Title: Thermopylae

Author: Tipper

Disclaimer: Stargate: Atlantis and its characters are the property of Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. This story was created for entertainment purposes only. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author(s), not me. Thank you to the amazing writers, producers, actors, crew and directors who bring these shows to life.

Rating: Gen/T – action/adventure, some angst, h/c...lots of the usual mayhem.

Status: COMPLETE!

Characters: SGA-1 primarily, with a side dish of Beckett and Lorne....

A/N – I made that ship. Awful isn't it. I think I should stop pretending I can make art. At least the background is nice...that's a nice shot of the rings of Saturn. No, I didn't take it. Unless, by "take," you mean stole. Blatantly ripped off. Skived. Borrowed without permission. Voler (which, technically, is steal not stole, but I'm not French...which begs the question of why I used a French verb in the first place...). Eh, you get the idea.

Description: Exploring a planet in search of a promised ship, things quickly deteriorate for SGA-1 when the Wraith suddenly show up...

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CHAPTER ONE: TRAP, TRAP, TRAP

"I'm telling you," McKay hissed in Sheppard's ear as he stepped up behind him, far too close for the colonel's liking, "this is a trap! It screams trap. Everything about it, trap, trap, trap!"

"We're fine, McKay," the colonel whispered back, stepping over a small branch on the almost invisible trail they were following. The long, wheat like grasses grabbed at their trousers as they walked, leaving a sea of rippling gold in their wake.

"No, we're not," McKay insisted, getting even closer, his chin almost on Sheppard's shoulder. "This is a bad idea. A horrible, really terrible, incredibly bad idea." He took a breath, and added, "Oh, and did I mention, also a trap?" He managed to time it with the snap of a twig underfoot, and Sheppard flinched slightly.

"It's not a trap," he hissed, trying to put as much warning in his tone as he could muster without raising his voice and alerting their guides or Teyla up ahead.

"Oh, okay, right, sure. It's not a trap, no. How could it be?" McKay prodded the colonel's back from behind with a finger as he whispered, until Sheppard finally turned and slapped it down. It didn't faze McKay in the slightest, and he got his chin up on the colonel's shoulder again as they resumed walking. "I mean, there's nothing trap-like about this at all, is there? After all, we're only on an alien planet with people we know nothing about, following them into the middle of nowhere, on the basis of a promise that seems so wildly improbable even I don't believe it. And I'm usually the most gullible one...probably because I trust too easily. You know," he mused, "I really need to be more cynical about things. I'm really just too nice most of the time to call people on things..."

Sheppard's head rolled back as he groaned, "McKay..."

"And can we talk about this forced march up and down these hillock things?" The man behind him pressed on unrelentingly, still miraculously keeping his voice down, though right now, Sheppard really just wanted him to shut up. "You don't find it at all odd that these people's idea of a 'short walk' from their village turns out to be over five miles from the damn gate? And you know I'm not going to be any good when we have to run this distance back. And we will have to run it, you know we will..."

Sheppard shrugged hard then, forcing McKay's chin off his shoulder and the scientist back a step. "For the love of God, McKay," the colonel hissed. "Will you just give it up?" He started walking a little faster in an attempt to get away. "It's not a trap! Christ, you make a mosquito seem pleasant in comparison!"

"A mosquito? Oh, you think I'm annoying?" The scientist jogged a couple steps to get up close again, his breath huffing a little as he whispered, "Annoying is having no one listen to you when you're right. Worse, when your life is at stake. Because you know what this is? Give you a hint....it rhymes with crap!"

"Frappe?"

"Ha ha. Very droll." He waited a moment, then cursed. "Damn it, and now I'm thirsty."

Sheppard drew in a sharp breath, trying to keep calm, mentally counting to ten. Looking forward, he regarded the two Cutsarkian guides several yards ahead, looking for any sign that they could hear McKay's grousing. A young brother and sister, both in their early twenties and extremely fit, they were chatting lightly with Teyla. Neither turned to look at them, or changed the cadence of their conversation with the Athosian, so...seemed like they were okay.

Sheppard sighed, throwing a dark look over his shoulder at Rodney. "Just keep it down, okay? Worth the risk, remember?"

"Yeah, I know. I was there when Elizabeth said that," McKay sneered. "Against my very wise and, without doubt, soon to be prescient counsel, I might add."

"Oh for...Look, don't forget we have Lorne, Beckett and a bunch of Atlantis' best hanging back by the gate, watching our tails. If we need help, we'll tell them, and they'll have a jumper through the Gate from Atlantis in seconds."

"Fat lot of good that's going to do us when they knock us out, take our radios and sell us to the nearest village for Genii weapons!"

"Oh my sweet God! Will you just give it a rest?"

"Will you order us to turn around?"

"No."

"Then I'm not going to give it a rest. By the way, in case you missed it before, I think this might possibly be a...oh what's the word I'm searching for...."

"Jaunt? Adventure? Odyssey?"

"TRAP!"

"I am so going to kill you in a minute," Sheppard snarled, turning to look at him fully this time. Seeing motion close behind McKay, he gave a small smile as he focused his gaze over the scientist's head, "Better yet, I'll have him do it."

"What?" McKay turned, but not fast enough to avoid the ringing dope slap Ronon gave him, a triumphant grin on the Satedan's face for having got close enough to do it without McKay noticing. "Ow!"

Sheppard chuckled, giving Ronon a thumb's up sign. "Nice," he whispered.

"Jerks," McKay muttered.

"Is everything all right?" the woman guide called back, her brown eyes wide and a little worried. "Is someone hurt? We heard a cry." She looked at McKay, her brow furrowing in concern. The scientist was rubbing his right hand over the back of his head, refusing to look up.

"We're fine, Innis," Sheppard called back, smiling broadly. "McKay just tripped."

"Yeah," Ronon agreed, smiling even more broadly and backing up to return to his position watching their backs, "tripped."

McKay mumbled something unintelligible, but didn't openly disagree. The young woman looked sympathetic, nodding.

"I'm sorry the trail isn't more of a trail," she said. "We rarely travel this far from the village in this direction, even when hunting, because it is so open," she gestured at the nearly treeless landscape around them. "It is simply just not a path walked often."

"Then why were you out here?" Sheppard asked.

"Because my brother and I like to explore," Innis replied with an exuberant smile. "We're a little different from the rest of our people that way. Of course, it's also why we found the ship and not anyone else." Next to her, her brother Fallen nodded in agreement.

McKay snorted at the mention of the word 'ship,' but Sheppard just smiled more. "It's fine. Keep going. We'll be right behind you."

"Walking into a trap," McKay muttered under his breath. Sheppard nudged him roughly in the ribs.

"I'm sorry?" Innis frowned prettily, looking quizzically at McKay. She was a short haired blond woman, almost Scandinavian in appearance, and normally that was enough to keep Rodney at least distracted, but the long walk they'd taken to get here had taken any such joy out of him. "Doctor McKay," she asked, "did you say something else?"

"No, no," Sheppard said, still smiling his most charming smile, "He just said, it's a walk in the park, which is a saying where I'm from meaning an enjoyable hike. Please," he threw an arm out, "lead on."

Her brow remained slightly furrowed, but she didn't deny his statement. Instead, she just nodded and turned to start walking again with Teyla and the other guide. The young man, a similarly colored tall blond, frowned a little, but didn't say a word. Teyla, looking almost short between the two natives, sent Rodney an almost wounded look before moving on. After all, it had been on information she had gotten that they were here, and she'd been rigorous in verifying it, well aware that the last few missions she'd recommended had all resulted in near disasters.

Rodney sighed heavily, but, for the moment, mainly because Teyla's look had caused him some chagrin, he quieted down and refocused his attention on the life signs detector in his left hand....

Sheppard, thankful for the reprieve, decided it was a good time to check in with Lorne over the radio (who promptly replied that everything was quiet back at the village). Once done (and with a pregnant look to McKay), he found himself taking more of an interest in their surroundings beyond searching for signs of danger.

The countryside they traipsed through thick with the tall, wheat colored grass along with ragweed-like flowers and a handful of scraggly trees rising not much higher than Ronon. Daisy-like flowers of pink and yellow popped up occasionally, along with thorny bushes that looked as if they had been picked clean of any fruit long before. Longer patches of the yellow grass reached almost up to Teyla's head, and Sheppard longed to pluck what looked like a piece of weed from her reddish hair as they followed her.

The air around them was filled with sun sparkled dust and soft down—presumably seeds from whatever they had on this planet that was like flax or milkweed—and alive with insects. Everything around them seemed to vibrate with the noise of the almost invisible creatures—bees jumping around from flower to flower, beetles making straight line flights across the fields, tiny mosquito-like bugs whistling in their ears.

The trail they followed climbed slowly up and down shallow foothills, all similarly covered in the same yellow grass and scraggly patches of forest. Much of it looked roasted in the humid heat, ready to snap at the slightest breeze, but...it didn't. The roots were deep—they looked dry and dead on top, but, beneath, were alive and well.

McKay tripped for real as they came down another low hillside, running into Sheppard and pushing him forward a few steps.

"Sorry," McKay muttered, not sounding all that apologetic.

"Whatever. Just be more careful."

"More careful?" McKay replied. "You accuse me of not being careful? You're the one leading us into a—"

"Okay!" Sheppard shouted, turning on his heel to meet McKay's gaze directly behind him. "That's it!" He grabbed the man's arm and viciously pulled him off to the side, towards a collection of thorny bushes about thirty feet away, "You're coming with me!"

"What?" McKay was suitably astonished, and let himself be pulled. "Where are we going?"

"We're going to have a little chat," Sheppard snapped. He turned then, looking back to where Ronon, Teyla, Innis and Fallen were all watching them with slightly startled looks. "We'll be right back," he said with a forced cheerfulness. "I've just got to talk to my friend here." And, the fake grin still on his face, he turned and started walking again, still dragging the scientist after him.

"Hey! Let go of my arm," McKay hissed, trying to pull free, but Sheppard's grip was like iron. "Damn it, that hurts!"

"Good," Sheppard snarled, still aiming to get some distance between them and the natives. Behind him, he could hear Teyla quickly dispelling the concerns of the two siblings.

They walked until they were partially within the shade of three tall thorn bushes, and Sheppard whirled McKay around so he could face him, getting right into his face, still maintaining his harsh hold on the other man's arm.

"What the hell is your problem?" he hissed, back to trying to keep his voice down.

Rodney's eyebrows shot up, his face flushing with anger as he tried to tug his arm free. "Problem? What are you talking about?"

"You know exactly what I'm talking about!"

McKay’s face reddened even more, his chin lifting, “I’m only pointing out some—“

“Shove it!”

“Don’t talk to me that way!”

“Then stop trying to get us kicked off this planet before we find that ship!”

McKay stared at him a moment, his gaze narrowing, and, with a burst of energy, wrenched his arm back. Sheppard let him go and McKay stepped back a couple of feet towards one of the bushes—just out of hitting range. Not that he believed Sheppard would actually hit him…well, not much.

“Well, that’s just it, isn’t it, Colonel? You’ve hit the crux, right there. Why am I complaining so much? Why do I think this is all such a huge waste of my time? Because it is!”

“Keep your voice down, McKay!” Sheppard hissed again. McKay squinted, but when he spoke again, it was in a whisper.

“Fine, I’ll whisper, but that doesn’t make it any less true,” the scientist snarled. “We get word from some rather shifty characters on Belkan that there’s a cloaked ship sitting on this planet, waiting for someone to come along and claim it. And not just a ship, a space ship, with all sorts of fancy technology dripping from it. And what does Colonel 'Warship Envy' Sheppard immediately do? Take it completely at face value and drag the smartest mind in the Pegasus galaxy out on a wild goose chase that practically screams TRAP.”

“Teyla virtually guaranteed the accuracy of—“

“Oh yes,” McKay snorted, crossing his arms, “And we all know how trustworthy her contacts have been of late. Let’s see,” he held up a finger, “there’s the ones who sent us to a planet to be kidnapped by Ford,” he held up another finger, “there’s the ones who invited us to trade on a jungle planet, where we were nearly fed to the Wraith,” he held up a third, “there are the ones who led us into a Genii plot to torture you and kidnap me,” he held up a fourth, “there’s—“

“Stop it!"

"No! I told both you and Elizabeth that there's no chance this ship is Ancient, not from the description, and we know the Wraith don't bother with cloaks, so it's not Wraith. So what does that leave, eh? Furling? I don't think so! Plus, how has it maintained a cloak for ten thousand years? The power drain would be astronomical! And another thing, if it's cloaked, how the hell did they find it? Unless they literally walked right into it, and I can't even imagine—"

Sheppard suddenly clapped his hands in front of McKay's face, causing the other man to flinch, but at least it shut him up.

"Listen to me, and listen good," the colonel said, deliberately lowering his voice to near growl level. "Teyla put everything she had to make sure this one was real. You know as well as I that she would never have even brought it up if she wasn't almost certain these people were trustworthy and this ship real. She's been gun shy as hell lately, and she's trying to prove herself to us. And we're going to let her, because she needs this. She needs to know we still trust her and her judgment. You get me?"

McKay grimaced, "But—"

"Are you saying you don't trust Teyla?"

McKay looked to the ground, still looking very angry, but also a little ashamed. "Well of course I trust Teyla," he muttered after a moment.

"Then behave."

McKay expelled a hard breath, then sucked in another, before looking up. "I am not a child. You don't need to tell me to 'behave.'"

A tiny smile quirked at the edge of Sheppard's lips, "You sure about that?"

The blue eyes narrowed at the challenge, "I hardly think you're in any position to—"

"GET DOWN!" Ronon shouted suddenly, and the two men both jumped a mile, turning to stare back at their teammates. Fallen was running towards them, aiming a pistol in their direction, Innis and Teyla on his heels.

"I told you!" McKay screamed, only seeing the deadly look on the male Cutsarkian's face as he froze in place, but Sheppard was looking at Ronon. The Runner was circling around to the side of them, his pistol also aimed in their direction....

"Behind you!" Teyla shouted, her P90 in her hands as she moved to get into a different position.

Sheppard and Rodney wheeled around, and looked up...as the biggest python snake either man had ever seen loomed over their heads. It was as wide as a tree trunk, and its head could easily engulf a whole man with one swoop. It opened massive jaws, revealing the two largest, shiniest, and pointiest teeth Sheppard had ever seen. Slowly, almost teasingly, it reared itself back, preparing to strike...

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CHAPTER TWO: SNAKES ON A PLANET

McKay screamed and Sheppard acted on instinct, throwing himself forward into the other man and sending them into the large thorn bush at McKay's back. The whine of Ronon's gun discharging, the explosive rattling of Teyla's P90 and the Custarkian's pistols firing burst over their heads.

Sheppard kept himself pressed down on top of McKay, holding him down inside the bush as the fight waged over their heads. Twisting a little, ignoring the pained hiss from McKay at the movement, he managed to look up over his right shoulder and through the branches, watching as the snake absorbed the fire, hissing and snapping its jaws at its attackers.

The hide on it had to be incredibly thick to take all that abuse, but it wasn't impenetrable. Trickles of red oozed from tiny holes that appeared in the yellowish-green skin on its neck and belly. Slowly, it was being forced back, away from the two men...until, with a sudden, lightning quick movement, it twisted around and dove back into the long, wheat colored grass...and disappeared. The only sign of it's passage was the rippling of the wheat as it quickly slid away in the direction of the distant mountains.

It was long gone in just seconds.

Sheppard exhaled a deep breath, trying to calm his nerves. Beneath him, his head on the other man's chest, he could feel McKay breathing quickly and shaking a little. Slowly, he levered himself up so he could look up at McKay's face. The scientist's expression was pinched and pale, his eyes tightly shut.

"You okay?" Sheppard asked, not liking the man's color.

"Sir!" Lorne's panicked voice echoed abruptly over the radio. "Sir, we heard gunfire! Are you all right? Sir!"

Pushing himself up a little Sheppard grabbed his radio, "Hang tight, Major. We ran into some trouble, but it may be handled. Give us a few minutes." He clicked off and looked back at McKay, who had hissed again in pain when Sheppard had moved. "Rodney?"

"Get...," McKay drew in another shallow breath, "Get off me." It was whispered, half plea, half demand.

Sheppard frowned a little, but put his hands down on either side of McKay to push off...and cried out in pain as they were cut on the thorns of the bush they landed in. Sudden, horrible realization had him practically leaping up off of McKay and then reaching in to pull the scientist out after him. The scientist ended up bringing half the now broken bramble bush with him, the thorns gripping at the fabric of his clothes like burrs.

McKay whimpered a little as he got upright, and Sheppard turned him around, pulling some of the larger branches off of him. His trousers were mostly fine, most of his lower body not being inside the bush, but the sleeves and shoulders of his jacket were in tatters, revealing tiny cuts and welts all up and down his arms. The thick black vest, including the pack McKay always bore and the laptop, saved most of his back from the same abuse, but not completely—there were some tears on his hips, which were going to smart. There were even cuts on his neck and, probably, though they weren't visible, on his head, if the few visible scratches on his face were any indication.

"Aw, shit, McKay," Sheppard hissed, knowing all the paper-thin cuts had to sting like hell. "I'm sorry." McKay just gave a sort of pained, angry grunt in reply, his eyes still not fully open yet. They remained squinted, like someone fighting back a terrible headache.

"Are you two all right?" Teyla asked, suddenly by their side with Fallen and Innis, her eyes going back and forth between them and the grassy plain—still alert for danger. McKay opened his eyes wide enough to give her a bleak look, but Sheppard nodded.

"Yeah. McKay's got a few cuts--"

"A few cuts?" McKay snarked. "If someone hadn't shifted around while pressing me down into—"

"But other than that, we're fine," Sheppard finished, cutting him off. "Thanks," he added to Teyla, his tone softening, "Saved our lives."

"Fallen saw it first," Teyla said, indicating the Cutsarkian with her head and wincing a little as she watched McKay shakily pull some of the smaller branches off of him, taking fabric with it. "You have him to thank. If he had not been as alert...."

"I don't understand it," the young blond man said, almost dazedly, still watching the grass around them with too wide eyes. "The kalakala are nocturnal—they rarely come out during the day. I don't know what brought it out now. I'm so, so sorry. Perhaps, bringing your jumper ship might have been a good idea after all. I just never thought..."

He trailed off at the same time Ronon finally reached them, the Satedan walking backwards with his gun in both hands, also keeping his eyes on the long grass.

Ronon glanced at McKay, who looked less pained and more annoyed now as he plucked the last of the thorns from his pants (Sheppard wasn't going to go there), then at the colonel himself, making sure they were both okay, before returning his gaze to the fields.

"Are there likely to be any more of those things?" he asked, his tone gruff.

"No," Fallen said, still sounding ashamed. "Really, they're rarely seen creatures, almost extinct. Plus, they almost never attack humans—mainly because they know we fight back. I can only think we must be near that one's nest or something. And since we wounded it...I don't think it'll try again. We're probably safe. Though," he shrugged a little, looking back towards the trail, "we should get back to the trail now."

"Colonel Sheppard?" This time it was Beckett on the radio, sounding worried and a little fatalistic at the same time. "Colonel, are you sure you're all right? Should I get help? Or do you need me to come down there?"

Sheppard sighed, grabbing his radio, "It's all right, Carson. We're good."

"You sure, son? What were you shooting at? And don't say Rodney."

Sheppard smiled, and McKay snorted, but didn't say anything as he was still picking at his outfit.

"Just some...," Sheppard licked his lips, looking in the direction the snake had disappeared, "Just some local wildlife. But I think we're okay."

"Perhaps we should return to the village," Teyla offered, looking at McKay worriedly. He was currently looking at the cuts on his left arm, having shoved up the torn sleeve, grimacing at the tiny pinpricks of blood drying on it, his limbs still trembling slightly. "Major Lorne could probably get a jumper—"

"But we're so close now!" Innis said quickly, a hint of whine in her soft voice. "It's not even a mile from here! I..." She paused, looking at McKay, then seemed to deflate in the face of his humorless gaze, her head lowering. "No, of course, we should turn around. The crinkle bush is not something I'd like to be pushed into myself." She gave him a soft smile, turning to look back in the direction they had come from, the direction of their village in the mountains, "We shall head back up to the Gate, and get you home. Perhaps you could return someday when—"

"Oh, hey, wait, now...hang on a minute," Sheppard held a hand up, smiling brightly. "We can go on. McKay's tougher than he looks," he glanced at the man next to him, smile broadening, "aren't you?"

"What?" McKay frowned in confusion.

"Manly, that's McKay," Sheppard said, grinning mercilessly as he met the scientist's gaze. "He can tough out anything. It's part of the reason he's on our team."

McKay's eyebrows lifted high on his face, "Are you kidding?"

"Come on, Ronon," Sheppard said, glancing at the Satedan, "Back me up." Ronon frowned for a second, searching Sheppard's eyes, then suddenly nodded.

"Oh, right, yeah," Ronon added, "McKay's tough, all right. He's been through tons worse. Seen him carrying Sheppard through a swamp, an arrow through his leg. Really resilient guy."

McKay's deer in headlights expression was wide open on his face, turning to look at Ronon like he had two heads.

"He can be a real hero, our McKay," Sheppard agreed, smiling at Innis and, by her side, Fallen. "A few thorns won't stop him. He'll persevere, because that's who he is. A persevere-er." He frowned a little at the awful word, but covered it up with another blinding smile.

"What are you two talking about?" McKay asked, frowning. "Are you on something? Did that snake spray some sort of hallucinogenic substance or something?" His eyes went suddenly wide, "Oh my God, are you sick? Am I sick?" He looked down at his arm again, this time with panic, "What if it's in my bloodstream already because of these cuts and I'm—"

"Now, now," Sheppard had pulled out a bandage from his vest and slapped it hard against McKay's chest, shutting him up, "stop being so modest. Pretending you don't know what we're talking about, and pretending to be afraid of a few scratches. Innis isn't falling for it," he turned hazel eyes on the blonde Custarkian woman, who had lifted her head at hearing her name, "are you, Innis?"

The woman's eyes opened up, "Oh, uh...well...."

"No one I'd rather have at my back," Ronon affirmed.

"Makes the rest of us look like wimps when push comes to shove, I can tell you," Sheppard said.

McKay was about to say something else, when Innis spoke behind him.

"Really?" Innis said quietly, "Is that true, Doctor McKay?"

