beneath the ground.

“Please, don’t die…” He whispered pleadingly as he dug like a desperate animal searching for its last treasured food in the ground before an enemy came to take it away.

His hands were cramping up but still he didn’t stop.

He was losing all remaining feeling in his fingers but still he didn’t stop.

Then before he even knew he'd almost whimpered with joy as he realised it was suddenly free.

It was so much heavier than he’d thought but he didn’t care as he forced his hands beneath it and heaved it with the force of a man twice his size out of the ground because he really had hope once again.

It was exhausting even dragging it the short distance back to the hole but he truly didn’t care even a little as he once again had made it to the bank of the frozen lake that had taken Kellyn within it.

This would anchor him to the surface but he daren’t take it any closer or it might collapse down into the ice as she’d done.

Rapidly Jamie ripped the jacket from his shoulders instantly feeling the even further assault of the cold. Then with one arm he lifted the log again just enough that he could place the jacket underneath before letting it drop heavily onto the ground where it’d been. Like an expert in knots, something he'd been since his youth, in a mere eternity he'd tied one sleeve around the wood and then the other quickly around his left leg.

He pulled both knots tight and he knew this was the best certainty he could possible hope for. Then he quickly inhaled a single deep breath and without a thought for his own health or future he'd suddenly dived desperately in after her.

The water was so cold that it seemed like ice that was cutting straight through him and almost took from him every hope he’d had that she could survive. He felt like no one could have survived for this long and as he caught a glimpse of her hair through the distorting water below, and knew she’d so clearly lost consciousness already, that all seemed to have been confirmed.

Yet he still fought against the water trying to push him up to the surface even as it seemed to drag her down to the nothingness below. It was as if the planet itself was trying to force him to realise that it was obvious that there was no chance left that he could save her now.

However of the many criticisms Jamie Halliday had faced not one of them had ever been that he too often saw the obvious.

Even though the cold meant he could barely move under here he still was moving and that was enough to keep him going. His hands were clawing desperately ahead of him and then finally at the full length of the how far the jacket could possibly stretch they found a single clump of her hair.

He had hold of her and he latched on for dear life but it would all be useless if he couldn’t get out himself.

He tried to draw back his legs, to pull himself up, but they weren’t moving because together they were too heavy for his knees and he suddenly felt strands of Kellyn’s hair slipping through the fingers in his weakening grip.

Then to his horror he felt them both getting lower. It wasn’t a smooth motion but rather a sudden jagged drop. It was then that he knew that his jacket had started to tear.

He was running out of time and she was falling from his grasp; held at the fullest extension of his arm. He couldn’t let her go but he couldn’t save her. He had two choices neither of which he could take.

As he always did at times like these he tried in his desperation to hear the voice of memories and other’s wisdom in his mind to tell him what he should do. Flashes of so much useless information seemed to be overtaking him, first in a flood and then rapidly down to a trickle as he and his mind had begun to succumb to the cold.

He saw old friends, old foes, and those he was never sure where to place. They spoke words so discordant now, shouting in ways so very empty of exact definition but so very full of true meaning. Then finally he saw one face, of his grandfather as he’d spoken to him when he was very young, speaking softly as the man always did.

“Life is never to be lived without chances." He told him. "All or nothing; that's all there is."

They were such simple words and so long ago, but they’d guided him before and Jamie knew they could now too. With a single motion he yanked Kellyn up by the hair and then released her letting her keep floating up from his hands.

Then rapidly he brought his arm around again while she was still momentarily raised from where she’d been, latching unceremoniously on to her by her face with one hand then pulling her closer to him.

Then he locked his other arm up on to his knee and with everything he had he began to claw up his own legs.

It was actually working, he was pulling them up, but then the jacket dropped them lower again and he could feel that it was about to give.

Then suddenly it broke but in that exact moment he gripped his hand onto the ice up above and even as his legs began falling below them he was pulling them with his free arm up onto solid ground.

Desperately he dragged their freezing bodies back from to the icy water onto the still frigid but so much more welcome snow above, finally collapsing in exhaustion once out of the lake’s deadly reach.
Kellyn was still unconscious and Jamie felt sleep calling out to him himself, but as he felt her shivers even more so than his own he knew that at least for now and whatever the damage she was still alive.

He had no strength left to move the pair of them any further, but he still had enough strength for the muscles in his face to form into their classic smile as he heard the very welcome voice of Crewman Parrish.

“Hey, are you alright?” asked the young man who’d just spotted them in far off distance that felt so much farther away because of just how quiet he sounded to Jamie’s ears now.

Then there were rapid footfalls coming closer as the world descended into darkness, sounding so much softer than they really were, and soon they were no longer alone. The last sight Jamie saw leaning over them before his eyes completely closed was the extremely welcome and concerned face of Dr. Dalton McKay.

Crewman Jamie Halliday
Engineering Officer
USS Serendipity NCC-2012