Rodney turned around to look at her, and found her actually looking at him with something other than pity or bewilderment (which had been her two primary expressions since they had met)...she was actually looking at him appraisingly.

And McKay's voice caught in his throat.

She really was very, very pretty. The sun was catching the blond hair on her head, making it shine, and her blue eyes crinkled slightly as she offered him a slightly bewildered smile, eyelashes fluttering a little as she blushed prettily under his scrutiny.

"Uh..." McKay's mouth moved, but no words came out.

"Come on, tough guy," Sheppard said, clapping McKay hard on the back, "tell her you can go on!"

"I, uh," McKay blinked a few times, swallowed convulsively, then looked over at Sheppard, who just smiled back, then back to Innis. She looked hopeful...and, yeah, really pretty. Slowly, he nodded, "Yeah. Okay. Sure. I can go on."

She practically bounced, smiling brightly. "Wonderful!" Her eyes sparkled as she took a couple steps backwards, sweeping her arm out towards the trail. "You'll see," she promised. "We're really very close. And there is water next to the ship – you'll be able to clean some of those cuts, Doctor McKay. And when you see the ship, you'll know it was worth it. I promise you!" With a final nod, she pivoted and started walking, "It really isn't far!"

"Great," McKay mumbled, shoulders slumping as he realized he'd just given up the chance to turn around. Teyla had kept her head down during the whole exchange between Sheppard, Ronon and McKay, and, when she sidled past, she refused to meet his eye, obviously fighting to keep the smile off her face. Fallen went next, catching up to his sister and Teyla, to resume their lead positions. Sheppard clapped McKay on an unripped portion of his shoulder and pushed him forward.

"Onwards, eh, McKay?" he said, throwing a grin back at Ronon, who was back to watching their six, and the Satedan gave a conspiratorial nod in return.

"That was really, really low," the scientist muttered at his friend, "even for you. Using my ego against me like that."

"Yeah, but," Sheppard shrugged, "it's just so easy to do. Hard to resist really."

"I hate you," McKay said then, giving Sheppard the dirtiest look he had. "You know that right?"

"Yup. I think you tell me that once a mission. Sometimes twice." Sheppard was still watching the grass intently, but the easy-going smirk on his face was genuine.

"But this time," McKay added, "I hate the Laurel to your Hardy just as much." He glanced back at Ronon, throwing a glare worthy of a Wraith. The smirk Ronon gave in return was disturbingly Sheppard like. McKay rolled his eyes, facing forward again and resuming his work of plucking at his sleeves as he walked.

"Hey," Sheppard said after a moment, "think you might want to start using the life signs detector again?"

McKay huffed, "Oh, so now you think we need it, eh?" A touch clumsily, he whipped the scanner out. A few beeps, and his shoulders grew relaxed. "Just us," he confirmed.

"Just keep an eye out for fast moving snakes," Sheppard suggested.

The scientist snorted, not looking up from the scanner. "I swear, if I die on this mission, Sheppard, I'm so blaming you."

The colonel's smirk grew.

"And Ronon," McKay added, glaring over his shoulder. "I'm going to haunt you both."

A chuckle came from behind them, Ronon having obviously heard that, and Sheppard just nodded. "I'll keep that in mind."

"I'd make a really obnoxious ghost too," McKay said, "You think I'm bad alive? Oh...!" He wagged a finger at Sheppard, ready to describe exactly how, then frowned at the knowing smirk on the other man's face. Growling in frustration at his inability to get the upper hand, he turned and jogged a few steps forward so that he got away from Sheppard and closer to Teyla. The colonel let him, his smirk fading a little as he caught the scientist scratching at his hurt arm.

They were still moving steadily downhill now, deeper into the shallow valley.

Sheppard's smile fell fully as he returned his full attention to their surroundings. Glancing back, he saw Ronon was similarly focused on scrutinizing everything around them, his eyes as sharp as ever. He'd had fun helping him egg on McKay, but whereas before the snake had attacked, he had been alert for trouble, now he looked as if he were expecting it.

Joke as they might, they all knew the dangers of a mission like this. Giant snakes were the least of their worries. Sheppard trusted Teyla, yes. But he didn't trust the rest of the Pegasus galaxy. He'd never let McKay know, but part of him too...was extremely worried this was a trap.

But, as Elizabeth had said, the possibility of getting another space ship was worth the risk.

And he did trust Teyla. It was that, more than anything, that kept him moving forward.

_______________________________________________

"Stop scratching," Sheppard hissed, shoving at McKay from behind. "It's driving me crazy!"

"It's driving you crazy!" McKay snarled in reply, pushing down the rough tatters of his right sleeve over his bright red, rash covered arm and glaring back at Sheppard. "I'm the one with the grievous wounds here!"

"Grievous?" the colonel's eyebrows lifted up. "They're like paper cuts, McKay! I think you'll survive."

"Yes! Paper cuts! Exactly! Paper cuts are evil—the worst kind of wound! They sting and throb and burn for days! And you can't do anything with your hands because—"

"I know what paper cuts are, McKay," Sheppard snapped. "I'm just saying, that, unless you want some of those scratches to get infected, you need to stop itch—"

"And unless you have some cortisone in that vest of yours," McKay snapped back, railroading over the other man's words, "I think you'd best keep your opinions to yourself!"

"How can I? You haven't stopped griping about your arms and neck since we started walking again. If I don't talk, you start to repeat yourself. It's worse than a broken record. Oh, poor McKay, suffering from a handful of tiny little scratches..."

"A handful? Did you not see my arms?" McKay threw back the torn sleeve again. "Look!"

Sheppard grimaced at the sight. Okay, so he had a point. Lots of scratches.

"Well," his upper lip curling a little in disgust at the red arm, white tracks from McKay's nails still visible on the obviously irritated skin, "it wouldn't look so bad if you hadn't been scratching at it non-stop..."

"Again, not helpful," McKay criticized. "Cortisone, helpful. Useless words of advice? Not so helpful."

"At least try to stop scratching! I don't even think you're—"

"Colonel Sheppard?" Fallen waved at them from where he was standing a hundred yards away on the top of what looked like a low rise, his voice raised to cover the distance, "We've reached the site where the ship is." Next to him, Innis was looking forward down the hill, as was Teyla. There was uncertainty in Teyla's stance, and, when McKay, Sheppard and Ronon finally reached her, they understood why.

Before them...there was nothing to see. Just more landscape. Yes, they knew the ship was supposed to be cloaked but...still....

"This way," Innis said, stepping off the rise to head down the low hillock into what appeared to be the central basin of this low valley.

The sun was high in the sky as SGA-1 moved to follow her, the long wheat-colored grass finally giving way as they stopped on the edge of a football field sized meadow. Behind them, the pine tree-covered granite mountains housing the Stargate and the Cutsarkian village were hidden inside the shadow of some wispy clouds, but down here the sun was in full regalia, and even McKay couldn't ignore the prettiness of it all.

The meadow itself was lush and wet, covered in hundreds of tiny pink, blue and yellow wildflowers and thick, carpet like green grass. Here and there they could see the sparkling silver lines of dozens of tiny streams coursing through it, feeding the damp loving flora. A few low bushes were scattered about, and one or two stunted trees, but, generally, it was open...and muddy as hell. The middle of it, in particular, looked to be one big mud trap. McKay grimaced as he sank nearly up to his ankle in a really boggy area and pulled his booted foot out with a sickly squelch.

"We're here," Innis said, smiling back at them. She pointed across the marsh, "It's over there."

Four surprised faces looked back at her. There was nothing but open space on the other side, and more wheat grass. A cloaked jumper, despite being invisible, still left a depression, but nothing pressed the grasses down on the other side. If there was a cloaked ship there, there should at least be an indication.

"I know," she admitted, grinning prettily, "you don't see anything. Believe me, we were just as surprised as you." She turned and moved forward, her own booted feet squishing and sinking as she proceeded to walk straight through the middle of the wet meadow. She got stuck a few times, sinking up to her calves at points, her focus on the ground as she obviously sought the best way through.

"Wouldn't it make sense to go around this marsh thing?" McKay called after her, once more scratching at his arms. "I mean...some of those bogs might be...dangerous. Might get stuck, you know? Or, I don't know, sink? I had a friend who sank up to his chest jumping into what he thought was just a puddle once when I was a kid."

"You had friends when you were a kid?" Sheppard asked, unable to help himself. McKay rolled his eyes.

"Yes, I had friends when I was a kid," he replied snippily. "But what I'm saying is," he was almost yelling now, as Innis had gotten quite far away from her brother and the four members of SGA-1 still standing on the edge of the marsh, "you shouldn't be going that way!"

"Oh yes, she should," Fallen said, also smiling and moving to follow his sister, his feet sinking more with each step.

"Wait," Teyla frowned, "Doctor McKay is right, it does not make sense to cross through the middle of that marsh. Going around is easier and far less hazardous."

"We know." Fallen just grinned. "And that's the point, though, isn't it?"

"Huh?"

"Your normal person would indeed go around," Fallen explained, "circling the drier edges or sticking to the handful of rocks like stepping stones," He gestured to the sun bleached rocks that, indeed, popped up in certain locations from out of the muck. "But not us."

"Clearly not," McKay said, not holding back his trademark sarcasm.

"We were out here, just taking a relaxing walk, when my sister made the absurd claim that she could walk through the center of the marsh without getting stuck. So I dared her to try," Fallen continued, either oblivious to McKay's tone or uncaring, "She took that dare. And that's how we found it."

"Found...it?" McKay looked again towards Innis, and saw she was now standing almost right in the middle of the swamp, her hands on her hips and her smile huge on her face. "Found what?"

"This!" she yelled. She raised an arm and slammed a fist into the air behind her...

And a resounding clang of metal echoed across the valley.

With a laugh, Innis turned around and beat at what looked like thin air, and the invisible metal rang under her fists like someone hitting the side of a metal boat.

"Oh my God," McKay said, mouth falling open, "there really is something there."

"She literally just walked right into it," Fallen said, his eyes glittering with excitement.

"Hunh," Sheppard grunted, looking askance at McKay, "did she now."

"Well," the scientist admitted, "I did say it would probably be the only way. So, I was right." He shrugged, smiling smugly.

"How big is it?" Teyla asked.

"As wide as four huts pushed together," Fallen said, "but we're not sure how tall it is. We haven't found any good handholds to try climbing it yet. The hull is curved, rounded...every time we try to climb it...we just slide off." He gave a weak, embarrassed shrug.

"Then," Sheppard frowned, "how did you know it's a ship?"

"Because," Fallen gestured at them to follow him now as he stepped into the muck, "We found a way in."

________________________________________

Innis was waiting for them impatiently as the four member of SGA-1 and her brother finally reached her, bouncing a little. She bent down a little when they got to her, and extended an arm inside the cloak—making it look like it was being cut off.

"It took us almost a month of searching the outer hull before finding this hatch," she explained, "but we did. I don't think it's the main door—which we still haven't located, partly because we haven't been able to get past some of the other doors inside—and...well, it may not even be a door, but it gets us inside." Nodding up at them, she bent the rest of the way over and then, using her hands to guide her, pushed herself into something that didn't look very large..

She squirmed a little, obviously having some difficulty, and it was sort of odd watching as more and more of her disappeared, until just her legs were visible. For some reason, Sheppard was reminded of the magician's trick of cutting a person in half—but still seeing their feet moving.

Then, curiously, she must have pulled herself the rest of the way inside, because she was suddenly gone.

"I'm in!" her voice echoed from the nothingness. "The next person can slide in!"

"Hmm," McKay knelt down, reaching out to touch the edges of whatever it was Innis had just crawled through.

"Hang on," Sheppard said, getting next to McKay and waving him back. The scientist accepted this without a word, backing off to let the colonel go first...just in case there was something waiting for them on the other side. He absently scratched at a torn bit of fabric on his hip as he waited.

Getting down on one knee, Sheppard felt the edges of what felt like a square window, noting absently that the metal was quite rough under his fingertips – rusty? Pulling out his 9MM, he then ducked his head and arm into the "space," leading with the weapon.

He found himself looking up a short, rectangular metal chute, the smell of old metal filling his nostrils. There was indeed a layer of rust on the edges of the hatch—as if it had been open and exposed to the elements for a very, very long time. It was just wide enough for a couple of bodies to squeeze through at the same time—McKay would probably be able to get up it without pulling his pack off.

It was lit by artificial light shed from the room on the far side, where Innis was waiting for him. She was peering back at him down the chute, smiling brightly. She waved at his face, then gestured for him to come in.

"Are you coming?" she asked.

Sheppard didn't move for a moment, squinting a little and using his ears. He could hear her breathing softly, but nothing else. Lifting his eyebrows, he nodded and reached forward with his left arm. His reach was just long enough for his hand to catch the end of the chute, and he used it to pull himself forward, sliding in sideways so that he could keep the gun in his right hand and raised.

As he squirmed up the chute — escape hatch? — he found himself noticing that, curiously, the metal was dark and unadorned, making it unlike the other Ancient ships they'd come across. It was also, thankfully, free of any organic materials, which belied the idea that it could be Wraith.

McKay was going to love puzzling this one out.

Soon enough, he was through to the room with Innis, and, as he pulled himself the rest of the way through, he put his gun back in its holster and just marveled at the oddly shaped room

He felt like he had just climbed into a tube that had been cut in half. The wall behind him, containing the open chute, was curved, while not more than five feet in front of him was a perfectly flat wall. The curved wall met the flat one above and below, such that there was no ceiling or floor per se—making the footing a little treacherous. He slipped a little on the metal floor, his mud covered boots not helping the situation, until he caught himself with a hand and a foot to the flat wall. Looking to the left and right, he found the "tube" extended for a few dozen yards in each direction, ending at more flat walls containing more square hatches. The one to his left was open, but the room beyond was dark.

The whole thing was lit up at intervals by circular lights a bit like halogen lights, and under each were more hatches along both the curved wall—obviously leading outside—and along the flat wall—obviously leading deeper inside. All those hatches were shut.

"Sheppard?" McKay called, and Sheppard turned around to see McKay's head framed by the metal at the bottom of the chute.

"Yeah, come on in," Sheppard said in reply, crouching so that he could see more of the scientist. "But it's pretty tight in here. Might want to suggest Ronon stays outside."

"I think he's already planning on it," McKay said. "To watch for more snakes and...stuff."

Sheppard just smiled, then made a come in gesture. "I think you'll fit with your pack," he added.

McKay frowned, inspecting the inside of the chute with a skeptical look, then shucked off his pack and slid it up to Sheppard. The colonel took it, then reached inside to help McKay slide in.

Fairly quickly, both men were inside with Innis. Teyla opted to remain outside with Ronon and Fallen, to keep watch.

McKay grimaced a little as he looked up and down the oddly shaped room, eyes surveying every aspect of it, before focusing on the largest of the hatches along the long flat wall. His eyes drifted to the left of it, and narrowed. Stepping carefully down to it, he studied what to Sheppard looked like a blank piece of wall, then lifted up a hand and pressed it against something...and the lights in the room turned off.

Innis gasped, then clapped gleefully when McKay turned them back on again.

"How did you know the lights were there?" she asked, almost bouncing in excitement. "We only found it because we were running over the walls with our hands, trying to find the lever or release mechanism for some of the other hatches...and to see if we could get any light in here. But you...you just found it!"

"Not really," McKay replied, looking thoughtful as he studied the still plain looking wall where the "switch" was. "It just happens to be in the same place as the control panel embedded in the walls of one of the engine rooms of...." he trailed off, his lips pressing into a thin line. "That is, we have something like it back home," he finished lamely.

"Home?" Sheppard asked, stressing the word.

"Home," McKay affirmed with a single, pregnant nod.

He meant, of course, the engines that flew Atlantis. Sheppard's eyes widened a little. Maybe the ship was Ancient, despite the lack of adornment.

"Interesting," he said.

"Yes, but..." McKay grimaced a little, looking around one more time. His finger swirled in the air, vaguely gesturing to the whole room, "It's not the same...just very similar. Like someone was copying them."

"Them?" Innis asked.

"The Ancestors," McKay answered, looking now to the one open hatch at the end, leading into darkness.

"You have some of the Ancestor's ships where you're from?" Innis asked, eyes wide.

"They made our Jumpers," Sheppard affirmed.

"Oh," Innis said, her eyes still wide. "Wow."

"You opened that?" McKay asked suddenly, pointing towards the open hatch he'd been studying.

"Um, no," she replied. "It was already open. But what we found through there is how we learned this was a ship. Follow me." And she proceeded to step carefully along the curved floor, one hand using the flat wall for balance, heading towards it. Sheppard and McKay followed, both moving awkwardly.

"This isn't a very good design," Sheppard muttered, stepping over a ridge in the metal.

"I don't think we're right way up," McKay answered. "Just a guess, but I think the ship's on its side. This wall," he tapped the long wall they were using for leverage, "is probably the ceiling...or the floor."

Innis glanced back at him, then at the wall, then forward again.

Eventually, they reached the end, and Innis was ducking through square hatch. Once on the other side, she stood and waited for the two men to climb through after her, her hands on her hips. Unlike where they came from, there was no panel to hit for lights, so she stood in shadowed darkness, lit only by the artificial light through the hatch. McKay and Sheppard immediately pulled their flashlights as they stood and ran the beams across the new room—which was huge.

"You're right," Innis said to McKay as he finally noticed the control panels under his feet, "the ship is on its side," she gestured around her, "although we didn't figure that out until we came in here and realized that all the control consoles were above and below us, and the floor...wasn't really a floor."

Sheppard's jaw dropped as he took it all in, marveling at the sheer size of the room after the cramped space they had just left. Mostly, though, he just stared in wonderment at the five huge engine turbines that made up the bulk of the room, sticking out of the wall to his left. They were huge—he could only imagine what they looked like on the outside.

Looking above his head, he shone his flashlight up at another series of panels at least three stories above his head, along with what looked like mushrooms erupting out of the wall (floor?) facing them—consoles? He couldn't make out the words on anything from here, or even the language...

"This is incredible," McKay called gleefully, kneeling on the floor and running his fingers over the panel under his feet, "absolutely incredible! This is obviously the engine room, and it makes up the entire end of the ship." He shifted around, trying not to cover too much of it with his feet while studying it at the same time, adjusting so that he could look at it the right way up. "That half tunnel thing we just came from must be a storage space, like the baggage area on an airplane."

"Can you read the writing?" Sheppard asked, looking at Innis. She opened her mouth to answer, but McKay was faster, thinking that the question was for him.

"It's not Ancient," he said, tilting his head as he studied it, "But there is something familiar about it." His brow furrowed.

"It's not Cutsarkian either," Innis added, shaking her head. "Fallen and I even took some of the writings with us to the village elders, but they didn't recognize it either."

Sheppard hummed, looking down at McKay. "Well, perhaps Elizabeth could—"

"Oh my God," McKay breathed, his eyes widening and his whole body straightening from its crouch over the panel below him.

"What?" Sheppard asked, though the question wasn't so much worried as curious. McKay didn't sound panicked...more amazed. "You recognize it?"

Rodney looked up at him, his eyes bright. "We have to get Teyla in here."

"Why?"

"Because this language," Rodney gave a short, stunned laugh, "it's Athosian."

____________________________________________________

CHAPTER THREE: INSTANBUL WAS CONSTANTINOPLE

Teyla knelt down, her fingers tracing the language on the panel under her feet, not saying a word as she studied the characters. McKay hovered over her, scratching nervously at his arms as he waited for her to say something either in confirmation or denial. Innis and Fallen were both inside now with them, while Ronon remained the only one outside the ship.

"It is..." Teyla stopped and swallowed, because her voice had shaken slightly and she obviously needed to calm down. "It is my people's language. Some of the characters are a little...different, but...," she looked up at Sheppard, her eyes brighter than he had ever seen them, "it is definitely Athosian." Her whole body seemed to glow with the realization, curiosity and pride filling her face, an uncharacteristically nervous smile lifting her lips.

"How is that possible?" Sheppard asked, watching her carefully.

Teyla just took another deep breath, then shook her head. "I am not sure. I knew....that is, Charin used to speak of our people's past but...." She seemed to be struggling with something, lowering her head and biting her lip for a moment before once more focusing on the two Atlantians. "There are stories that, before the Ancestors left, the Athosians were once a great people. Leaders among the humans in this galaxy, and allies with the Ancestors in the fight against the Wraith." She looked down again, touching the panel one last time, then stood up to face them. "Of course, as with all stories...one can never really tell the history from the legend. But I had always wondered how far they progressed before the Wraith scourge truly took its toll, before the Ancestors left. I knew, from some of the old scrolls, that there were once great cities built on Athos and its allied planets, towering as high as Atlantis, and I knew, from the depictions on some of the ruins, that they had mastered flight....But a space ship?" She shook her head, shining her own flashlight around at the massive engine room. "There is nothing in the old stories about our achieving that."

"But, clearly, you did," Sheppard said, smiling softly at her. She smiled back, then shook her head.

"Yes, but," she looked around at the ship, "then where are they? The ships? Is this the only one?" She pouted a little, crossing her arms, looking a little like a teenager who had just learned that her parents didn't leave her the car keys. "And if this really is an Athosian ship, what is it doing here?" She looked at Innis and Fallen, "As beautiful as your planet is, as far as I know, this planet was not one of the Athosian homeworlds."

Innis just shrugged, glancing at her brother, who shrugged as well.

"Well, as to the first," McKay said, lifting up his scanner and tapping the screen a couple of times, "one possible explanation is that this was a prototype. For all you know," he shrugged, "it is the only one of its kind."

Teyla gave him a pained look, "Prototype?"

"It may not even work," McKay replied, turning his focus to something on the scanner as it gave a soft beep.

"The cloak obviously works," Sheppard noted.

"Yeah," and McKay frowned then, looking down at the panels, "And has worked for a very long time..." His eyes had taken on a far away quality, and they knew he was talking to himself more than them at that point. Lifting the scanner in his hand, he turned in a circle, then stepped gingerly across to a different portion of the 'floor', pulling his laptop off his back as he moved.

"Light please, colonel!" he called out, snapping his fingers. Without a word (although with a healthy glare), Sheppard walked over and pointed his light where McKay indicated—sometimes it was just easier not to argue. On his knees now, the scientist quickly wrestled open a panel to reveal the wiring underneath and set about hooking up the laptop and other equipment. As he worked, Teyla moved around as well, trying to avoid stepping on anything too delicate and checking for more clues as to how this ship was tied to her ancestors.

"I just find this so hard to believe," she said, leaning forward to look more carefully at one of the engine turbines. "To think that the Athosian people could have progressed this far scientifically and technologically....It almost puts them on par with your people's level of advancement." She glanced at Sheppard as she spoke, the colonel just giving her a mild shrug in reply.

"Hunh," McKay snorted without looking up from the laptop, which was already glowing with information, "I wouldn't say that."

Teyla frowned at his dismissal, anger coloring her features. "Why not? I would think that this ship is proof enough that they were at least capable of the same level of—"

"No, no," McKay shot back, annoyance in his own voice as looked up at her. "Don't be ridiculous. Of course your people could have been as great as us....I mean..." he shook a hand at her, frustration in his tone, his eyes returning to the monitor which just lit up shiny and blue, "it's actually possible your people, if they did build this, were in fact more advanced than us." He frowned again, peering more closely at the monitor as something obviously popped up that confused him.

"Really?" Sheppard asked, lifting his eyebrows. Teyla, however, looked even more surprised at the admission.

"More advanced?" she repeated.

"Why not?" McKay asked, his tone distracted again as he started to type on the keyboard, "After all...they had the Ancestors around to teach them, didn't they? It's always easier to progress when there is someone to show you the way..." He frowned again, clicked his tongue, and started to type furiously.

"Oh," Teyla blinked a little at that. "Yes...I suppose that is accurate. I had not considered—"

"Look," McKay stopped mid-type to offer her a level stare, "To be honest, while our people," he stuck a thumb out at himself and Sheppard, "have succeeded in flying to and landing on the moon orbiting our planet—something we did manage entirely on our own, I might add—the level of technology that enabled us to build the Daedalus and the F-302's is way beyond anything we could have created at our current stage of development. Much of the truly advanced technology we control back home—like the Daedalus' hyperdrive—comes from studying and copying Ancient technology or borrowed from the Asgard. Of course, who knows where we would be if the Ancients were still around...." He hummed at the idea, retuning his attention to the laptop.

"Wait," Teyla began, sounding oddly tentative as McKay began typing again, "are you saying that you think this ship might have also been based on one of the Ancestor's ships?"

"Yes," McKay glanced at her, annoyance once more on his face, "Isn't that what I just said?"

"Then the Athosians co-opted Ancient technology?" Sheppard asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Not necessarily. From what I'm seeing here," McKay waved at the laptop screen, "it's more likely the Ancients actually had a hand in helping them build it." He shrugged, "To my eye, I'm looking at a student's design here. It might work, but it's also a touch impractical and a little fanciful, almost whimsical. I would lay odds this ship was constructed with an Ancient teacher looking over the builder's shoulder..." Teyla's eyes were wide open now as she listened, trying to imagine that possibility of her people actually working alongside the Ancestors.

"McKay, that's just...total conjecture. How can you possibly know that?" Sheppard asked.

"Just based upon what we see in front of us," McKay answered. "Can't you see?" He waved a hand out at the large room and glanced back and forth between Teyla and Sheppard, waiting for one of them to reply. When neither did, his eyes softened slightly in realization, looking almost sad. "No. No, I guess you can't. Huh. Look, this design, while simple, smacks of Ancient. In fact..." he started typing again, his brow furrowing as he absorbed the information scrolling past.

"In fact?" Sheppard prompted.

McKay just gave a sly smile, hit a few keys, and suddenly the room around them started to hum, causing the four people with him to jump a little. When he looked up, his eyes were smug.

He'd just revved the engines.

"All right!" Sheppard grinned, raising his voice to be heard over the loud noise as the turbines started spinning in the five hubs. "You can get it to work!"

"I can get it to work," McKay confirmed, typing away rapidly once more, his eyes intent on the screen in front of him. "The coding for the computers is nearly identical to that of the Orion. Once translated into English, it's actually pretty simple to control."

"God rest the Orion's soul," Sheppard muttered as he moved over to join Teyla's study of the spinning turbines. The Athosian was grinning, more excited than Sheppard had ever seen her. All around them, the room was lighting up as panel after panel burst into life, until the whole room was practically thrumming with energy. For the first time, they could see the true size of the room—it was even bigger than they thought....

"Sheppard," Ronon's voice called over the radio. "I take it you just turned the ship on?"

"That's a yes, Ronon," the colonel replied cheerily. "How's it look from out there?"

"Cloak's still on. I can just hear it...and kinda feel it."

"Oh, yeah, 'spect that's true. Give Lorne a head's up about what the noise is, will you?"

"Sure." And the radio chirrupped as Ronon called for Lorne over the radio in the background. Meanwhile, Sheppard turned to look at the scientist still typing away furiously at the laptop.

"Hey, how about dropping the cloak so we can see what the ship looks like?" he said.

"And can you open those doors?" Innis asked, pointing to her right. On the wall opposite the turbines, about a dozen steps led up to a large pair of doors....leading, obviously, into the main part of the ship. "Maybe power up the rest of the rooms on this ship?"

"And get it turned right way up?" Fallen added, patting his hand on one of consoles above his head. "Get it off the ground?"

"Off the ground...do you think it can still fly?" Teyla asked, her eyes bright.

Sheppard nodded, "Speaking of which, what is actually powering the engines? Is it a ZPM?"

Teyla nodded, "Does it require the gene to—?"

"Stop!" McKay snapped, pushing his hands out to indicate they stop talking. "Just...just wait! I can only answer one thing at a time!" He looked over at the Athosian, "Teyla, Can you do some reading for me?"

She nodded briskly, not the least bit fazed by the interruption. "Yes, of course."

"Great. On one of those lit panels over there," he pointed off to his left, "I need you to find the one that reads, 'power levels'."

Teyla nodded, delicately stepping over to where he'd indicated. It was the second panel closest to the turbines. "Got it."

"What does it say?"

"There are three sets of screens on this one panel," she replied. "The first is labeled 'Main'. The second is labeled 'Auxiliary.' The last is..." she frowned, "I don't know this word, although it is similar to our word for extreme speed...."

"Hyperdrive," Rodney said, smiling to himself.

"Yes," Teyla nodded, "That makes sense."

"Are any of them on?"

"Uh...well, the panel for Auxiliary appears to be showing activity...."

"Thought so," McKay said, typing away furiously once again.

"McKay?" Sheppard nudged, arching an eyebrow. "Care to share some of that brilliance?"

"Oh," McKay looked up, "Sure. Apparently, this ship has three different power sources that it pulls on. I don't know what feeds the Main and the Hyperdrive power cells yet, but I know what feeds the auxiliary, because I've managed to tap into its diagnostics...a much easier thing to do since it's currently active. The auxiliary power is what's powering the cloak and systems I've initiated...." He looked down again at his screen, typing some more.

Sheppard waited a few beats, having expected (along with everyone else in the room), that McKay would continue. When Rodney just continued to type, Sheppard literally nudged him this time, knocking the still kneeling scientist with his shin. Rodney glared up at him.

"What?"

"So what's providing the auxiliary power?"

"Oh," McKay shrugged, "that's easy. The sun." He pointed vaguely upwards. "This ship is covered head to toe in solar paneling. It's been running on solar power this whole time."

Sheppard's eyebrows lifted, "You're kidding."

"Nope. And it's definitely Ancient design. They're made of the same material as many of the solar panels on....back home."

The colonel's eyebrows lifted even higher, "there are solar panels back home?"

McKay just stared at him, "Now who's kidding? You've flown over it, Colonel. Haven't you ever noticed the massive mirrors on the top of most of the towers?"

"Oh," Sheppard shrugged, "I just...I thought they were just decoration."

McKay gave him a sour look, then turned his attention back to his screen. "Anyway, I'm going to switch over to main power, to see how much there is and what exactly its source is. Meanwhile...I should be able to turn the ship right side up by asking the ship to orientate itself on its central axis, which I can do from here. When I do that, I'll drop the cloak, so you can see what it looks like. If you want to go outside when I do so..."

"Outside? You mean leave you alone?" Sheppard asked, brow furrowing. "I don't think that's a—"

"Well, not alone, exactly," McKay said. "I, uh, I need Teyla's help." He looked up at the Athosian, "You feel up to helping me fly this thing?"

The woman practically bounced, but Sheppard held up a hand before Teyla could answer, "Now, hang on, McKay. I'm the pilot here, remember? If anyone's going to fly this ship—"

"Yes, but you can't read the controls, now, can you?" McKay replied, eyebrows lifting.

"Ships are ships. I can fly anything."

"From the control room or the cockpit, yes, probably you can," McKay admitted. "But not from back here. Frankly, I don't need a pilot to rotate the ship, Colonel. We will not really be flying it, per se. Just...shifting it. All I need is someone to hit the right buttons on the right panels at the right time....and Teyla can do that. In fact, she's the best one to do so, since I can just tell her what to look for instead of pointing it out."

Sheppard frowned, "McKay..."

"Colonel," Teyla said, insinuating herself into the conversation by sliding between him and McKay, "please. He is right. I am the best one to help." She gave a small smile then, "After all, it is not as if I have not flown a ship before...."

Sheppard stared at her, thinking about how well she'd managed to control the Hive ship. It didn't make the idea sit any more comfortably with him.

"Teyla..."

"Please, Colonel," she pressed, straightening up more in order to seem taller. "I can do this. I know this is normally your prerogative, but, please...I would like to be the one to help Doctor McKay."

Sheppard stared at her for a moment, studying her face. This was not the Teyla he knew and could rely on—this Teyla was full of a vibrancy he had never seen before. This ship had clearly sparked in Teyla that same sense of childlike excitement that lit up McKay whenever he found new Ancient technology, and it was beautiful on her. Normally, with the exception of when she saw Atlantis for the first time, Teyla took everything they came across in stride, showing little enthusiasm or thrill for anything. Like almost everyone they had met in this galaxy, the Wraith had long ago killed the wonder in her. But this Athosian ship had brought it back…in spades. And, as much as he wanted to be the voice of reason, to take this risk with McKay, he couldn't take this from her.

Of course, it meant placing her completely in McKay's hands, trusting that he would be able to save her as well as himself should something go wrong. Normally, he wouldn't think twice, because Teyla was even more cautious than he was when dealing with the ambitious and proud astrophysicist, but right now....

He closed his eyes and lowered his head.

"She'll be fine, Colonel," McKay spat, his acerbic tone telling Sheppard that the scientist was clearly aware of the debate going on inside Sheppard's head.

Sheppard opened his eyes to glare at McKay, but sucking in a breath, gave a short nod. "Fine. But you shut it down the moment you think—"

"I know the drill," McKay said. "Go."

"We'll go too," Innis said, smiling. "We'd love to see what the ship really looks like."

Sheppard just stared at McKay a moment longer, then nodded again. "Right. Stay on the radio."

The scientist just waved a hand at him, already back to typing away again. Sheppard brushed past Teyla and back to the hatch, Fallen and Innis on his heels. As he ducked through, he glanced back at the Athosian, and saw her confident smile as she watched them leave. She gave him a nod, and he nodded back.

Then he was back into the curved outer room and sliding along the uneven floor towards the open hatch to the outside.

"And back far away from the ship!" McKay shouted after them, his voice echoing along the metal frame. "At least back to the dry ground! This thing's going to expel a lot of firepower when it moves!"

"Right," Sheppard muttered, helping Innis as she climbed into the chute to get outside. "Right," he said again to himself.

____________________________________________________

With Fallen, Innis and Ronon by his side, Sheppard headed away from the ship as ordered, squelching through the mud and leading the way back to the meadow’s edge. The boggy soil stuck to trouser legs and boots like glue, worrying him a little as he considered how much power it might take to lift the ship up out of this marsh. Would the ship be able to handle that much power expenditure after all this time? Was McKay really certain he could do this? And they hadn’t figured out exactly why the ship was down in the first place…what if…what if McKay was wrong?

His thoughts churned and flipped and worried down the edges of his mind, so that he barely noticed when they finally hit the dry ground once again. If Ronon hadn’t tapped his shoulder when they reached the top of the first rise, he might actually have kept going. Sheppard grimaced, meeting the Satedan’s eyes and seeing his worry mirrored in them. He shook his head at the tall man, and shoved all his own doubts to the back of his head. There was no time left for second thoughts. McKay said he could do this, and Sheppard knew, 90 percent of the time…that meant he could. Turning around fully, shaking some of the mud off his boots, he tapped his radio.

“You’re sure you can do this,” he said into the mouthpiece, the words more a statement than a question.

“Yes,” McKay replied over the radio, his tone dark with his annoyance at the question. “Teyla and I can do this.”

“Okay, then,” Sheppard sighed, brow furrowing slightly. “Go ahead. Let’s see her.”

“Roger that,” McKay replied. “Here we go.”

Fallen audibly held his breath next to Sheppard as the soft purr filling the meadow rose to a deep, muted rumble, seemingly from nowhere. The ship’s engines groaned, then sputtered, then rose to a sustained whirr.

And, like a curtain being lifted from a window, the ship rippled into view.

“Oh,” Sheppard breathed, eyes widening, “Wow.”

The damn thing wasn't just a ship, it was a god damned rocket ship.

Unlike the Ancient and Earth ships, which were predominantly angles and square edges, and unlike the Wraith ships, which were all points and filigree, what appeared before them was round, long and smooth—it was elegance in a way that made the Daedalus feel like a poor, hick cousin. The metal covering it gleamed almost white, absorbing and reflecting the twin suns burning overhead like a mirror, and causing the four people standing there to squint and cover their eyes as they were suddenly bathed in white light.

“Whimsical,” Innis whispered, nodding slightly as her eyes adjusted to the brightness. “I get what he meant now. It doesn’t seem real.”

Sheppard didn’t answer, and neither did the others. Innis was right—it didn’t seem real. Part of the colonel felt like someone had reached inside his head and pulled out images from the comic books he’d loved when he was a kid, because the ship resting on the ground before them looked just like the old spaceships people used to depict in 1950s comic strips, right down to the petal like wings on the bottom, protecting the engine. Had it been standing up on its base, resting on those petal wings, it would have been exactly like something he remembered from the cover of an Amazing Stories magazine.

McKay was going to freak when he finally got a look at it from the outside!

But there were other differences as well, now that he looked more carefully. Stunted wings, a little like shark fins, extended out of the sides of the ship as they watched—flaps? rudders?—and settled into place with a metallic groan. He saw other lines in the hull as well, where other things obviously extended out of the rocket shaped hull…weapons, maybe? Until they got it the right way up, and McKay was able to open all the interior doors to allow them the access to really explore the inside, it was hard to tell. In the front, just above the pointed nose of the ship, a series of windows like those for an airplane's cockpit were visible—obviously the control room.

Damn, he wanted to get in there!

The smooth metal was vibrating now as the engines roared and flared, getting stronger as they listened. Nothing sounded wrong, no telltale bangs or hisses to suggest problems…it just sounded old.

His radio crackled, and he realized McKay had been trying to speak to him for a while, yelling across the airwaves. Fiddling with the volume, he listened to the now spotty transmission—interference from the ship's power cells?

"...probably...interference from....can hear me? Anyway, just...no ZPM. Powered by...like the Puddle Jump...'cept fivefold....built for speed...charged. Should be enough to....for a little while...back to Atlantis at least....okay...up now....damn thing is...stubborn....stupid bog..."

Slowly, with a loud, almost ferocious growl, the ship started to lift itself up, and Sheppard could now see the front thrusters churning up air and heat near the ship’s nose, allowing it to hover in concert with the engines in back. A loud "pop" filled the air, hurting their ears, and Sheppard grimaced and stepped back without thinking, wondering if he should have ignored McKay’s words and been the one inside helping him…but Teyla had been so certain she could do this…and wanted to do it. And besides, they weren’t going to fly it anywhere—they were just putting it back down on its belly as opposed to its side.

Another booming "pop," and Sheppard knew he wasn't the only one to flinch at the loud noise.

Mud and water dripped from the underside as the ship raised itself up a few feet off the ground, heat and burn billowing from the engines in back, churning and boiling the meadow behind it. Yellow Flames burst and flared from one of the turbines—the one that had been the most embedded in the bog—and had probably been the source of the popping noise, but soon settled into the same white hot color of the rest. They all visibly relaxed.

And slowly, with a caution that Sheppard was proud of McKay for, the ship started to rotate in the air.

Two things became apparent as it did so. The first being that, as it turned out, the main entrance to the ship, a large rectangular door, had been buried on the underside. No wonder Innis and her brother couldn’t find it. It was revealed as the ship turned, hunks of dirt and turf sliding off the silvery metal material. The second, and this one was more interesting, was the discovery of a big hole on the same side, not too far from the entrance, and almost as big as the doors themselves.

Shit.

“There’s a hole,” Fallen said suddenly, as if they had all somehow missed it. “You think something inside exploded?”

“No,” Ronon replied, his sharp eyes taking in the damage from here, “the metal is turned inwards. Something hit that ship. Hit it hard.”

“And brought it down,” Sheppard finished quietly.

At least now they knew why the ship had been left on this planet. You couldn’t fly it in outer space with that huge hole—hell, it’d be dangerous to fly it at any serious altitude even on this planet. At best, you could fly it at helicopter height, but anything more than that and you’d have serious problems with air pressure.

“Everything seems to be working okay in here, and I think I've solved the interference problem with the radio. Got communications to work with our frequencies. You should be receiving me loud and clear now, which...according to this, you are.” McKay said then over the radio, obviously gleeful to be succeeding in his endeavor. “So, How’s it look?”

“Amazing,” Sheppard replied, both to McKay and to himself.

“Except for the big hole,” Ronon added darkly.

“Even with,” Sheppard said. “It’s beautiful.”

“Hole?” McKay’s voice was questioning. “There’s a hole? I…oh…yes, I see it now on the screen. Wonder why it didn’t show me that before…? Probably because I didn’t know how to look for it. Oh, wow…that’s a big hole.”

“Can it be fixed?” Innis asked, looking across at the two men.

“Can it be fixed, McKay?” Sheppard repeated her question into the radio.

“I don’t know.” There was a brief pause, “It’s pretty big.”

“Yes,” Sheppard said to Innis, smiling at her. “It can be fixed.”

“Hey! Don’t tell her that!” McKay groused, his voice rising to even tinnier levels over the radio link. “I said, I didn’t know if it could be fixed!”

“Which, generally, means it can.”

McKay just harrumphed, not bothering to reply to that.

Gently, the ship settled back down onto the marsh bed, and the cloak once more settled into place as the scientist turned it back on. The engines fell silent with a rattle and a gurgle, until, once more, the people on the hillock could see nothing but mud, grass and flowers…and now some pretty charred, smoking dirt. The smell of burning peat filled their noses, sweet and a little musty.

“I’m going to open the main entrance. If you saw where it was, you should be able to find it pretty easily. There appear to be steps that fold out from it to reach the ground, just like an airplane.”

“What’s an airplane?” Ronon asked, looking at Sheppard.

“A plane that flies in the air,” the colonel replied, already moving forward down the hill. He didn’t feel the sear of Ronon’s glare on his back at the non-answer.

___________________________________________

With the ship back on the ground, and the engines now off, McKay continued to chatter over the radio about the ship as they squelched back through the bog. He told them that it had at least three internal "floors", i.e. three levels besides the cargo areas on the top and bottom of the ship like the one they'd sidled through to get to the engine room. There were rooms for at least twenty personnel, and, yes, he was pretty sure there was a blackbox hidden inside the coding to tell them what happened to that crew. He was trying to access it now....

As they got closer, McKay's voice on the radio trailed off, obviously once more distracted by the technology, and Teyla appeared from out the nothingness, stepping down off of invisible steps into the mud and waving at them, a joyous expression on her face. As they reached her, she spoke with a speed and excitement that was usually reserved to McKay, describing first the feel of lifting and rotating the ship and then how McKay had managed to open up all the doors to all the rooms, making finding this main entrance fairly easy.

The moment they stepped up onto the step, the ship rematerialized around them, and they got to see it up close. Try as he might, Sheppard couldn't keep the wonder from his face, and he knew the others couldn't either. The ship was still brightly lit, awash with a soft, pulsing white light, reminding Sheppard a little of the Aurora. The whole thing practically glowed.

They stepped through the main entrance, then down a short, plain, circular hallway, lit on both sides by rectangular lights that were flush with the walls. Oddly, it reminded Sheppard of something out of the movie, 2001. Everything was in shades of silver, white, light beige or tan....

Teyla stepped through another doorway, a bit like the oval doorways one found on a submarine, and into a long central, tubular hallway. This was likely the spine of the ship. At the far end were the open double doors leading to the darker colored engine room—they could see multicolored lights pouring out of it from the panels, consoles and the tops of the engine turbines. At the other end....

Sheppard looked that way, knowing without a doubt that he was looking at the doors leading to the control room. Doors also dotted the hall on both sides, leading who knows where.

"What's the plan?" he asked, looking longingly at the doors to the control room.

"We explore this sucker, what else?" McKay answered, appearing from open doors at the end as he bounded up the steps from the engine room floor and into the corridor, grinning. "But first, I have managed to find their version of a blackbox recording. Do you want me to play it?" He strode quickly towards them, all smiles and smugness. "It'll play anywhere in the ship, since I've tied it into the communications system...."

"That's the control room, right?" Sheppard asked, indicating the doors at the opposite end from McKay's engine room with his thumb.

"Yup. Good place to start. You want to look at it while we play the recording?"

"Yeah," Sheppard said, already turning and walking in that direction. The others turned with him, like moths following a moving lantern. Behind him, he heard McKay's feet accelerate on the metal floor, jogging to catch up.

"Okay," the scientist panted as he pushed up to walk between Sheppard and Teyla, who were in the lead. He had his data tablet in hand, and he hit a handful of commands as they reached the control room doors.

Teyla waved a hand over the left hand side, and they slid open with a soft sigh reminiscent of the doors on Atlantis.

"Wow," Sheppard said again, stepping into the large, white accented room, eyes taking in the huge windows before them with wide eyed excitement. The windows hadn't looked this large from the outside.

From the walls all around them, the recording began to play, filling the space with a softly toned voice.

"This is Commander Jorgan Relegar, acting Captain of the spaceship Thermopylae..."

"Thermopylae," Teyla repeated, looking pensive as she stepped forward on the metal floor, her eyes studying the cone shaped room. It was two levels. They had entered on the main level, the floor running all the way to the pointed nose of the ship. Before them, several consoles rose from out the floor, circling around a central command chair....

"Thermopylae? That sounds oddly familiar," Rodney muttered as he moved over to the first console, already checking its purpose with his data tablet.

"...I am making this recording with the hope that, someday, our people will once again discover this ship and learn of its fate..."

Sheppard frowned as he looked up at the balcony over head, hanging over the entrance they had just walked through. It was short, with stairs leading down on both sides to this main level. A door up there presumably led to the corridor on that floor.

"...If you are here, listening to this, then you have mastered the ship's computer and will have already learned that we were brought down by the Wraith while attempting to help evacuate the Lantean outpost on Claris, several star systems over. We will obviously never make it to the outpost. I can only hope that one of our other allies will be able to reach them, for the Lanteans' sakes...."

"Wraith," Ronon spat, anger in his tone.

"Claris?" Sheppard repeated the name of the outpost, looking over at McKay.

"A far-flung Ancient space station that was located near MX3-21C," the scientist replied solemnly as he left the first console and moved to another, "the database described it as completely destroyed. No survivors."

"...Captain Leyda Emeras and Senior Donal Magay were, unfortunately, aiding in the repair of the pulse weapon located on the port side of the ship when the Wraith beam cut through the shield and blew out the side of the Thermopylae. They...and several others lost their lives, but Senior Magay managed, before he died, to adjust the remaining shield strength to give us enough protection to bring the ship down on this planet..."

"Magay," Sheppard snorted, "sounds almost like McKay..."

Rodney was standing still now, no longer looking at his tablet, but staring into space as he listened to the recording. "Donal Magay...was an Ancient," he told them. "I recognize his name from the database. He was their head shipbuilder—Zelenka's sort of got a thing for him," he added with a smile.

"Makes sense," Ronon said, peering down a hatch in the floor at some stairs with Fallen. They clearly led to the level below.

"So you were right," Teyla breathed, running her fingers on the arm of the white leather command chair.

"...We came down on our side, the hole in the hull preventing us from landing properly. I managed to bring us down on the largest of the muddy rivers lining this area of the planet, to mask our skid. We had just enough power to land without damaging the ship further, but...as I said, we landed on our side..."

"Well, that explains that," Ronon muttered, looking up at the balcony as Sheppard had done.

"...We had hoped to right ourselves, but the Main power cells have nearly burnt out and, at the moment, are not responding to our attempts to recharge them. The Auxiliary power cells are low, having been used to shore up the shields, and are barely sustaining the cloak now hiding us...."

"Were the main power cells low?" Sheppard asked, looking to McKay.

"No, they're almost fully charged," McKay replied, shaking his head. "They tapped them into the Auxiliary power cells before they left, and the sun over ten thousand years recharged both."

"...The Wraith know we came down on this planet, and have been searching the surface for several days. They have not found us because of the cloak, but we can not stay here. We have no guarantee that the cloak will remain constant, not with auxiliary reserves so low, and it will take years before the power cells are charged enough to allow the ship to fly anywhere again. Moreover, we do not have the materials necessary to repair the hole in the hull. Our only chance is to get to the Stargate we located on the side of a mountain about four and a half miles from here and perhaps bring back help...."

"But they never came back," Teyla said, crossing her arms over her chest.

"...If we do not return, or if the Thermopylae is not found until after our names have faded from memory, know that this ship was the fastest ship of its time, and one the Athosian people can be proud of for having helped design. I truly believe that this ship met the requirements of the challenge the Lantean's posed of its allies, and we can be sure in the knowledge that it not only met that challenge, but exceeded it. There was nothing faster in the skies...."

"Challenge?" Teyla said, looking at McKay. The scientist just shrugged in reply.

"...Unfortunately, our reliance on the safety brought by that speed was not enough to escape the sheer numbers of Wraith bearing down on us or our Lantean allies. Perhaps it was hubris that brought us to this point, telling the Lanteans that we could rescue their people on Claris, and having to desert our ship on this lonely planet, but I believe..." there was a pause on the recording, and the faces of the people listening all turned up a little, waiting, "...I truly believe that the Lanteans might have commissioned more like the Thermopylae, had they the time. But I am afraid...that the Lanteans will lose this war soon. There are very few of them left now. And when they do lose...I do not know what will happen to the rest of us."

Teyla closed her eyes, lowering her head. Sheppard had moved to stand next to her, and, gently, rested a hand on her shoulder. Without lifting her head, she reached up and placed her hand over his in thanks.

"...At daybreak tomorrow, we will make a run for the Stargate. I hope that this message will be erased by myself when I return." They heard the smile in the voice, even if they couldn't see the man making it. "If not, whomever this is that is listening to it...know this ship saved many lives before being brought down. She was great once. And if it is a Wraith listening to this message...I hope this ship explodes under your control and brings you down in a fireball. Acting Captain Jorgan Relegar...signing off."

Ronon chuckled at the last words, and even Teyla smiled.

"I like that guy," Sheppard said, smirking as he stepped forward as far as possible into the nose, and looked out the window at the quiet landscape.

"Had a nice way with words," McKay agreed, moving over to the largest of the consoles and started hitting keys.

"Do you know what you're doing?" Innis asked, leaning over the scientist's shoulder.

"Surprisingly? Yes," McKay sneered as he continued to work. "I'm hoping to find some information that will help us repair—"

"COLONEL SHEPPARD!" Lorne's screamed shout over the radio caused them all to jump, especially since McKay still had it tied into the ship's communications system...it was broadcast over the entire ship. "COLONEL SHEPPARD! RESPOND!" There was a lot of noise in the background...it sounded like weapons fire.

"Lorne?" Sheppard tapped his radio, "What—"

"Sir! We're under attack! The Stargate activated, and four Wraith darts just came through!"

"What? Major, can you get to the Gate? You have to get Beckett out of there!"

"Yes, sir! I know. The gate deactivated when the darts came through, but there are Wraith everywhere on the ground. We're trying to get around them to the gate, but they're everywhere! We're doing our best to fight them, but we don't have the manpower to—"

"We're on our way," Sheppard snapped, hitting the radio. "Let's go!" he called, spinning around and running back into the corridor. They were at the main door in moments, Teyla, Ronon and the two Cutsarkians already almost all the way down the steps. Stopping halfway down, Sheppard turned and held up a hand to stop Rodney. "Stay here!"

"What?" McKay demanded, "What are you talking about?"

"That's an order, McKay! You'll slow us down. Stay here. We'll radio you when—"

"But I can help! I'm part of this team! You know I—"

"That wasn't a suggestion, McKay! You'll be safe inside the cloak. You really want to fight the Wraith today?"

McKay's jaw opened, then shut, his expression pained.

"I'll stay," he agreed weakly.

"We'll call you as soon as we can," Sheppard finished, jumping down the remaining steps. Teyla, Ronon, Innis and Fallen were already halfway across the marsh. "Don't follow us!" he yelled over his shoulder as he jumped into the mud and started slogging through it.

McKay watched them until they had all disappeared over the rise, headed back to the village and the Stargate, his fingers curling and loosening by his side in frustration.  Suddenly, he thought of something, and hit his radio.

"Don't forget to watch for big snakes!" he called into the comm. "And don't do anything stupid...like...like getting yourself killed!" 

Pounding up the trail of dry packed earth, Sheppard couldn't help but smile at Rodney's words over the radio as he chased after the others...

__________________________________________________

CHAPTER FOUR: UNDER ATTACK

"Bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger..." Beckett tucked himself into a ball behind one of the stone walls lining the small village, listening to the rattle of gunfire and trying to remain as small as possible. With shaking fingers, he put his radio earpiece back on—remembering to do so for the first time since he'd taken it off to listen to that child's heartbeat when he first got to this planet. No wonder he'd lost Lorne and the others! That, and the fact that he'd already screwed up his orders from the major to "stay hidden or get out of the village" twice—first when he rescued that little girl out of the street before she was swept up by a culling beam, and second when he emptied his 9MM into a Wraith bearing down on the village's apprentice healer, giving the young man enough time to get away. Now he was trapped in the village with and empty gun and bugger all chance for survival unless Lorne found him soon...

Thing was, though he'd lost the major and his men in the melee, he could at least hear them. He had no idea if any of the darts screaming overhead had actually succeeded in culling anyone yet, but he could guess that they probably had. The darts had also dropped Wraith on the ground—at least three males and a healthy bunch of drones from what he'd seen—and they were currently in a ferocious firefight with Lorne.

At least one dart was down—he'd seen the fireball as the ship lost control, exploding beautifully on the other side of the mountain they were on. It was the first to come through the gate, so, thankfully, didn't have any humans on board. The other three however...

As if hearing his thoughts, the whine of a dart had him cowering again, the terrifying looking ship speeding overhead and banking downwards, disappearing from view behind the tall pine trees as it careened towards the valley floor. It caused the sharp, cold mountain breeze to increase in ferocity, and Beckett shivered as the trees undulated around him.

"Beckett!" Lorne's voice over the radio was crisp and urgent. "Damn it, Beckett! Respond!"

"Um, hi?" he replied.

"Oh thank God! Where the hell have you been? No, don't answer...just tell me where you are!"

"Behind a rock wall on the east...is it east? I mean, the right...the right side of the village. I'm near the healer's hut, I, uh, I think."

"You think?"

"Well, um..." he bit his lip, looking around at the pine filled landscape, the ground dropping away pretty steeply on this side of the wall. "At least, I think I am...I might have gotten a wee bit turned around...." He looked up, and saw the edge of a thatched roof, and caught side of a weathervane. "There's a weathervane above me," he added weakly. "I...I think it's a dog. Might be a horse. Or a goat...Sheep? Definitely something fuzzy with four legs..."

"I thought I told you to get...never mind. We're coming for you. Just hang tight."

"Aye, hanging tight," Beckett whispered, tucking his head against his legs again as the flash of two stunner beams shot overhead, followed by another round of gunfire.

Another whine—a different dart burst overhead from nowhere. It seemed so close! He jumped when he saw the streaming white light spill from the underneath, but it didn't cascade close to him. He heard at least two screams cut off abruptly, however...someone else wasn't so lucky.

He felt momentary guilt as he prayed it wasn't Lorne or any of his marines.

Feet pelting on the ground and the sudden appearance of another body vaulting over the wall had Beckett scrambling backwards in fear, until he saw Lorne's smiling face looking down at him. The Major grabbed his arm, gripping it warmly as if to prove he was really there. Beckett was embarrassed to know that he had needed that.

"Hang on, Doc," Lorne whispered to him, still smiling, though it looked forced now. "We're going to get out of this. Sheppard's team's on its way. We're going to be okay."

"What...when....?"

"They're running back here. By my guess," Lorne glanced down at his watch, "they should be here within minutes."

"But...but you just called them," Beckett said, eyes showing his confusion. "I was there when you—"

"It's been almost twenty minutes, Doc. Hard to believe, I know. The darts have been chasing the villagers down and around this mountain for a while. With the cliffs, caves and other natural covers, they're giving them a really good run for their money." Lorne was holding him down now, keeping him low as the major risked a peek over the top of the rock wall. The smile on his face abruptly disappeared and he swore softly. Ducking down, the major checked the magazine on his P90, then fixed Beckett with a sharp look. "Just hold on."

Beckett tried not to whimper, but it was hard to hold back the noise.

Suddenly, Lorne was up, pointing his P-90 over the wall and firing. Beckett just watched him, waiting. Flashes of white light impacted the wall around him, but Lorne kept firing...until he was hit.

"Major!" Beckett screamed, watching as Lorne was flung backwards several feet by the force of the stun weapon, the white light rippling into nothingness as the major hit the ground and slid backwards down the hill, out cold. "No!"

Scrambling over to the man, Beckett checked his pulse, then grabbed for the P90. It unclipped fairly quickly—thank goodness for small favors—and Beckett had just enough time to turn around and start firing as a huge Wraith drone suddenly loomed over the low wall, pointing his stunner at them.

Beckett was only aware of the backlash from P90 firing in his arms, of watching the drone fall backwards, staggering like a puppet. He didn't hear the second set of gunfire joining his, or even the presence of the second body next to his until a hand suddenly shoved the weapon in his hands down.

"Sir," Corporal Johnson...no...now he was Sergeant Johnson, was looking at him in the eye, "Stop. You'll draw more. You got him."

Beckett just opened his mouth and shut it a couple of times, then dropped the P90 to turn around and check on Lorne again. Pulling back the man's collar, he checked again for the steady pulse and then looked over at the burly black sergeant.

"We gotta find somewhere else to hide," Johnson told him, sliding over and getting an arm under Lorne's right shoulder to lift him up. "Pick up his P90 again and help me with him. I saw a grouping of large boulders down that way," he pointed to his right down the hill. Beckett just nodded, his voice leaving him as he got his hands under Lorne's left shoulder...and the two of them dragged the unconscious major through the trees and away from the village.

_______________________________________________

Sheppard was panting, his lungs burning, watching as the two younger members of his team disappeared into the trees at the base of the trail leading up to the village. They were a good quarter-mile ahead of him, as were Innis and Fallen. The two tall and young Cutsarkian siblings were even faster than Teyla and Ronon—they had already disappeared, their own old-fashioned pistols in hand, clearly planning on protecting their home. He had never seen anyone run that fast except on TV...when watching the Olympics.

His feet pelted the ground, and he should have kept his head down to watch for roots and holes, but his eyes were drawn upwards. They'd seen that first dart explode and crash into the side of the mountain—good boy, Lorne—but the other three were still buzzing up and down the low-lying mountain, their culling beams cutting through the thick tree cover.

Damn it!

His legs seemed to grow stronger as the anger burned in him, and he found himself picking up speed, jumping over branches...and Teyla and Ronon didn't seem so far off anymore.

_________________________________________________

Johnson left Beckett with Lorne and the P90, telling him to stay hid and protect the major...then he was gone. He had two other men out there to take care of.

The doctor tried not to shake as he worked to make sure Lorne was comfortable inside the protection of the boulders, then found himself a place where he could peer through a crack between the massive stones without being spotted. He couldn't see much—just trees, leaves and more rocks, but he could see the shadows of the darts every time they flew overhead. And, oh yes, he could hear them.

He understood, now, the need for these villages to be inside tree cover. They were the best protection from the darts. The ships couldn't fly low enough to cull from this height, so they had to drop the Wraith on the ground to herd people into the open. But the Cutsarkians were too adept at hiding, using the mountainous landscape to their advantage. As Lorne said, they were giving the Wraith a run for their money. Plus, having the added firepower of the Atlantian guns didn't hurt....

He checked his watch, trying to guess when it was that Sheppard and his team would get here. Not that Rodney would be much help...but, hell, he could use his P90 as well as Beckett and extra firepower never hurt.

An odd thought came to him then, trying to imagine Rodney running...At least three miles to the place where the ship was. How was he going to keep up with the others? Could he? Uphill? Surely, the Colonel wouldn't—

A twig snapped nearby, and Beckett instantly tensed, his entire body tingling with the onrush of fear. Gripping the P90 tighter in his hands, he tried to pinpoint the sound...and realized he could hear at least two sets of feet churning up leaves as they traipsed down the hill towards the boulders.

Whoever it was wasn't running...they were stomping. Which only meant one thing.

Oh crap....

His radio came alive in his ear, as he heard Johnson talking to someone...Teyla, from the sounds of it, the woman sounding breathless...but he couldn't focus on the conversation. He just wanted her to hurry! Ignoring the chatter, he slid around one of the boulders in the direction of the noise as quietly as he could.

Holding his breath, he peeked out from behind the boulder...and saw two drones making their way unerringly towards the stones. They could obviously guess it was a good hiding place.

Oh no. "Nonononononono...." he whispered, checking the P90 in his hands. His palms felt slick, and they shook as he took off the safety. How many bullets? He tried to count the rounds through the transparent magazine...and blinked as they blurred. How many rounds? Did he have enough?

Christ, he was a doctor! What was he doing here?

Closing his eyes, he drummed up all the courage he could, held the P90 close, and counted to ten....

Then screamed at the top of his lungs as he broke cover, rolling on the ground and firing up at the two drones practically in his lap.

They both fell back, but his one weapon wasn't enough to stop both at the same time. He couldn't concentrate his fire enough. He continued to yell even as his eyes started to scrunch shut in fear as one of the drones raised the stunner....

Suddenly, the Wraith's chest exploded in red light, sending him flying backwards.

Beckett didn't question, just put all his strength into taking down the other one, not stopping until the drone was flat on his back.

Taking his finger off the trigger and still shaking something fierce, he watched as Ronon leapt into view and fired another round from his own weapon at the two drones...making sure they stayed down.

The Satedan spun around then, gave a feral smile to the still prone physician, then took off uphill away from Beckett, towards other gunfire. The doctor just watched him go, dumbfounded.

Part of him wanted to scream after him not to leave!

Then he felt the hand on his arm, and Teyla was smiling down at him, on her knees by his side.

"Are you all right, Doctor?" she asked, sweat pouring down her face. She was obviously breathing hard from her run.

"I...no," he said, lowering his head and trying to still the trembling.

"It will be okay," she promised, rubbing at his shoulder. "We will get you out of here. Is Major Lorne in there?" she gestured to the stand of stones behind him.

"Aye," Beckett said, swallowing as he gathered the strength to push himself up onto his knees, not too proud to accept Teyla's hand under his arm as he did so. "He's unconscious. Hit by a stunner."

Teyla just nodded, getting to her feet in a smooth motion. "Think you can carry him?" she asked, her eyebrows raised.

"Where?" he asked, not quite up to speed.

"To the gate. Our best bet right now is to get you and everyone else we can through the gate and back to Atlantis, before the Wraith send any more darts through to find out what is taking these ones so long to cull this little village." She tapped her radio, "Colonel Sheppard."

"Yeah?" Sheppard sounded breathless over the connection in Beckett's ear.

"I am with Doctor Beckett. Major Lorne is unconscious, just as Sergeant Johnson described. We are going to head towards the gate."

"Be careful. I'll meet you there with the others."

"Roger that," she said. "What about Rodney?"

"He's as safe as he can be, right now. We'll come back with jumpers for him and the rest of the villagers the second we're through."

She just nodded, ignoring the puzzled expression on Beckett's face. Where was Rodney?

Teyla paused a moment, meeting Beckett's eyes for a second, then licking her lips and asking one more question over the connection.

"Colonel, what about the ship?"

"It's not going anywhere. I'm sorry, Teyla, but—"

"I know," she interrupted, trying to keep the disappointment out of her voice, but Beckett saw it clearly on her face. Now he was more puzzled than ever. What ship? And since when did Teyla care about that sort of thing? "I understand. We will meet you at the gate. Teyla out." She clicked the radio, then reached a hand out to Beckett to help him the rest of the way up. He took the hand, but, before he could ask her about what she'd said to Sheppard, she was climbing over the boulders to get to Lorne.

________________________________________________

"There's a lot of them, sir!" Johnson yelled into his radio as he ran from the combined stunner fire of at least three drones chasing him, Corporal Dunne and Sergeant Meriwether down a hill. "I'm not sure we....shit!" The large sergeant skidded to a halt as a Wraith male appeared from nowhere in front of them, grinning its vampiric smile. The handheld stunner in its hand fired, clipping Dunne as the boy threw himself to the side...and then kept rolling, unconscious, down the hill until he hit a tree. Young Meriwether skidded down the hillside after him, the blond medic in training firing back at the drones still chasing them. Johnson fired at the Wraith male and got behind cover, "Sir! We need help, sir!"

"Get down!" Sheppard yelled, appearing about fifteen yards away to Johnson's right, firing his P90 at the Wraith male. The Wraith staggered and slipped sideways, but didn't go all the way down. He fired at Sheppard, and the colonel ducked behind a tree.

Just then, a dart whined overhead, and Johnson barely had time to yell a warning before the culling beam swept down and swept up him, the Wraith male, Meriwether and Dunne....

___________________________________________________

"NO!" Sheppard yelled, breaking cover to fire up at the dart as it disappeared from view... and missing it completely. "Damn it!" he growled, lowering the weapon.

"Sheppard!" Ronon shouted, "Get down!"

The colonel didn't even look, just dove sideways as stunner beams impacted the trees behind where he'd been standing. The three drones that had been chasing Johnson now stood their ground twenty feet away, firing in his direction. Sheppard was pinned down behind a large fir, swearing bloody murder as the world sparked blue around him. Still, if Ronon had yelled for him to get down, that meant the Satedan....

There he was!

Ronon appeared behind the drones, the blood red light from his weapon hitting each one almost point blank as he took the first two down. The third twisted, managing to get a shot off (and missing the wiry Satedan), but that was all Sheppard needed to come out from behind his own cover and kill the bastard.

Then he was ducking into the trees again as another dart burst overhead, strafing the ground with the culling beam.

"We have to take those darts down!" Sheppard yelled to Ronon over the whine. "We won't make it to the gate with those up there! Plus, they have our people! Dunne, Meriwether and Johnson are on one of them!"

"Colonel," Teyla's voice sounded winded over the radio. "Doctor Beckett and I are at the gate with Major Lorne. There are at least six Wraith guarding the DHD. I can not take them on my own without a distraction."

"Stay down, Teyla," Sheppard growled into the radio, emerging from the trees as the omnipresent whine from overhead faded. "One of the darts has managed to capture all of Lorne's men. We need to stop it from going through the gate. Ronon and I are on our way there."

"Three darts?" Ronon said, looking at Sheppard as he pounded up next to him. "Sheppard, I'm all for fighting bad odds, but you, me and Teyla can't take down three darts by ourselves and take out the guards on the gate."

Sheppard didn't answer, just pulled a fresh clip for his P90 from his belt and slotted it into the weapon in his hands.

"We don't have a choice," he snarled, turning and sprinting into the trees.

______________________________________________________

CHAPTER FIVE: DOWN AT THE GATE

Teyla checked again on Lorne, then Beckett. The physician looked shaken, but he had done everything she'd asked, including lugging poor Lorne on his shoulder down here to the edge of the clearing holding the gate. He was breathing heavily, his face slick with sweat, his blue eyes peering hopelessly at the obstacles before them.

Unlike the village, the space around the Stargate was broad—hence the ease with which the darts had come through. There was at least seventy five yards between the edge of the trees where she and Beckett now crouched and the DHD.

Right now, that distance felt insurmountable.

In the background, she could still hear the darts trying to pick up more "food." She was a little surprised at their tenacity—normally culling raids were short, but these darts were clearly trying to get as many people as they could. She felt a hint of desperation in the minds of the Wraith on the ground, which was unusual....

Pushing the question to the back of her mind, she checked her P90 and waited for Sheppard and Ronon to appear. Glancing up, she studied the half dozen Wraith stalking the gate—a male and five drones.

She knew Sheppard wanted to both take down the darts and these guards...but she had no idea how. Even Ronon would be wary of these odds. Still, taking a breath, she trusted Colonel Sheppard to come up with a strategy...

Johnson and Dunne were both good friends to her and her team, and, though Meriwether was new, she had long ago decided she would die for any of the Atlantians, and that meant the newer ones as well. She would do everything in her power to free those three men and get them all home.

Jorgan Relegar had apparently felt it was worth it to die for the Lanteans all those thousands of years ago, and she would do no less for the Atlantians now...

"Hey," Sheppard whispered, appearing from out of nowhere by her side. Beckett looked about ready to jump out of his skin, but Ronon rested a comforting hand on the physician's shoulder, squeezing tightly and calming him down. Teyla hadn't been as surprised—she'd seen and heard them coming. She probably should have mentioned that to Carson....

___________________________________________

Beckett rubbed a hand across his throbbing head as Sheppard and Ronon settled down on their haunches next to Teyla, the three warriors scanning the area around the Gate with expert eyes. Frankly, he was more than happy to let them work this out, despite the wish that he could help.

"What've we got?" Sheppard asked quietly, looking at the Wraith in front of the gate.

"There are still a number of Wraith on the ground," Teyla answered. "Besides those six, I can sense a number still scouring the woods. At least another half dozen. I believe they are looking specifically for us now."

Sheppard smiled darkly, "Guess we made them nervous."

"Pissed them off, more like," Ronon noted.

"That," Teyla nodded, "and they want to know who we are. They know we are not from here, and that we have advanced weaponry. They don't like that."

"Lovely," Beckett muttered. "No chance of our just waiting them out then," he said, "with the hope that Atlantis sends reinforcements before they find us."

"No," Sheppard replied, his eyes hard as he studied the clearing in front of them. "Besides, they have three of our boys. They're not getting away with that. Not while they're still on this planet."

Beckett nodded, already knowing that, flashbacks of watching them take down the dart that had scooped Cadman and Rodney up last year crossing his mind. "Right. So," he looked up, trying to appear tough, "what's the plan?"

"We need to secure the gate," Sheppard said. "Once we do that, we should be able to prevent the darts from escaping."

"That's a big should," Ronon noted.

"Yeah," Sheppard said, not bothering to deny it. He looked at the Satedan, "You got a better idea?"

"No."

"All right then," the colonel scanned the clearing one more time, then nodded. "Okay. Beckett, you stay here with Lorne. I don't want you to break cover unless you have absolutely no choice, got it?"

The physician looked pained, "But..."

"It's not a request, Doc. Teyla," Sheppard pointed to a thick stand of trees to the left of the gate. Between them and the gate were several clumps of rocks, which could be used for cover. "Think you can lay down cover from over there?"

"Yes," she replied confidently, nodding at him.

"Ronon," the colonel pointed to the right and just behind the gate, where a handful of big rocks edged the tree line. "You're going to have to be fast. While we distract them, you need to get behind the six. Get them from the back."

"Gotcha," the Satedan nodded.

"I'm going to come from those trees there," he pointed to the right of the gate as well, but this time more in front of the gate. "Ronon, I'll be your main distraction. Teyla, you're going to cover me." He looked at the two of them, eyes steady and calm. "Ready?"

"As we can be," Teyla nodded. Then, without another word, she was up and slipping away through the trees. Ronon clapped Beckett on the shoulder, then disappeared as well in the opposite direction.

"I can lay cover fire too, you know," Beckett said suddenly, stopping Sheppard as the colonel moved to follow Ronon.

The colonel turned and looked at him, then smiled softly. "I know, but I don't want you drawing attention to yourself and Lorne. If we get into real trouble...then go ahead. Otherwise, stay low and stay quiet."

Beckett grimaced, but said nothing more as Sheppard slid away. All he could think was, weren't they already in "real" trouble?

________________________________________________________

Teyla was almost to the place Sheppard had sent her when something caught her eye and she ducked down. For a brief moment, she thought it was a Wraith, but it soon resolved itself into merely a triangular piece of metal reflecting off a nearby tree. Frowning, she jumped across a felled tree to look more closely.

Someone had hammered a metal triangle onto the tree with a symbol on it she didn't recognize. The metal was green, the paint flaked with age, and rust marred the edges. The symbol set in the center was an eight pronged white star, streaked with sap from the tree.

She simply stared at it for a moment, curious and wondering why it felt like she had seen it before, when Sheppard's voice buzzed in her ear asking if she were in position. Regretfully, she answered him in the negative and left the triangle behind to find her post.

__________________________________________________________

Beckett shivered as Teyla's P90 burst into action, laying down a spray of bullets that caught at least two of the Wraith unguarded before the others moved to more defensible positions in front of the Gate. Then Sheppard ran into the meadow from the opposite direction, diving onto his belly behind a too low clump of rocks and taking down at least one more Wraith. The remaining two drones and the male now fired in two directions at once, while the two Teyla had hit first slowly started moving on the ground, attempting to get up.

The lithe Athosian darted from her cover to get closer, trusting in Sheppard to cover her. Then she was firing again.

Another Wraith went down, and one of the first she'd gotten stayed down permanently.

Suddenly, Ronon's weapon exploded against the back of the Wraith male, who went down with a yell of pain across one of the downed drones. More red light burst across the field, competing with the white of the stunners. Just two drones remained up and firing now, caught in the middle of the neat half pincer Sheppard had formed. They hadn't a chance.

Then it happened.

A Wraith dart careened down the mountain, headed towards the gate...and started firing on Ronon's position in the clearing.

Beckett didn't think. He got up and started firing at the dart—he had to give them a chance!

Clumps of clearing exploded around where Ronon had been as the dart's weapons took down trees and rocks effortlessly. Beckett could just make out the tall Satedan running deeper inside the tree cover, his head down as he literally ran for his life.

Sheppard was still firing on the drones in the clearing, but Teyla was now firing upwards, trying to clip the dart. Beckett lowered his weapon, deciding to try and help Sheppard since he was no longer close enough to get the dart. The last drone went down....

And then another dart burst across the clearing from right over Beckett's head, and strafed Teyla's location. The rocks she had been hiding behind shattered under the firepower.

"Teyla!" Beckett tried to move forward, to get around his cover to see if she was okay.

"Stay down, Beckett!" Sheppard yelled over the radio. "Damn it, stay down!"

Beckett fell back against the rocks, staring out at the clearing.

The Wraith next to the gate were all down, but Sheppard was a sitting duck for the two darts. The colonel was trying to get to his feet while also firing up at the darts circling around overhead—almost as if they were toying with him. As the physician watched, the two darts swung around each other and headed back, one still attacking the location where Ronon had once been, the other now shooting directly at the Colonel.

No! "Colonel!" Beckett shifted his P90 upwards, to point at the sky, but he wasn't close enough. "COLONEL!"

Suddenly, the two darts both seemed to lose altitude, as if something had just shoved them down hard. They both stopped firing, obviously just trying to keep control of their crafts. One spun off to the side, barely righting itself before crashing into the trees. The other pulled up sharply, nearly going vertical...and then leveling off, shooting up towards the mountain again.

What the...?

The air over the clearing rippled, and a silver ship appeared, literally out of thin air. It dwarfed the two tiny darts now turning around to attack it.

Beckett's eyes widened, watching as the sides of the silver ship opened and short wings came out...with about three missiles attached to the undersides of each of them. The darts started to fire at the rocket ship—yes, Beckett realized dumbly, it really was a rocket ship—but the silver ship just shot forward between them, spinning around on its axis like a screw and moving impossible fast. The wind sheer it generated sent the lighter ships and the weapons fire spinning away.

This time, the dart on the right couldn't right itself, and it crashed through the pine trees, the metal screaming as it was ripped to pieces. Beckett blinked as he thought he saw a flash of red hair disappear into the woods in the direction of the downed dart. Teyla?

The dart on the left, however, came around again, and started firing once more.

The silver ship stopped in the air, then dropped as the dart and its fire flew over it.

Who the hell was flying it? Where had it come from?

The silver ship climbed back up, and let loose the missiles on its wings. One missed the dart completely but the other got the wing, and the dart went down in a sharp spiral...and crashed into the trees with a horrific screech of metal and fire.

The missile that missed came back around and headed back to the silver ship...and then turned again and reattached itself to the wing. Beckett's eyes widened.

"Okay," Rodney's voice called shakily over the radio, "Can I just say...the autopilot function on this thing is amazing?"

______________________________________________________

CHAPTER SIX: HAIL MARY NUMBER TWO

"Rodney!" Sheppard cheered, standing up in the clearing and grinning up at the ship, waving at it with two hands, "Rodney McKay, you crazy, wonderful, son of a bitch, you!"

"That's Rodney?" Beckett asked, completely slack jawed, turning his gaze from the ship to Sheppard. "Rodney's flying that thing?"

"Yes, I'm flying that thing!" Rodney sounded typically affronted, though there was definitely an understated tremor to his voice, as if he wasn't entirely believing it himself.

"Damn, McKay," Sheppard rested his hands on his hips, "You're rapidly turning into a real miracle worker in my book! That was spectacular!"

"Yeah," Rodney said, then, with a little more confidence. "Yeah, it kinda was, wasn't it? I mean, can you believe this thing? All I did was ask it to perform some evasive maneuvers, and try to knock those darts down without using weapons, and suddenly I'm pinwheeling between darts! Did you see me do that? Then did you see the way I just dropped out of that dart's way? That last move...I mean it was incredible! I was incredible! Wasn't it incredible?"

"Incredible," Beckett agreed, though his use of the word was more in line with its true meaning, "Aye."

"I gotta get inside that ship!" Sheppard grinned, eyes still looking like a kid's at Christmas. "McKay, you know I hate to inflate that huge ego of yours, but this time...Hail Mary number TWO, man!" He stuck two fingers up in the air.

"Well, I try." There was a short pause, then, "Wait, what do you mean, number two? Just number two? Where the hell have you been for the last two years?"

Sheppard just laughed.

_________________________________________________

Sitting ramrod straight on the command chair of the Thermopylae, his whole body still pumped with adrenalin, Rodney peered at the hologram images of the area below him, the screens surrounding him on three sides. The screens were focused mostly on Sheppard but he could also see Beckett as the doctor stumbled closer to the other man. Above and below the hologram images, the computer fed him with maps, diagrams, information and lines of coding, all of which he controlled using the pads on the arms of the chair and the data-tablet sitting on his lap. The chair wasn't meant to control so many things at once...but he really didn't have a choice.

"I gotta get inside that ship!" he heard Sheppard call. "McKay, you know I hate to inflate that huge ego of yours, but this time...Hail Mary number TWO, man!"

McKay grinned, unable to hide his glee at that as he worked the chairs controls, eyes lifting to read the sensor information coming in about the two downed darts. "Well, I try," he said off-handedly, trying to sound more humble now and, oh, so not succeeding. Who was the ace pilot now, Sheppard? Eh?! Hail Mary number two, hell yes!

Hang on a moment....two?

"Wait," he said, looking back at Sheppard's smiling face on the screen, "what do you mean, number two? Just number two? Where the hell have you been for the last two years?"

Sheppard laughed. Damn him. Frowning now, his Sheppard-fed ego rapidly overcoming the terror he'd felt trying to control the ship, Rodney quickly hit the buttons to change the computer mission parameters from "disable Wraith darts" to "find Teyla and Ronon"...because, where were they? Sheppard was smiling too much for them to be in trouble, but still...

"Rodney?" Beckett's voice called then, "What exactly...is that thing? And where did you get it?"

"It's what we came here to find, Carson," he replied as he worked, tapping things into the data tablet now. "This is the ship! It's called the Thermopylae and..." McKay frowned suddenly, because he still couldn't locate Teyla and Ronon using the search functions, and fear started to niggle at his chest. "Wait, Sheppard...." he started keying commands in more quickly, trying to input clearer search parameters, but the ship wasn't finding anyone, "Sheppard, where are the others? I heard the bit about Lorne, Johnson and the others over the radio, but I can't find Teyla and Ronon on the ground now either....Oh God, tell me their not in one of those things too...." The computer blipped, searching for life signs...and finding too many. Damn it. He was quickly learning that he couldn't fly this thing and fine tune it at the same time. It was like trying to drive somewhere new without a map, hoping to get to there by intuition alone. He was really beginning to freak out now.

"No, no, they're okay. They're in the woods," Sheppard called. "They both signaled me before they each headed out to chase down the darts you brought down. Christ, McKay," Sheppard shook his head and rested his hands on his hips, the smile back on his face, "I still can't believe you're flying that thing!"

"Yeah, well," McKay shrugged, even though he knew Sheppard couldn't see him, his ego finally back under control, "that makes two of us. Look, I'm going to try and land the ship behind the gate. I think there's enough room..." The computer blipped angrily, and more information spooled down one of the screens, and Rodney grimaced. "Uh...okay, no, the ship's computer is telling me I'm crazy and..." Different information popped up, and a location map of the area appeared, an area blinking in red...and the ship lurched forward of its own volition (it did that a lot, actually), heading towards the location. "...Yes, yes, okay, we're going somewhere else. I feel like I'm riding a headstrong horse here. I'm going to cloak the ship again. I'll meet you in the clearing in a minute."

"Wait! Stop, where are you going to land?"

"Honestly? I'm not totally sure. The ship's picked a clearing not far from here, down the hill a bit. I think it's near where the second dart crashed."

"The ship picked it?"

"Yeah...to be brutally honest, Colonel, I'm not so much flying this thing as respectfully requesting it do me some favors. It's got a computer system that is almost as rigid as an AI...without actually being an AI, thank goodness. Okay...I'll see you in a minute." I hope, he added to himself. "Um, I don't like to run far, okay?" he said to the ship, tapping at the arms of the chair to let the ship know. It shivered a little, and part of him couldn't help but think that the Thermopylae had just giggled.

_______________________________________________

Sheppard shook his head, watching as the silver ship rippled out of sight beneath its cloak as it headed down hill away from the clearing. The smile on his face faded as Beckett exhaled loudly next to him, the man gripping the P90 in his arms like he was afraid it would go off.

"Teyla and Ronon are really okay?" the doctor asked, his face still clearly uncertain about what had just happened.

"Yeah," Sheppard nodded, "Like I said to Rodney, I saw them both signal to me before they left the clearing. Speaking of which," the colonel's eyes darkened, "I thought I told you to stay down?"

Beckett shrugged, offering a lopsided smile. "What can I say, I'm not military."

Sheppard's eyes narrowed, but he didn't say anything else as Teyla's voice came on over the radio.

"Colonel Sheppard," she called. She was using her hypercalm tone now—the Teyla they knew was back...which was a little sad. "Do not be alarmed by the gunfire you are about to hear. I have reached the dart Rodney brought down first and the canopy is open; the Wraith inside unconscious. I am going to kill it. Also, you should know that the body of the dart appears to be mostly intact, providing a good chance that we will be able to rescue the people trapped in the buffer."

"Oh, thank God," Rodney interrupted over the radio, obviously listening in. "I asked the ship to try to take them down without destroying them, but—"

"Good on all counts, Teyla," Sheppard said abruptly, cutting Rodney off, "Go ahead." Her call had sucked the last of Sheppard's mirth out of him, his mind already rapidly returning to the business at hand. "Just remember, there may be Wraith in that buffer as well. Don't release anyone inside until you have back up." As he spoke, he turned and started moving across the clearing to the stand of rocks where they'd stashed Lorne. He felt Beckett dogging him, jogging a little to keep up with his long strides.

"Understood. Colonel, you should also be aware that there are still Wraith on the ground—I can sense several conversations going on. There are a good number of them out there. Also, do not forget there is one more dart in the air. There were three."

That brought Sheppard to an abrupt halt, his eyes widening slightly. Yes, he had forgotten. His chin lifted as he scanned the skies....where the hell was the third dart?

The sudden burst of machine gun fire in the direction of the first downed dart filled the air, then stopped abruptly.

"The Wraith pilot is dead," Teyla stated with a dark finality. Next to Sheppard, Beckett grimaced slightly as he moved past the Colonel to get behind the rocks and check on the stunned Lorne. Sheppard, meanwhile, pulled out his life signs detector, using it to quickly scan their immediate area. Wraith still on the ground....

Nothing in close proximity, but the range was limited....

"The major's pulse has increased and he has begun to move," the doctor informed as he checked Lorne vitals. He looked back at the colonel, who was focused now on the woods again. "I imagine we'll see him come around in about ten minutes or so, though he will be groggy."

Sheppard nodded distractedly, looking up from the scanner to look once more out at the deceptively quiet woods and sky. Damn it—they weren't out of this yet. Turning, he looked back to the dead Wraith they'd left near the gate...and froze.

The male Wraith was gone.

Oh Shit.

"Beckett, get down," he ordered, lifting his weapon up again in his arms and ducking down himself. "Teyla, Ronon...the male Wraith we took down at the Gate has disappeared."

"Oh hell," Beckett said, tucking himself down tight next to Lorne and hastily pulling his borrowed P90 in close.

"Not surprised," Ronon muttered. "Seemed a little too easy."

"Too easy?" Beckett repeated wonderingly, thinking about all the damage the darts had done to the clearing.

"So uh....how many are out there?" Rodney asked, his voice shaky again over the radio. "Do you think?"

"Can you tell us?" Sheppard replied, looking down at his life signs detector again. "Does the ship have biometric sensors like Atlantis?"

"Um...I don't know. I don't think so. At least, nothing obvious. But...oh, hang on....Damn ship is trying to land on its side again. That hole in the hull is really messing with its equilib—"

"Rodney, look, stay with the ship," Sheppard interrupted, putting away the hand-held scanner to check on how much firepower he had left. Two spare clips. Not a lot. "With Wraith on the ground, and at least one more dart in the air, you're safer in there."

There was silence for a moment, then, "Normally, my extremely strong sense of self-preservation would agree with you, Colonel, but you need me. Or at least, Ronon will. I saw the wreckage of the dart Ronon is heading to when I landed. If the people trapped in that buffer stand any chance of being rematerialized, I have to do it."

Sheppard grimaced, not answering that, his eyes still tracking the woods around his and Beckett's location.

"He's right, Sheppard," Ronon suddenly chimed it. "I just got to the dart. It's...not pretty."

Sheppard's eyes closed, then opened again. "Okay. But be careful, Rodney. Take your life signs detector with you."

"Right." McKay sounded as unhappy as him. "Ronon, I'm about a quarter mile south of your location, just so you know. I'm on the ground now, so...I'm on my way to you."

"Gotcha."

Sheppard frowned, then, following his own advice, knelt down next to Beckett on the ground. "Teyla," he called, "When you can, I want you to make your way back here."

"Why?"

Sheppard's eyebrows lifted, "Because you're alone."

"I am not alone."

"What?" Sheppard tensed up where he stood next to Beckett. "Say again?"

"I can hear movement coming towards my position. I will radio when I can." And she clicked off.

"Teyla!" Sheppard barked, looking in her general direction. "Teyla!" His neck muscles bulged and relaxed when she didn't respond, his face reddening in annoyance. "Damn it," he swore, turning to look at Beckett. The physician stared up at him with wide, blue eyes. He was scared. Leaving him alone wasn't an option, and Lorne was not going to be moved quickly. And Ronon wasn't going to leave Rodney, either, once they found each other on the other side of the clearing...

Teyla was on her own.

Fuck.

____________________________________________

Teyla positioned herself behind a tree, exhaling very slowly and evenly, drawing the P90 close to her chest. Every muscle tensed, ready to spring. She listened intently to the steady movement of several sets of feet heading in this direction—they moved slowly along the pine needle and leaf covered ground, but not cautiously.

She could not tell, between the sounds of the woods, of the buzzing Wraith chatter in her head, and the sounds of her team over the radio, whether what approached was human, Wraith...or, frankly...snake. While she attributed the noise to feet, it could just as easily be just one of those massive creatures that had attacked Colonel Sheppard and Doctor McKay down in the valley.

Oddly, she rather liked snakes. She loved the way they moved, loved their strength and independent nature. When she was a child, one of her friends had two little snakes as pets. They'd wind around his wrists like bright orange bracelets, warm and soft. The two tiny creatures were biters, when frightened, but rarely drew blood. Most of the time, their tiny tongues just licked at fingers, tasting for the salt there, innocent iridescent eyes blinking up at the people around them.

When her friend was culled, he'd had the snakes with him. She remembered hoping the snakes would react by biting and drawing the blood of the Wraith. She used to have dreams of those two snakes suddenly growing ten times in size and killing all the Wraith on the hive that had taken her family and friends...

The memory brought an odd, cold smile to her face as she waited for the approaching noise to resolve itself.

Leaves shifted, a twig broke, a pebble rolled along the uneven ground....

She closed her eyes for a moment, straining her ears, trusting her senses, letting the area in which she was standing coalesce in her mind's eye like a map.

The dart was plowed into the side of the hill leading up to the village, covered in the dirt, small trees and the ferns it had unearthed. The thickly settled pine woods crowded around it, the thin, tall branchless trunks standing around it like foundation pillars. The few deciduous trees, with their thicker trunks (one of which she hid behind), had somehow been spared from the dart's plunge, and their dead leaves, along with the many, soft pine needles, created a blanket along the forest floor as thick as an animal's pelt.

The approaching feet moved through the blanket without much obvious care, but they slowed now....

By her reckoning, they should be practically on top of the dart.

If it was Wraith, looking to free its teammates, or to feed on the trapped to replace their strength....she needed to kill them now. She needed to come out, guns blazing. But if it was a snake, there was no way she could kill one of those creatures before it finished her. Meaning, she should remain hidden. And if the approaching steps were people, she couldn't come out firing, for fear of hurting the innocent....

Her eyes opened.

And her hands tightened around the P90.

Now or never, Teyla.

Make a decision.

And then it was made for her....because someone screamed and the flash of a stunner beam lit the world around her like lightning.

_______________________________________________

CHAPTER SEVEN: TOO MANY DOTS

Teyla tensed behind her tree as the world around her once more filled with weapons fire, but this time from single fire revolvers and pistols, not the semi or fully automatic weapons that marked the Atlantians. And yet, the subtle, miserable sound of the stunner firing seemed almost to overwhelm the louder, weaker village weapons...

She had been wrong to think that it had to be either Wraith or human....Her killing the pilot—the noise from her P90—had been a beacon to both the Wraith and the curious villagers, leading them both straight here. Why hadn't she thought of that?

She flinched as the light from the Wraith's weapon lit the shadowed grove over and over; there was no question in her mind who was winning the fight...

But it also gave her the ability to pinpoint his location...

Her face hardened, the bones in her cheeks becoming more pronounced as her eyes narrowed to slits.

She slid down onto her haunches, to make herself a smaller target, then dove out from behind her cover into the open. She rolled sideways, ending up on her stomach, P90 pointed up in the direction of the dart.

A single Wraith male, muddied black leather coat smeared with its own blood, was standing not more than ten feet away, his back to her. He was partially hidden behind a tree not far from her position, firing on the handful of villagers—one of whom was Innis.

Teyla didn't even think, loosing a volley of bullets into the Wraith's back, watching him turn around in shock at her appearance, his body jerking with the impacts.

She never let up her concentrated spray, teeth gritting tightly as her arm began to ache from the constant action. She didn't stop...not until he was on the ground, motionless.

Jumping to her feet in a single, fluid move, she was standing over him and letting loose another string of bullets into his chest.

She knew this was the male from the clearing next to the Gate, based on his appearance. This time, he was staying down.

Finally stopping her barrage as she heard the hammer clicking on an empty chamber, she looked up sharply, eyes zeroing in on the faces of the villagers tentatively peeking out from behind trees and under the dart. About four villagers were down—stunned by the Wraith's hand-held weapon. With a fluid motion, she reached down, grabbed the stunner from his now loose hands, and tossed it to Innis—the blond Cutsarkian being the first to venture out from her hiding place.

"Thank you," Innis said, her eyes tinged with both gratitude and some awe. Teyla looked away, uncomfortable with that sort of look, pulling a new clip from her vest—her last. "Are you all right?" Innis asked then, causing Teyla to look back at her in confusion.

"What?"

Innis just pointed to her head, and Teyla automatically reached up to touch her own forehead...and hissed in pain at the tacky cut there. Drawing her fingers down, she grimaced at the partially dried blood. She must have been nicked by a bit of the flying rock from the clearing. She noticed the rips in her uniform then as well, more cuts, but nothing was too painful.

"I am fine," she said. "It is merely superficial." As she spoke, she replaced the clip in her gun with practiced ease, the reached up to tap her radio. "Colonel Sheppard, all is well. I will be in touch soon." Before he could reply, she clicked her radio again to indicate she had finished talking, and looked up again at the tall blond Cutsarkian, her brow furrowing. "What are you doing down here, Innis? You should be hiding."

"We saw the darts go down," Innis said in explanation, her eyes growing wider as she remembered. "The ship...you got the silver ship, the Thermopylae, to fly!"

"Doctor McKay managed that," Teyla agreed, looking across at the four unconscious villagers on the ground around them. She frowned, then looked up at the crashed dart. Finally, her gaze returned to Innis, "How many of you are there?"

"What do you mean?" she asked, looking around her at the other villagers. There were still, perhaps, fifteen or so people standing with her.

"I mean," Teyla grimaced, "That when these darts do not return soon, the hive they came from will send more. Worse, the hive itself may come here—which, if it is nearby, is likely. The Wraith do not like rebellion. How big is your population? Dozens? More?"

Innis frowned, "More. There are, perhaps, several hundred?" She waved generally towards the granite mountain climbing up behind her as she spoke. At the same time, a brutish red-headed woman stepped forward, moving to Innis's side, brown eyes narrowing as she studied Teyla.

Teyla nodded to Innis. "Then you need to get them ready," she said then, her voice deepening as she spoke. "You must leave this place as soon as possible. We can help you to evacuate to a—"

"What? No!" the red-head next to Innis raised a hand up to Teyla, "Now hang on there, missy. We're not leaving. This is our home. Has been for hundreds of years! It's kept us mostly safe for a long time."

"Vasa is right. We know how to hide from the Wraith," Innis agreed, though she did not appear to hold a conviction as strong as the other woman's.

"That does not matter," Teyla said, shaking her head. "The Wraith, when they return here, will not be looking to cull you. They will be looking to obliterate you. The news of what you have done—both in fighting them off and successfully taking down two darts—cannot be spread to other planets."

"But we didn't take them down," the red-head woman—Vasa—said, frowning deeply. "You did."

Teyla just looked at her, her expression stone. "Would you rather we had not done so?"

That earned a moment's silence. These people had obviously come here because they found great joy in the destroyed dart, and wanted to see it to prove its reality, now...

"No," an older man said from the back, his chin lifting. "We are glad you did it."

Teyla gave him a single nod, then returned her gaze to Vasa. "But, unfortunately, because of it, they will return to destroy this place. Completely and utterly."

Several sets of eyes widened, but the red-headed woman only narrowed her eyes. "And how would they do that, exactly?" Vasa demanded, crossing her arms across an ample chest. "Wipe out the whole planet?" It was delivered with a sneer.

Teyla just met her eyes evenly. "Yes."

It was delivered so certainly, so definitively, that even Vasa could find no comeback for it. Slowly, the villager's arms unlaced from across her chest and she looked down at the ground, no longer able to meet the Athosian's cold gaze.

"How?" Innis asked, her tone soft. Teyla arched an eyebrow at the tall blond.

"The Hive Ships contain a matter beam that has only one purpose—to render a planet uninhabitable." Her jaw muscles flexed, remembering watching that beam from the safety of a Jumper two years ago with Sheppard, while they waited for her friend Orrin. "I have seen it in action. I have also seen many planets that have been wiped clean in that manner. My friend Ronon is a refugee from one such. Nothing is left alive—not even the earth itself. My friends term it a scorched earth policy. It is a fitting description."

That earned her complete silence, which allowed her to finally notice the yelling of Sheppard across the line, demanding to know what was happening. She was about to answer him when Vasa asked, pathetically:

"But...don't you see? How can we leave this place? It's all we've ever known, all we've ever had. Have you ever had to leave your home? Leave everything behind like this? Do you understand what it means to ask this of us?"

Teyla's gaze finally softened, and, without meaning to, her mind went back to the voice of Jorgan Relegar on the Thermopylae. Where was his Athos? Her eyes dropped, looking down at the ground.

"I am Athosian," she said finally. "But Athos..." She stopped, thinking about the planet they had called Athos for many, many years. But it was not the real one. The original Athos had long faded into memory. But the Athosians lived on. She looked up again, her brow furrowing. "Who you are...is not about where you live, but about you—all of you, your families, friends, neighbors....They mean far more than any mere location, no matter how steeped in history or hard work. You want Cutsarkia to live on? Then be strong enough to find a place where it can."

She watched as they looked at each other, not sure, yet, how to answer her conviction.

Sheppard's yelling was also bordering on furious on the other end of the radio.

"I will let you talk," she said finally, turning away from them. "But know that we will help you...if you want us to." Turning fully, she walked down the hill away from them, her eyes once again scanning the woods for more Wraith. She clicked the radio. "Colonel Sheppard."

"Teyla! What the hell is going on? Are you all right?"

"I am sorry, Colonel. I am fine. It turns out that both the villagers and that lone, missing Wraith from the clearing must have been attracted by my killing of the Wraith pilot. The Wraith male is now dead—for certain this time. There are about fifteen villagers with me. I am trying to convince them that we need to evacuate the people from this planet."

"Yeah. With two darts down...definitely. Look, are those villagers armed?"

"Yes."

"Then you have the back up you need. Go ahead and release the people from the culling beam, and let me know as soon as you can whether our people were on that dart."

"Understood." She glanced back at the Cutsarkians, who appeared to be having a rather intense argument amongst themselves.

"And then get the hell back here asap. That's an order Teyla. You pointed out yourself that there are more Wraith on the ground and a dart still around somewhere. Those villagers are sitting ducks while they're still out there. We need to get them out of here, now."

"I know that, Colonel," she said. "But if they do not wish to come with us...." she trailed off, her eyes again on the woods.

Sheppard sighed heavily over the line "Then do what you can, and keep me apprised And watch the skies."

She grimaced, nodding. "Of course. Colonel..." She looked up at the quiet, blue sky. "I think I know why that last dart is hiding."

"So do I, Teyla."

"It is not simply because of the Thermopylae," she said.

"They're waiting for us to activate the gate, and start sending people through. It wants to finish what it came here for. People crossing this clearing to get through the gate would be like a buffet table to the damn thing."

Teyla closed her eyes, hearing her own fears repeated back to her, "Yes. Perhaps, before we start sending people through to Atlantis—"

"We make sure the Thermopylae is up there to help protect them."

She smiled, not surprised he was already well ahead of her. "Yes."

"Let me know what the villagers say. And, once you've released the trapped, see if there are any more who might be willing to go help Ronon and Rodney with theirs."

"I will. Thank you, Colonel. Teyla out." As she clicked the radio, she turned back to the villagers. They appeared more subdued, most looking down at the ground, others up towards the top of the mountain. Only two were speaking now, Vasa and another man, and the tone was no longer as confrontational. As she watched, Innis turned to look at her, meeting her eyes...and gave a nod.

_____________________________________________

"There you are," Rodney gasped, jogging up the slight hill towards Ronon and almost falling into him. "After listening to what happened to Teyla, I was so damn terrified that you were a Wraith or had been killed by one or something." Panting, he held up the life signs detector in his hand, showing his and Ronon's blips on the screen.

Ronon frowned, quickly getting behind Rodney in order to give him a powerful shove forwards up the hill, sending them both deeper into the woods. Rodney staggered forward, gave Ronon a dark look, then started walking. The Satedan got up close behind him.

"Keep your eyes on that scanner of yours," he ordered, watching the woods with an intensity that was frightening. Then what the scientist had said registered, and he frowned. "Wait, you thought I was Wraith? Then why did you come towards me?"

"Because I was more afraid of being alone, obviously," came the snapped reply as McKay trudged up the hill. "Which way to---ooph! Do you have to keep pushing me, damn it?" He gave the man behind him another angry glance.

"You have to move faster than that," Ronon replied harshly, giving McKay another shove, nearly sending him into a small pine tree. "Start running."

"Running? Is that really—ooph! Stop that!" McKay unwillingly started to jog, but had now lost his sense of direction, and he tripped a little trying to get his bearings. "Which way?"

"In the direction you're pointed now. Hurry!" And Ronon shoved again, this time propelling the scientist forward a good three or four steps. "There may be Wraith on their way here right now. And who knows when the Hive might send more darts after these ones."

McKay sighed but finally started trundling along a fast jog, already panting again on the uphill slope. He felt Ronon right behind him, almost too close, and started to run faster.

In surprisingly little time, he saw the dart...and swore.

It was even worse than he imagined. From above, it had looked mostly intact when he flew over it. From down here....

"Check the scanner," Ronon suddenly growled, grabbing onto McKay's jacket and nearly bringing him down as he forced him to a dead stop. The scientist let out a whoosh of air at the abrupt motion, then a tiny whined "ow!" as he was just as quickly shoved behind a tree. He looked up at Ronon with an annoyed gaze.

"What the hell are you—"

"Check the scanner!" Ronon snarled again, "And keep your voice down!" Pressing McKay against the tree with one hand, the former Runner took a quick glance around at the area around the crashed dart, leading his movements with his gun.

Still grumbling quietly, McKay did as he was bid, lifting the scanner and checking for dots...just two.

"Just us," he said, looking up again.

"What's the range, again?" Ronon asked, now looking in a different direction.

"Twenty five yards or so."

"Can you widen it?"

"Not without losing detail. I'd start picking up smaller things, like tiny animals and stuff. Maybe even insects."

"Widen it."

"Didn’t you hear what I just--?"

"There's something out there! Widen it!"

With a sigh, McKay fiddled with the scanner. As he expected, now there were more dots, lots more.

"We're surrounded," he said dully.

"By Wraith?" Ronon looked back at him, eyebrows raised.

"Probably mosquitoes," McKay shrugged, sighing. "Could be ants. Maybe stoats?" He gave a tiny smirk at that.

Ronon just stared at him, looking a little like he wanted to rip his head off.

Rolling his eyes slightly, the scientist shook his head. "Look, it doesn't work that effectively long range. I—"

"Shh!" Ronon punctuated the noise with another shove, pushing McKay's back more into the tree.

"Ow," the scientist murmured as Ronon examined the woods as if he planned to dissect them. Grimacing, McKay decided, perhaps...to defer to the other man's expertise on this. Ronon was in his element while he...was not. So, he quieted his breathing and waited....

Ronon let up the pressure on McKay's chest, the hand finally releasing the scientist when he understood McKay was going to do as he was told.

McKay followed the former Runner with his eyes, interested despite himself as Ronon slid almost silently away from him off to the left, sidling through the trees and along the ground with almost no noise. Considering all the dead leaves and pine underfoot, that was damned impressive. He'd read of people doing it, but had never really seen anyone achieve it in reality. He almost thought it was a made up skill....

Ronon disappeared, obviously on the hunt for something.

McKay stayed where he was.

After a couple of minutes, boredom set in, and he pulled up the scanner. Readjusting it back to its standard setting, he nearly screamed when he saw two new dots...right behind his tree. Another dot shifting around them.

Oh...God....Ronon, hurry!

He stopped breathing, afraid to look, to give himself away if they didn't already know he was here. Could they hear his heart beating?

The two dots approached his, moving in sync. Certain of their prowess, and, clearly, certain of their prey...

How the hell did they know he was here?

Oh...he was so screwed....

Suddenly, the whine of Ronon's gun discharging split the air, and McKay didn't even think—he just bolted away from those two dots as fast as he could, diving behind another broad tree as the white stunner blast filled his vision...missing him by inches. Ronon's gun discharged again....Then twice more in rapid succession.

Shaking, McKay looked down at the scanner. Where there had been four dots, now there were once more only two. His and...please, let it be Ronon's...

"Come on out, McKay," the Satedan called quietly, calmly. "The Wraith are dead. Get working on the dart."

McKay closed his eyes for a second, just thanking whomever was up there for putting Ronon on their side.

_________________________________________________

Teyla reached into the cockpit, and powered up the dart. She, like all the marines and scientist's typically sent off-world, had been shown by Zelenka and McKay how to do this, but she had never actually done it herself in practice. Sending a silent prayer to the Ancestors (both Lantean and Athosian), she keyed in the sequence of commands then grabbed the pilot's joystick, her thumb hovering over the button.

"Okay," she called, "Get ready! If there are Wraith inside this thing, they're going to start firing almost immediately."

"We're all set!" Innis called back. The blond was currently in possession of Teyla's P90. She was their first line of defense, besides the pistols the others carried.

Teyla nodded, took in a deep breath....then hit the button.

In a second, she was on the ground, running around the side of the dart as she listened to the now familiar "shh" sound of the culling beam releasing its cargo.

Innis started firing immediately, as did the others.

Teyla's 9MM was up and ready to fire as she came around the back, to see one Male Wraith and two drones being pelted by gunfire on three sides. Unconscious villagers released from the beam lay scattered around them on the forest floor. She joined in the barrage, grimacing as the first drone went down, just missing landing atop a prone villager lying on his stomach.

Innis had a maniacal grin on her face, shooting the powerful projectile weapon into the abdomen of the still standing Male.

In moments, all three were down.

"Stop!" Teyla commanded sharply, already leaping into the pile of "bodies", her sharp eyes having spotted the dark charcoal Atlantian military outfits almost immediately. Not for a moment trusting that any of the Wraith were actually dead, she dove for Corporal Dunne’s unconscious form, grabbing the P90 still in his hands and unclipping it in one smooth motion. Then she was up and drilling all three Wraith with whatever was left inside the clip of the young corporal's machine gun.

It wasn’t until the chamber clicked on empty that she felt satisfied to have finished the job. Striding back over to Dunne, she leaned down and pulled a new clip from his vest to slot into the weapon. As she straightened, she looked up for the first time at the slack-jawed expressions of the Cutsarkians with her. The pistols they all carried were held loosely in their hands, some even shook a little. Innis was holding Teyla’s P90 to her chest like a child, breathing hard in deference to its power.

For a moment, Teyla didn't understand the perplexity on their faces—after all, they had seen Wraith killed before. And that’s when she realized that it wasn't killing the Wraith that had shaken them—it was the bodies. They had never seen anyone released from a culling beam before. Why would they?

“Are they dead?” one man asked, his voice thick with emotion.

Teyla raised an eyebrow, “The Wraith? Yes.”

“No,” the man said, raising a hand to gesture at the villagers lying on the ground. There were at least ten people who had been released, and they lay practically lifeless. Teyla gave him a soft, warm smile.

“No, no,” she promised, “they’re fine. They’ve just been rendered unconscious temporarily. Like being hit by a stunner. They will awaken soon enough, with headaches and filled with confusion, but alive and very much still with us. They—“

She never got to finish the statement as one of the younger women to the side of the group gave an emotional squeal and jumped down to lift up one of the bodies, a younger man about her age. Wrapping her arms around him, she just held on tightly, rocking him back and forth, burying her head in his shoulder as she started to cry. It broke the dam, and suddenly everyone was looking for friends and family and neighbors that had been captured, and Teyla smiled as she moved back over to the three Atlantians soldiers she had found, secretly thanking her own blessings as she reached them.

Getting down on one knee next to the sleeping Sergeant Johnson, she rested a warm hand against his face, happy to feel his breath on her palm. With her other hand, she tapped her radio.

“Colonel Sheppard,” she called.

“How’d it go? You okay?”

“Everyone is fine. Better than fine. And I have some very good news—Sergeant Johnson, Meriwether and Corporal Dunne are all here and alive.”

“Oh, thank God,” Sheppard breathed, his voice appearing to echo slightly as she heard McKay say the same thing at the same time, although fainter. “Can you, maybe, employ some of the villagers to help bring them here?”

“I already asked them, prior to releasing the beam. Once they decided that evacuation was their best chance, they agreed to help us as much as they can. Right now, we are going to try and bring as many people to the Gate as possible—I think we have enough strong backs. Meanwhile, Vasa, one of the village leaders,” she glanced over at the red-headed woman, who, in turn, was watching her, obviously eavesdropping on the conversation, “and a couple of the men are going to find the rest of the Cutsarkians and prepare them to evacuate. I’m going to give them two of the P90s, as there are still Wraith on the ground.”

“Sounds good. Bring them here, and Beckett and Lorne can take them through the gate— warn Elizabeth that we’ll have some new guests. We can also send some jumpers back, to help protect the rest of the people, for when more darts show up. The Daedalus is also not far—we can probably get them to fly here in case the Hive shows up…which it probably will eventually.”

She nodded, sighing a little, and looked behind her at the group (and meeting Vasa’s dark eyes). Grimacing, she turned her face away and lowered her voice.

“What about the third dart?”

“You know it will probably show up the second we activate the gate. I’m just going to make sure that we have the Thermopylae in the air before—“

“Colonel,” McKay’s voice snapped over the connection, sounding both full of irritation and worry at the same time. “We have a problem.”

____________________________________________

McKay was leaning way inside the empty cockpit of the dart, his feet sticking up in the air as he fiddled with something obviously below and behind the seat. He swore every so often, throwing little bits of machinery out of his way as he worked. Ronon stalked the back half of the dart, most of which was a crumbled wreck. The ship itself looked to have been chopped in half, with just tendrils of wires still joining the two ends like strings of mozzarella cheese; it must have cracked like an egg when it hit the ground. The front—where the cockpit was—was obviously meant to withstand the most ill-treatment, and was generally intact. The back…was a mess.

“Oh,” McKay’s voice floated up to Ronon’s ear, sounding worried, “that’s not good.”

The Satedan turned, watching as McKay levered himself back up out of the cockpit in an ungainly manner, his feet coming to rest on part of a damaged wing. Ronon disliked the look on the scientist’s face as McKay then proceeded to slide down the wing to look at the area where the ship had split open. The scientist hissed another swear as he bent to look at some of the exposed wires.

“What?” Ronon asked gruffly, stepping closer to the dart while still keeping an eye out for Wraith. Every so often he looked at the two dead ones on the ground—making sure they were actually dead. “What’s the matter?”

McKay gave him a gloomy look, then hit the radio in his ear, interrupting the conversation running between Sheppard and Teyla. “Colonel,” he said, looking back at the dart, “we have a problem.”

There was a pause on the line, then Sheppard sighed, “What is it?” No quip, no sarcastic rejoinder…just a tired sounding man.

Similarly, McKay’s voice was a flat monotone as he replied, “The buffer holding the energy signatures of the captured villagers is being maintained by residual power—which is quickly fading. Worse, there is not enough power left to rematerialize all of them. It's the same problem Radek ran into with me and Cadman. To get them out, we’re going to have to take the buffer back to Atlantis.”

“Okay,” Sheppard said, perking up a little. “That’s not so bad. It’s annoying, considering there are also Wraith trapped in that buffer, but we can find a way around that. Is the problem removing it from the ship?”

“No,” McKay said, leaning to the left a little to look more closely at the severed bottom half, his fingers gripping the jagged metal edges of the top half to hold himself in place. He could actually see the top of the device from here. The Wraith material cocooning it had protected it, despite the ruin of the rest of the bottom half, a little like the way a car would crumple on impact without damaging the occupants within. Extracting it would not be difficult. “No,” he said again, looking at Ronon, “the problem is, the moment I disconnect it from the auxiliary power, the signatures inside are going to start to degenerate. At best,” he grimaced, “we’ll have half an hour to get it through the Gate to where we can hook it up to a new power source.”

“We’re only ten minutes from the Gate here,” Ronon noted, squinting a little at McKay. “If we run.”

The scientist snorted in reply, obviously thinking that ten minutes by Ronon’s speed was more like twenty at his speed. “Even so, getting it hooked up in Atlantis will take Zelenka at least ten minutes to do properly. Time is going to be really short.”

“So, what you’re saying is…” Sheppard prompted.

“The moment I cut the connection, Ronon is going to have to book it back to where you are, and you have to open the Gate the second he comes. Get it through.”

“Wait, I’m not leaving you out here,” Ronon frowned, standing up straighter. “You can run fast enough, McKay.”

“It’s not that,” McKay said. He pointed at himself, “I have to get back to the Thermopylae, to be ready for the third dart. Which means we both have to run in opposite directions as fast as we can.” He looked into the distance, towards where the Gate was and where he knew Sheppard was probably pacing, “Am I wrong?”

There was a pause on the radio, then a very heavy sigh. “Can you show Ronon how to remove the Buffer without damaging it? Because, maybe he can escort you to the ship, then return to the dart to remove the buffer and get it back here to the Gate.”

“Probably not,” McKay replied. “If it gets cut improperly, it’ll short the whole system, and all those people will be effectively dead.”

Ronon just stared at him, then looked away, unable to meet that sometimes terrifyingly too intelligent gaze of McKay’s. The Satedan liked to think of himself as not afraid of anything…but he knew that was a lie. Technology was something else, something outside of what he understood. It was delicate crystals and light touches and proper sequences—he couldn’t shoot it, outrun it, argue with it or pull it to safety...He knew he didn’t have the expertise, and he didn’t want the responsibility of all those people’s lives to be based on how well he could work wires he didn’t comprehend.

McKay knew that. At the same time…there was no way he was letting McKay face the Wraith out there on his own again. He could practically smell them in the woods around them, just waiting to take advantage of any distraction...

“I don’t like it,” Sheppard stated finally. There was an edge to his voice.

“You have a better idea?” McKay demanded.

“Remove the buffer and come back with Ronon. We’ll take down that third dart ourselves and gate back to Atlantis, without the Thermopylae’s help.”

“Oh sure," Rodney sneered. "Why didn’t I think of that? Because taking down a Wraith dart is such a piece of cake!" He made some flippant hand gestures as he spoke, and Ronon had to turn his head to hide his smile. "I mean, let's just ignore the fact that the dart knows we’ll be waiting for it, and that, ninety percent of the time, they can avoid just about anything we can throw at it short of an M-16 or a rail gun, and let's also ignore the fact that we have no firepower on hand greater than a handful of P90s with nearly empty clips—“ McKay was in full irritant mood now, fairly bristling with annoyance as he spoke.

“I’m not leaving you unprotected. There are Wraith on the ground still, and for all you know, they’re just waiting for you to try to get back to the Thermopylae alone!”

“You’re not listening to me!”

“And you’re not listening to me!” Sheppard snapped. “You will stay with Ronon, McKay! We have absolutely no idea how many Wraith are still out there! Or where they are! This is not up for discussion. Ronon, you are not letting him alone, and that’s an order. So, remove the buffer and get your asses back here. We’ll take that dart down with what we have.”

“Perhaps,” Teyla called, her voice soothing, “we should wait to free the people trapped in the second dart until after we send the first set of people through? If we are right in our assumption that activating the Stargate will bring the third dart out of hiding, then perhaps we should just do that…then worry about the people who are trapped. ”

“And if the Wraith on the ground find this crashed dart before we can return?” Ronon asked darkly, his eyes once more scanning the woods as if expecting more to pop out at any second.

“Ronon’s right,” McKay agreed. “If the Wraith find this dart, they could either destroy the buffer, or take it with them. We could lose the people trapped in here.”

“It’s a risk,” Teyla said slowly, her tone uncertain, “yes. But…”

“But we have our people, and that is the top priority—getting Lorne’s team and Beckett home,” Sheppard finished for her, his tone much colder. “Look, Teyla's right. The people trapped in that buffer will just have to wait. Right now, our focus has to be on our own people and on the Cutsarkians we can immediately evacuate. There are too many Wraith still wandering around out there, and pretty soon we're going to have a lot of terrified people down here, expecting me and Teyla to protect them...And, McKay, you're probably right about not being able to take out that last dart without the Thermopylae. You need to get it in the air before we try for the Gate."

McKay grimaced, "So, what you're saying is..."

"I want to help those people in the buffer too, but we can't right now. Not while the variables are still stacked against us. How much longer will that buffer stay powered as long as it remains part of the dart?”

“A couple of hours,” McKay stated grimly, “at best.”

“Then we have that time to find that third dart and take it down, and get our people home.”

McKay looked at Ronon, his expression pained. The Satedan had his head down, hiding his face behind his hair.

Sheppard sighed then, "I just wish..."

Ronon looked up when the Colonel didn't finish the thought. "What?"

"I should be the one flying the Thermopylae, not McKay."

"What? No, hey," McKay said, perking up as if he'd just been insulted, "I can do it."

"He did seem to do fine before," Ronon affirmed, almost lazily.

"I know, but he had the advantage of surprise before. Fact is, neither of you are pilots, and McKay's not a soldier—"

"I said I can do it!" McKay stated firmly.

"It's just, I know you McKay. You need direction sometimes—"

"Don't you dare," McKay snapped, pointing down at the ground. "I took down two darts less than an hour ago. You were just calling me a hero, remember?"

"I'm not saying you can't do it. I just know you, McKay. You don't have the instincts to just—"

"I do," Ronon interrupted. "We'll be fine, Sheppard. We'll get it done."

"This is ridiculous," McKay huffed, crossing his arms. "And we're wasting time. Wraith everywhere, remember?"

Sheppard sighed again, this time in annoyance, and when he spoke again, he used that tone of his that brooked no argument. He’d made his decision, and that was it.

“Okay. Fine. Ronon, McKay…get to the Thermopylae. Get it in the air immediately and over the Gate. Do not, under any circumstances, uncloak the ship until you see that third dart. It'll be expecting you this time, so you need every advantage, and that's your biggest one. Teyla, get here as fast as you can with our people, and anyone else who can go through now. I’m sick of this game…that third dart is going to go down.”

____________________________________________________

Sheppard clicked the radio, not to turn it off but just to signal an end to the discussion—not that he actually expected any of them to argue with him anymore—and knelt down next to Lorne and Beckett.

The major was blinking up at him, eyes still half lidded.

“Hey,” Sheppard offered, giving him a smile, “How’re you doing?”

“A bit fuzzy, sir,” Lorne croaked in reply, blinking some more. “Body feels like lead. And...ugh....pins and needles.” He arched his back as he spoke, eyes shutting tightly against the sensation.

“That’s the aftereffects of the stunner, son,” Beckett said, tapping him on the shoulder. “You’ll be all right.” The physician had stayed quiet through all the exchanges between Sheppard’s team, for which the colonel was grateful. He liked Beckett, and, on Atlantis, he’d defer to Beckett’s opinion as he would to Elizabeth or McKay, all of them being equal…but out here, the physician was first and foremost someone to be protected, and getting him home was a priority, no matter what. He’d be the same way with Elizabeth, if she were with them in this position. Out here, the team was in charge, and he was in charge of the team.

“What happened? Everyone okay?” Lorne asked, shifting a little as he tried to push himself into a better sitting position, his arms shaking like jelly. Beckett reached in to help him, subtly checking out his vitals as he did so.

“We were lucky,” Sheppard told him, returning his attention to the surrounding area to keep watch, “your team was culled, but we took down the dart…and Teyla managed to extricate them with some help from the villagers. She's on her way here with them now.”

“Lucky,” Lorne sighed, leaning his head back and closing his eyes, “definitely. The Wraith…they came out of nowhere.”

“They always do,” Sheppard noted darkly.

“We get to go home now, sir?” Lorne asked, obviously forcing his eyes open again.

“Yeah," Sheppard sighed, looking vaguely up at the blue sky overhead, "Soon."

After all, he thought to himself, he just ordered McKay to play fighter pilot again with a ten thousand year old damaged ship, and only Ronon to help him...What could possibly go wrong?

_________________________________________

CHAPTER EIGHT: ANTICIPATION AND EXPECTATION

Despite it all, Ronon and McKay made it back to the Thermopylae without running into anyone—either human or Wraith. McKay had stayed remarkably quiet the whole time; other than the occasional grunt as he tripped over a stick or stumbled on a root, he didn't complain once. Ronon never let up his single minded study of the area, keeping them both safe.

When they reached the edge of the clearing where the cloaked ship sat, McKay put his scanner down and pulled out a device from his pocket Ronon hadn't seen before. It looked a little like the iPod Beckett carried with him when jogging.

"What is that?"

"This ship's version of a keyless entry system," McKay replied, peering into the clearing. Lifting up the device, he pointed it towards a cluster of rocks...and lights flashed from the nothingness, briefly showing the outline of a door suspended in the air. McKay was already up and moving towards it even as the light faded, Ronon covering his back.

McKay hit the little device again, and the outline of stairs being lowered from the entrance became briefly visible, the effect almost ghostlike. In seconds, McKay was jumping up into the nothingness, Ronon right on his heels. As before, the ship became fully visible the moment he hit the first metal step, but it still startled him a little bit.

When the Satedan was inside the corridor leading into the ship, he turned around, raking his weapon's aim over the woods circling them. In front of him, the stairs started to retract and the door slowly closed.

Why weren't the Wraith here? Surely they would want this ship? Even if they couldn't see it, surely they had heard the engines when it landed. Every muscle in his body was tensed with the expectation of seeing them filter out of the trees after them...

"It's good you're here," McKay called to him, already through this side corridor and around the corner into the main, his voice echoing down the curved metal halls. "I could really use help. Last time I barely had the ability to work both the flight controls and the search functions, not to mention...." his voice faded into a intelligible mutter as he obviously kept moving, now out of Ronon's earshot.

Ronon grimaced, not backing away from the entrance until it was firmly shut. As it finally snicked closed, he turned and bounded after the scientist, running to catch up. McKay was already all the way down the central corridor, waving a hand over the silvery panel to open the door to the control room, still talking. He was yammering about shields now, clearly unaware that Ronon had missed the middle of his speech. Everything lit up as he entered the control room, almost as if it were happy to see him, and Ronon tried not to show how it impressed him that McKay had learned to take control of this ship so easily. Of course, McKay got just about everything that he touched to work with seemingly freakish ease....

The scientist moved forward, ripping his data tablet off his back and shucking the pack he was carrying onto the floor next to the white command chair in the middle of the room. At no point did he stop talking—he was a constant source of movement and sound, making the large room somehow seem smaller. Ronon moved past him to the large front windows, eyes once more on the woods surrounding the ship.

"So, I was thinking about trying to untie the shield from the hole in the side," McKay said as he knelt down next to his pack, deft hands quickly setting up the equipment he pulled out from it. "Try to get it to cover the bulk of the ship. As I said, it's bizarre that it doesn't do that already. Almost as if the shields were never designed to protect the whole ship, but that would be ridiculous...."

Ronon finally backed up from the windows, realizing there was little point to keeping watch now they were inside. Returning his attention to the scientist, he watched as McKay rapidly keyed in commands to the data tablet as he nattered on, nimble fingers flying over the panel's tiny keypad. McKay barely acknowledged Ronon's physical presence, just kept typing, tapping and occasionally hitting reaching around to tap the arm of the command chair behind him. Feeling a little impotent, Ronon crossed his arms.

Finally, McKay stopped to take a breath, and Ronon felt he could jump in.

"What do you need me to do?"

McKay looked up at him, blue eyes showing surprise for a moment, then narrowing in sharp anger.

"You didn't listen to anything I just said, did you?" he demanded.

Ronon just shrugged. He couldn't help it. McKay's voice was a bit like what Sheppard called white noise—he had a habit of tuning it out.

"Christ, I wish you were Teyla," the scientist muttered, a little cruelly. Ronon frowned slightly, finding himself actually hurt by that. He'd never really been bothered by anything the scientist had said before, but...that had hurt.

Because McKay was right. Teyla would have listened.

Teyla always listened to McKay—everything he said, she absorbed like a sponge, her eyes always watching the scientist with intense focus. Unlike himself and Sheppard, she seemed to have an uncanny ability to just "get" McKay's explanations, and be able to act on them. She'd saved their lives a few times when McKay had been unable to finish something, taking those last vital steps to win the day.

"I need you to take charge of the weapons systems," McKay growled, returning his attention to his tablet. "I learned, pretty quickly, that controlling the weapons, the ship, the sensors and the shields all at the same time was next to impossible. There was a reason this ship had a full crew. If I hadn't had the cloak and the autopilot from heaven, I probably wouldn't be here right now." He stood up suddenly, walking with his data tablet across to a console to the right of the command chair and waved a hand over it. "This is weapons. I'm rerouting some of the sensors here too." He reached down and started hitting buttons on the panel before him. "You're going to be in charge of taking down the dart."

Ronon moved over, staring down at the console, not understanding one thing he was looking at. Any words written on it were in Teyla's language, not the common one used in trade.

"How do I...."

"Hang on," McKay snapped, still obviously annoyed as he hit some more keys on the tablet.

Suddenly, the touchscreen that filled most of the surface of the console flickered and disappeared....then reappeared, this time with words in English. That, Ronon had learned to read. Studying the screen, the sequence of buttons and keys began to make sense, and he nodded. Okay.

"Sensor panels show up as 3D hologram displays around the console," McKay told him, waving his hands about in front of them. "Like the Heads Up Display on a jumper. I've commanded the one that will be here to focus on life signs, and the one that will be up over there," he pointed a little off center from the console, "to seek out Wraith technology—well, complex technology, most of which should be Wraith. Their stunners should show up, for example. The crashed darts will muddy the readings, as will our own tech, but it might help a little. I'm guessing the third dart is staying hidden outside of sensor range, so...probably won't see it until it deliberately shows itself."

Ronon nodded, "Gotcha. So," he lifted an eyebrow, "just destroy the dart?"

"I'll try to take it down without destroying it first, but...ultimately, yeah." McKay grimaced and shrugged, obviously thinking about his inability to do that with the second dart. And, as Sheppard had pointed out, the third one would know they were coming this time.

"What are the weapons like?"

"There are two different kinds of missiles listed in the weapons section of the ship's database, besides the pulse weapon that, obviously, got destroyed. I couldn't get one of them to respond...." He tapped again at his data tablet, frowning in frustration then shrugging. "I think those must be depleted, though I haven't had the chance to really verify that yet. The others seem to work though. Those are the heat-seekers that I used. You can control their speed and strength from here..." He gestured to a panel, which showed different levels of power. "Even once activated and released, they can be modified to move faster, change to cold seeking, even turn around and return to the ship." He smiled, "It's a clever way not to lose any missiles you don't use—probably saw me do that before, eh?" And he smiled smugly, still proud from his earlier success.

Ronon just gave another nod—he knew better than to ever encourage McKay's ego—and brushed his hand lightly over large touch screen. "Makes sense, I think." He looked at McKay, "And what'll you be doing? Besides flying?"

Rodney's eyebrow lifted, "As if that's not enough?" He rolled his eyes and turned, already headed back to the command chair. "As I was saying before, this ship is vulnerable while all the shielding is concentrated on "plugging" the hole in the side. I'm going to try and uncongeal it, because we're pretty vulnerable otherwise. If that dart were to fire on us right now, we'd probably die."

Ronon's eyebrows lifted, "How'd you avoid that before?"

"Evasive maneuvering and a lot of luck." McKay shrugged, stepping onto the dais and settling into the command chair. He rested his tablet on his lap and his fingers started quickly manipulating the arm controls, for the moment ignoring the two sticks that would pilot the Thermopylae. Apparently, they weren't going to be taking off immediately, despite Sheppard's orders.

Ronon just frowned a little at that, and, when McKay didn't speak again, turned around again to study the console before him. With a soft sigh, he threw himself into the task of memorizing exactly where everything was and how they worked.

__________________________________________________

Half an hour of gut-twisting waiting later, Sheppard finally heard a soft rumble overhead, a little like being able to hear trucks running along a highway in the distance. Frowning a little, he looked up at the crystal clear sky, trying to guess where it was coming from...

Clicking his radio, he asked, "That you, McKay?"

"Yeah," McKay replied. "You guys still okay down there?"

"About as good as we were last time you checked in...when I told you to get here fifteen minutes ago," Sheppard snarled.

"I know. I'm sorry. I've been trying to get the shields to act more...shieldy."

Sheppard arched an eyebrow, interested despite himself. Shields? "You have shields inside the cloak? I assumed the shield and the cloak were the same thing, just like on Atlantis."

"Oh, yeah! Nifty, huh? The cloak is run on a different frequency than the shields. Why the hell the Ancients didn't do that with their own ships..."

"Maybe they did," Sheppard said, tilting his head as he considered the possibilities. "Just not any of the ones we've come across."

"Yeah, maybe. Man, I'd love to see some of their other ships, someday, wouldn't you? They had fighter planes, you know. And transport ships."

"And cruisers. At least two different sizes. Hey, that reminds me, you given any thought to what that Jorgan guy meant when he said the Thermopylae was built for a challenge?"

"Oh, yeah! I've a theory that—"

"Boys!" Beckett interrupted, knocking Sheppard's arm where he stood next to him, "Not to interrupt your musings, but we have bit of a situation here." The doctor arched his eyebrows high on his forehead, his meaning clear.

Sheppard gave a sheepish smile—how the hell did McKay always distract him so easily? "Right, yeah, sorry, doc." He looked back up at the sky, "So what was wrong with the shields on the Thermopylae, McKay?"

"What is wrong, you mean," McKay corrected, the disappointment in his voice thick. "As I said before, at some point, they concentrated the whole damn shield to cover the hole in the side. And now it's being stubborn. For some reason, every time I think I've managed to divert the power, it goes right back to the way it was. So...we're sort of without shields right now."

Sheppard frowned, "You couldn't fix it?"

"No. Not without more time, anyway."

"How long do you need?"

He heard McKay let out a heavy breath, "How long until Teyla gets there with Johnson?"

"She's already here," Sheppard replied, looking over at the Athosian, who was kneeling on the far side of their position, her eyes scouting to the woods around them, on guard. "She just got here with the last of the unconscious villagers from the first dart a few minutes ago. Major Lorne's awake as well, and ready to move." Propped up against a tree not far from Teyla, the major perked up at his name, glancing at Sheppard and nodding his agreement. He was still working on getting his coordination back, but he was able to stand and hobble around a bit and hold a P90 with some effectiveness.

There were also about twenty awake villagers with them, forming an uneven circle and nervously fingering their revolvers. These were the people who had helped get Johnson, Dunne and Meriwether back here, and also carried their own unconscious people rescued from the dart. Collectively, they made a massively vulnerable clump of about thirty life signs, and that was the problem...They had to look like a smorgasbord to a dart on the lookout, which was why Sheppard had wanted the Thermopylae overhead watching their backs sooner. The only things protecting them from being culled right now were the thick trees overhead and three P90s. At least they had Johnson, Meriwether and Dunne's extra clips now.

"Oh," McKay sighed. "Damn. I was hoping for more time. As for how long it'll take... I don't know, Sheppard. Maybe an hour?"

Sheppard arched an eyebrow. "What kind of an hour is that?  A Scotty-I-just-cannae-do-it-Cap'n hour or a McKay-we're-all-going-to-die hour?"

"Hey! I resent that. Christ, you get maligned by one convicted murderer with a penchant for pop psychology monologuing and—"

"McKay?" Sheppard wasn't in the mood.

"The latter," McKay muttered in disgust.

The colonel's eyes narrowed in a grimace—it was time they didn't have. "Look, McKay," Sheppard sighed, "I'd love to give you all the time in the world, but I've no idea how many Wraith are stalking around these woods, fully armed and pissed off. And that third dart is so close, I can feel it. We're surrounded by unconscious people here, and..."

"We need to get them through the Gate now. I know." McKay paused, and Sheppard was pretty sure he was giving himself a mental pep talk up there. "So let's do it."

"Okay, then." The colonel turned around, glanced at the group of villagers with him, then turned away from them, lowering his voice so as not to be overheard. "Look, McKay...as soon as that dart shows up, you take it down. No heroics. It's going to know you're up there, and it'll be waiting for you as much as you are waiting for it. Don't try to take the dart down without destroying it...just destroy it. You understand?"

There was another pause, then McKay released a soft sigh over the radio, "You mean, don't even try to save those people?"

Sheppard arched an eyebrow, "You had some big advantages last time, Rodney. They made up for...the fact that you're not trained for this. But you don't have those now."

"I still have a pretty big advantage, Colonel. This ship's speed and its firepower—it's way more technologically advanced than one dart."

"So was Markham and Smith's puddle jumper, McKay," Sheppard reminded him coolly.

That earned an even longer pause. "Okay, granted. But...I might still be able to—"

"No, McKay. We're not arguing this. Do what I tell you."

Rodney didn't reply. After the pause grew long, Sheppard spoke again.

"Okay," he nodded, trusting that McKay accepted the orders despite the silence. "You got sensors up on that thing?"

"Yes," Ronon informed them darkly. "Your life signs show up like a massive blot on the landscape. There are others, however...we can not discern if they are Wraith or not. I have something here that is supposed to pick up Wraith technology, but it's picking up a lot of interference from the downed darts so...not too helpful right now."

"Hey," McKay protested, "I tried, didn't I?"

Sheppard gave a small smile, "Okay, so, just life signs then. Are they positioned around the clearing?"

"At least three, to your left, at about ten o'clock," Ronon replied.

"Okay," Sheppard nodded, looking to Teyla. The Athosian moved, getting around to that side, in order to send a volley in that direction as soon as they moved. Beckett got an arm under Lorne, and half carried the man to Teyla's side so that the two of them could back the woman up. Well, Lorne would back her up, and Beckett would make sure Lorne kept moving. Villagers, sensing what was happening, started gathering up bodies. Women carried other women on their backs or children in their arms, men threw men over their shoulders. One large burly man managed to get the huge Sergeant Johnson over his shoulder with a wince....

Looking around at them all, Sheppard wished they'd had more people to act as protectors, but they didn't have the time.

"Teyla, lay down cover fire and watch our six. Lorne, Beckett...you cover the villagers. I'm going for the DHD. The rest of you," Sheppard looked to the Cutsarkians, "wait until the wormhole is established, then run as fast as you can to the Gate. Fire your guns if you have a free hand the second you see a stunner blast, but...try not to hit each other, okay? And don't wait once you get there, just go straight through the Gate. Our people will greet you on the other side."

They nodded in return, a sea of brave faces beneath their heavy burdens.

Sheppard looked up then at the sky, and clicked his radio. "Right...here we go. McKay, Ronon...you know what to do."

And without waiting for an answer from above, he jumped away from their hiding place and started to run.

_________________________________

CHAPTER NINE: DOWN BELOW AND UP ABOVE

PART ONE: THE HAPPENINGS DOWN BELOW

Teyla fired the moment the Colonel started sprinting towards the DHD, her weapons fire aimed directly towards the spot Ronon had indicated. She moved out into the clearing, staying low and aiming for a handful of low rocks not far from their position. She saw Lorne imitating her...sort of. The major stumbled along behind, then shifted past her into the middle of the clearing, Beckett's steadying hand around his waist. Reaching a long slab of rock to use as cover, Teyla saw Lorne fall to his knees behind it, taking Beckett with him. Once safely hidden, both men started firing on the woods, following her lead.

No stunner fire was returned, but that didn't mean much, although Teyla hoped it wasn't because they were firing on some shy visitors or hapless animals inside there...

Glancing over her shoulder, Teyla saw Sheppard at the DHD, dialing quickly. The wormhole burst to life and the colonel was calling for Atlantis to lower the iris as he hit the send button on his IDC. Then he was ducking down behind the DHD, using it for cover as he fired towards the same location.

The villagers started moving....

And that's when the first stunner blast seared across the clearing. Teyla buckled down, firing furiously at its origin, and she knew Lorne, Beckett and now Sheppard were doing the same.

"Move!" she yelled at the villagers, getting in behind them as they lumbered desperately across the grass, bent fully over under the weights they carried. "FASTER!"

Flashes of stunner fire continued to crease the air, but none of them hit anything...yet. The stunners had better range, and it was only a matter of time before one got lucky with the villagers so out in the open and unable to fire back....

Then one did—a woman cried out, crashing to the ground with the weight of another woman on her back, the two rolling into an ungainly heap. Beckett jumped up, running over to them both, firing as he moved, and narrowly avoided being clipped by another stunner flash.

"Oh, to hell with this," Ronon's voice cut across the line, and, despite a yell of "No!" from McKay, a missile suddenly fired out of the nothingness above their heads, straight for the line of trees where the Wraith were. Apparently, unlike the Jumpers, the Thermopylae didn't need to decloak in order to fire. Teyla gave a holler of appreciation as she ducked, the blast rocking the trees, exploding everything in that location...Wraith and all.

"YES!" Lorne shouted as he struggled up onto one knee, pumping a fist up at the air.

"Well, done, Ronon!" Teyla agreed, smiling. She glanced at Sheppard, but the Colonel wasn't smiling, he was frowning deeply. Her own smile fell, confused by his expression.

"Yeah, well, McKay didn't want me to," Ronon said, and they could almost see the shrug in his voice, "But it seemed stupid to just wait and—"

"Ronon!" McKay's voice shouted, "Nine o'clock!"

Punctuated by its engine's screaming whine, the third and final dart exploded upwards from behind a smaller hillock off to the left, the nasty little ship firing full blast into the air above the stargate.

"Damn it! I told you!" McKay's voice shouted across the comm.. "You just had to show off, didn't you! You gave our position away, you mop-headed moron!"

Teyla gasped as she understood what Rodney meant, realizing that the dart wasn't firing blind...it was firing very pointedly at where the missile had originated from. Ronon's impulsive act had pinpointed the ship for the Wraith as clearly as if the cloak hadn't existed.

"MOVE!" Sheppard yelled, looking away from the ugly flashes of color where the Thermopylae was obviously taking fire, and gesturing frantically at the villagers. "NOW! Through the Gate!"

Teyla turned to look across the clearing, watching stunned villagers—who hadn't been prepared for the explosion—stumbling back to their feet from where they'd been knocked down by the blast wave, clumsily trying to pick up their burdens as they did so. It was like watching a whole load of drunk people trying to pick up their passed out friends after a festival. Beckett was dragging the two women he'd run to protect along the ground towards the gate, trying to get to it quickly.

Sheppard continued to shout for speed, and the Cutsarkians tried to move more quickly—but it was no where near fast enough. The air above was filled with explosive blasts and the dart's whine as Teyla jogged towards them, adding her voice for them to hurry as she looked up at the sky.

Her eyes suddenly widened in fear as she saw the Thermopylae appear above them, cloak falling away as the ship was shoved sideways from multiple hits along the hull, scarring the silver with slashes of burnt black. No, no, no...

"Move, move, move, you useless hunk of metal!" McKay sounded more pissed than afraid, and suddenly the silver ship was speeding impossibly quickly out of the clearing and straight for the dart, as if planning to ram it. "No! Not that way! Are you insane?" McKay shouted suddenly, and Teyla realized with surprise that he was arguing with the Thermopylae. "What are you doing?"

"Go, go, go!" Sheppard yelled, obviously ignoring the highjinks overhead in order to keep covering the villagers finally stumbling up to the gate. Teyla, tearing her eyes away from the Thermopylae, returned her own full attention on the woods, backing towards the Gate at an uneven jog. If there were more Wraith waiting to attack out there on the ground, she had to be ready....

Above, blasts and the whine of a dart screeched in the background, but no culling beam scoured the clearing...

At least whatever McKay was doing appeared to be working.

Lorne was near the DHD now, leaning against it. Beckett had reached the gate and had rolled his two burdens through, then turned and ran over to the struggling major. Lorne had his head down, swaying alarmingly, and Beckett got an arm under his shoulders, holding him up. Behind them, more villagers passed through the horizon to safety. Then Lorne looked to Sheppard.

"Sir," the major called, his voice tremulous, "what about the rest of the Cutsakrians?"

"We're not leaving them behind, Major," Sheppard answered quickly. "Once you and Beckett are through, shut down the Gate and tell Elizabeth we need reinforcements. At least two jumpers and a couple troops of men to get rid of the rest of the Wraith still hanging around."

"You're not coming?" Beckett gaped. "But the Wraith in the woods! You're wide open in this clearing! How will you avoid—"

"I'm not leaving Rodney and Ronon here alone," Sheppard snapped. "Now get through the Gate! Faster you go, faster you get back here and save our asses!"

"Yes, sir!" Lorne shouted to forestall any further argument from Beckett. He backed up, effectively taking the doc with him, and headed to the Gate. The last of the villagers were just making it up the stairs as the two men reached it, Teyla flanking them. She nodded at Beckett and Lorne, before once more turning her attention back to their surroundings.

The doc took one last look at the two of them, fear obvious on his face, hesitating on the threshold after the last villager went through. Suddenly, he opened his mouth, clearly about to say he'd stay behind as well...when Lorne pulled them both through with a sharp tug.

Sheppard yelled to Elizabeth over the radio to shut the gate down, then ran with Teyla back across the clearing to the safety of the woods.

Once deeply inside the trees, Teyla finally allowed herself to take a breath, her eyes lifting to check on the Colonel. He was breathing hard as well, shoving a new clip into his weapon and frowning as he tried to see through the branches overhead to see what was happening in the sky.

"Maybe if we climb one of the trees?" Teyla suggested, wanting to know what was happening as much as Sheppard did.

"Sheppard! Teyla!" Rodney's voice shouted suddenly over the radio, "Wherever you are, GET DOWN!"

________________________________________________

PART TWO: THE HAPPENINGS UP ABOVE

"Move, move, move, you useless hunk of metal!" McKay shouted at the Thermopylae as the dart hit them dead on with several square hits, one of which busted the cloaking device. In reply to his demand, the silver ship spun...and careened across the sky straight for the dart firing at them. "No! Not that way! Are you insane?" McKay shouted, jerking his hands on the controls sticks on the command chair, and obviously getting very little response from the ship. "What are you doing?"

“McKay!” Ronon shouted, gripping the edges of the console he stood behind, his feet braced on the ground, “You’re flying us right at it!”

“I’m not doing this!” came Rodney’s return shout from the chair. “I commanded the ship to attack the dart, not ram it!” The scientist’s blue eyes opened wider as the screens showed them on a collision course with the smaller dart, neither letting up, the silver Thermopylae barely evading the Wraith’s weapons fire. Surely the Wraith pilot wasn’t suicidal…was he? Surely the Thermopylae wasn’t either…oh Christ, they were playing Chicken with a Wraith! The dart was aiming straight for them! They were going to DIE!

“STOP!” he squealed, throwing his full weight backwards, wrenching back hard on the control sticks as he did so. "For the love of God, STOP!"

The Thermopylae responded instantly, the massive rear engine cutting off…and the ship started to fall.

“Ack!” McKay yelped, “No, up, up, up!” He pulled up on the sticks, and the thrusters on the front of the ship under the nose came on full force.

The result being, that as the heavy back of the ship continued to fall down, the front tipped radically upwards, turning the ship almost vertical to the ground….and then over completely, like a pinwheel. Ronon yelled in fear; McKay just screamed….

And the dart, faced with a sudden wall of silver tipping away from it, was forced to pull up hard, sending itself straight up along the upturned belly of the Thermopylae towards the sky, almost scraping the underside of both ships. It then got caught in the air currents from the thrusters, sending it spinning head over tail as it careened upwards and to the side…

The Thermopylae did some impossible maneuver on its own and righted itself, putting them back on track. At the same time, the engines flared to life again, shooting them forward like a bullet and going after the still discombobulated dart, as if the insanity of that last move was par for the course.

Ronon was down on one knee with his head buried into his chest, pressed hard against the console, fingers holding onto the console's edges for dear life. McKay, amazingly, still had his hands on the controls. Lifting them off (which they did rather reluctantly, since the fingers didn’t really want to uncurl from the sticks), he clumsily tapped in some commands to tell the Thermopylae not to imitate a battering ram again, then blinked up dizzily at the screens around him.

It occurred to him that, next time he commanded a ship to attack something, he should probably specify some parameters like…oh, try not to kill your crew in the process.

Off on the right hand screen, he saw the dart moving away from them, bobbing and weaving as its pilot obviously worked to get some control back. It was headed away from the clearing in the direction of the lowlands now, obviously trying to get to a safe distance so it could right itself—which was all good.

Frowning, McKay glanced over at the left hand screen depicting the clearing around the Stargate, and saw that most of the villagers had finally reached the wormhole and were going through, ushered quickly by Sheppard, Teyla, Lorne and Beckett.

Swallowing to relieve the driest throat he’d ever had, the scientist focused back on the dart, which finally seemed to settle into a steadier flight path. As they watched, it suddenly turned on a dime and shot back towards them…and started firing again.

“Can I shoot it now?” Ronon asked roughly, back to his feet and leaning slightly over the console, a sickly pallor to his face. “And why aren’t there any other chairs with harnesses on them in here?” he added with a growl.

“Don’t shoot it yet,” McKay answered, trying to smooth the squeak that was still very present in his voice.

"But, Sheppard said...."

“I said, don't shoot it! Not until it's low enough to the ground that you can just clip a wing without blowing it all to hell. There’s a better chance that we’ll save the buffer that way. I know what Sheppard said, but there are people on that dart, and we need to try!" He started typing something quickly into his tablet as he spoke, looking for something new he could try to take down the other ship. "Oh, and as for the chairs…I don’t think the Thermopylae was necessarily made to get into dogfights with darts, so seatbelts probably weren’t a consideration.”

“I don’t think it was made to do what you’re doing with it either,” Ronon muttered. The Satedan looked around at the bridge, noting some of the burnt out consoles and screens, which had exploded when the dart had hit them originally. “We need those?”

“I don’t know. One of them was obviously controlled the cloak. Not sure what the others are right now.” McKay gave a shaky sounding sigh as he returned his hands to the chairs controls and pressed them forward, working on even more speed, believing it to be their main advantage against the more maneuverable dart. All around him, the screens showed the smaller Wraith ship heading, once more, straight in their direction.  The Thermopylae, still programmed to evade, shifted around from side to side like a skier on a Slalom course to avoid the dart’s weapons as they accelarated....

"McKay," Ronon said worriedly, watching the dart's rapid approach, his fingers curling again to grab at the console as the Thermopylae swerved in response. "I don't want to go upside down again."

McKay frowned. Neither did he. Damn it, where was Sheppard when you needed him? He had to...he had to...he could do this. Flying was physics and math—he could outthink that dart, damn it! Mentally trying to kickstart his brain again, he tried to guess both the darts speed and trajectory based on the screens in front of him. The dart's direction was obvious—it wanted to get to the clearing. The Thermopylae was just in its way. So, maybe he could...attack from another direction?

“Okay," he said, swallowing thickly, letting up on the controls for a second to tap away rapidly on his tablet, "I’m, um, I’m going to try to get on top of it, force it down, so you can fire on it.”

“How?” Ronon asked, not hiding the clear distrust in his voice.

"I just have to think of," McKay winced a little as they swerved very hard to the right, and he had to grab the tablet to keep it on his lap, "something...."

"You're not Sheppard, McKay. You really think you can do this?"

"I don't know, but it would have been a hell of a lot easier if it couldn't see us!" Rodney snapped back defensively. Ronon just growled at the implied blame, and turned his head back to the screen.

"I didn't think that firing that missile—"

"Oh, forget it!" McKay snapped, then his tone softened abruptly, "I didn't mean it." He finished inputting a new set of flying patterns into the ship's computer via the tablet, and put his hands on the controls again. The dart was pretty damn close now.

There was a short pause, then Ronon spoke again. "So," the Satedan looked back at him, eyebrows raised, "what are you going to do?"

McKay didn’t answer…mostly because he wasn’t sure his plan would work. When he’d attacked the two Wraith darts previously, he succeeded mainly by executing maneuvers he’d seen Sheppard execute before in fights with Wraith darts—or rather, programmed the maneuvers into the ship so that it could execute them on his command—but this dart had already seen all those moves. So…

Time to pull from his dreams.

Biting his bottom lip, he pulled hard on the controls to turn the ship to the right, sending it off at an angle. Thankfully, the dart didn’t follow, its single minded focus back on the clearing…and the vulnerable villagers.

"Hang on," he offered softly. Ronon instantly got down and pressed himself up against the console again. His mother hadn't raised a fool.

Pulling hard back to the left, McKay hit the button to cut the engines and powered the front thrusters in reverse, effectively, spinning the back end of the ship around, like a car executing a one eighty on a sheet of ice. Flaring the rear engines again (and ignoring the green look on Ronon’s face at the drop and rise in altitude and speed), he gunned forward, perpendicular now to the dart’s trajectory, and aiming directly for its side…

He pulled up at the last second, and the dart went underneath the silver belly of the Thermopylae.

Ronon stayed down as McKay hit the front thrusters again to shove the dart down…But the thrusters clearly didn’t like to be used at the same time as the rear engines, because the whole ship shuddered with a ferocity that rattled his teeth. It was as if he’d hit the breaks on a Ferrari and gunned the engine at the same time. Emitting a groan, McKay lost sight of the dart on the sensors as the ship spun sickeningly around, the Thermopylae threatening to tear itself to pieces around them.

“MmmccccKKKaaaayyyy!” Ronon stuttered through the shaking, holding on even tighter as more consoles blew in the small room like mini fireworks displays.

The scientist turned off the front thrusters and slowed down the rear engines, trying to get the stability back. The Thermopylae calmed down almost immediately. He whispered a small apology to her as it settled.

Letting out a held breath, the scientist gently banked the ship around and called up the screens again to look for the dart.

It was gone.

“Oh shit,” he muttered, “Where…?”

“There!” Ronon said, pointing off to a screen to McKay’s right. The hologram showed the dart plowing through the tops of trees, but, somehow, not going down. As they watched, it managed to pull itself up, bits of leaves and branches skittering across and off the wings. This Wraith pilot was better than the last two. Damn it!

“Shoot it!” McKay yelled, not caring how desperate his voice sounded. “Shoot it now!”

“Finally!” Ronon shouted back, getting back to his feet and hitting a series of buttons on his console.

Immediately, two missiles erupted forward, and McKay pulled back even more to put the ship in a sort of hover (so as not to be too close). A quick glance to his left showed that the Gate was shut down—Sheppard and Teyla must have succeeded in getting everyone home. He grinned…finally, something had gone right!

“Uh oh,” Ronon whispered softly, calling McKay’s attention back to the screen showing the dart.

“Oh, no,” McKay agreed, his arms stilling on the controls...

The dart had executed its own impressive maneuver, pulling a tight turn around the circumference of the now empty clearing and suddenly aimed right for the Gate. The heat-seekers turned with it. At the same time, the Gate flared to life, the dart’s own internal DHD having opened a new wormhole.

“We have to stop the dart!” Ronon yelled, hitting buttons on the console. “It can’t get through to warn the Hive. They'll just send more!”

McKay’s eyes widened as he saw the two missiles suddenly increased in speed, the tiny engines on them flaring blue as Ronon commanded extra speed.

“No!” McKay yelled, “Wait! Call them off!”

“What?” Ronon turned, “If that dart escapes and—“

"Shut them down!"

"No! I—"

“Too late!” McKay yelled again. "Sheppard! Teyla! Wherever you are, GET DOWN!"

Ronon turned forward to look at the screen…

The first missile hit the dart dead on inside the engine, just as the Wraith ship was just feet from the DHD and only a couple yards from the Stargate. The massive explosion threw the ship up and sideways…half of it taking out the DHD and the rest of the burning engine impacting right into the Gate. The second missile hit a second later, causing an even greater explosion and sending bits of Wraith ship everywhere, hiding the Gate inside a giant fireball of destruction…

___________________________________

CHAPTER TEN: THE FALLOUT

Sheppard picked himself up off the ground, frowning a little and looking around. From McKay’s shout, he’d expected to be surrounded by flames and smoke right now—but the forest was fairly quiet. Only the faint sounds of fire crackling somewhere nearby were audible, and a dull rumble as the ground shuddered slightly underfoot, as if a large tree had just fallen over. Still, nothing major. He assumed that last explosion—which had been close, yes, but not that close—was the third dart going down.

Next to him, Teyla rolled up onto her feet in one fluid motion, her head tilted a little to the side as she also studied her surroundings curiously. He watched as she moved away from him, headed in the direction of the explosion, her every muscle tensed with watchfulness.

He tapped his radio then, looking up through the canopy at the pale blue sky. “McKay? Ronon? You okay?”

“We’re fine,” Ronon’s gruff voice replied.

“We’re so not fine!” McKay snapped in retort. “We’re so far from fine, it’s not even funny!”

“We’re not hurt, the Thermopylae’s still intact, and the dart is down,” Ronon said then, as if to modify his earlier statement. McKay just huffed, obviously not mollified by this.

The colonel’s eyes narrowed for a moment, then he shrugged. Typical McKay doom and gloom, probably because they had almost bit it up there. “Good, so, uh,” Sheppard turned and started to follow Teyla, who was several yards away now, heading at a slow jog towards the Gate. She still had her head tilted, obviously trying to see through the trees. They could clearly see the smoke rising from the explosion ahead of them, rolling up into the sky like the black ash from a bonfire. Sheppard had to admit, there looked to be more than from the first two… “McKay, what was that yell for? Telling us to get down? You sounded like the world was about to end!”

There was no answer to that, causing Sheppard to frown some more.

“Colonel!” Teyla’s voice snapped him back to the present. Looking up, he saw her start to run. Without questioning, he took off after her…then came to an abrupt halt when he saw what had gotten her moving. Teyla herself had stopped on the edge of the clearing, her mouth agape.

The Gate was on the ground, covered in debris from dozens of pieces of filleted dart. The DHD was a smoking husk in front of it, looking like a mushroom with the head burnt off. Even from here they could see…the Gate had snapped off the base, broken by the weight of the ship crashing into it.

Oh Crap.

“McKay,” Sheppard said the name carefully, as if testing it on his tongue, and took a deep breath before asking, in a low, deadly tone, “what the hell happened?”

“We got lucky,” McKay replied, sounding very small all of a sudden. As Sheppard watched, the silver Thermopylae, with some nasty new small gashes in its side and venting something that looked like a yellow gas, floated into view over the clearing.

“Lucky?” Sheppard repeated, looking up at the ship as if he could see through it, “LUCKY? McKay! You destroyed the Gate!”

“Lucky because, the DHD got blown first, cutting power to the Gate just before the ship hit it…”

“Oh yes,” Sheppard snarled. “That makes me feel so much better!”

“I’m just saying…if the Gate had exploded at full power…it could have blown up the entire planet.”

Sheppard said nothing to that, he just stared at the Thermopylae floating serenely overhead.

He was going to kill him, this time. He really was.

Finally, after a few moments, he stated softly again, “You destroyed the Gate, McKay.”

“Technically?” McKay said, and they could hear him swallow over the line, “Ronon did.”

“MCKAY!” Sheppard yelled furiously, absolutely not letting him slough the blame this time. “Damn it all to hell! What were you thinking? Do you realize that’s our way home?”

“It was sort of my fault,” Ronon noted calmly. “If I hadn’t—“

“Stay out of this, Ronon! You weren’t the one in charge!” Sheppard snapped. “Jesus Christ, McKay! All you had to do was destroy one dart. One dart! I could do that in my sleep! You have a superior ship with greater fire power and you waited until the last second to destroy it?! And you have to destroy the Gate in the process?”

“The Daedalus is not far,” Teyla interrupted, watching Sheppard with concern. “They were within range of Atlantis when we left. I’m sure that they can be here quickly. As soon as Elizabeth realizes she cannot dial us back, she will—”

“And in the meantime,” Sheppard flung back, running over her calmness with a busload of fury, “we’ve Wraith on the ground and who knows how many Hive ships on the way, wondering what happened to their scouts! Not to mention a whole mess of villagers we can’t evacuate!” Teyla flinched at his anger, looking away as he continued, “And how about those people still trapped on that other dart, huh? McKay’s just condemned them to death!”

“Oh God,” McKay muttered, obviously having forgotten about the second dart.

“Colonel,” Teyla was frowning now, “I am sure that if Doctor McKay and Ronon had any other alternative—“

“Not now, Teyla,” he ordered. He wasn’t having any of it. He was mad, damn it. “McKay! Land that ship, now!”

“Sure, yes, right,” McKay replied. “I’m putting it down in a clearing about a mile southwest of here, where I landed it before.”

“We’ll meet you there,” Sheppard replied, already heading in that direction at a jog. Behind him, Teyla sighed heavily and started to think about how they were going to break this to the Cutsarkians.

_____________________________________________

McKay settled the ship down softly, almost with reverence. Probably because he wasn’t really paying attention to ‘doing it right’ as it were. Ronon leaned against his console, casting surreptitious glances towards the scientist as McKay started shutting things down once they were on the ground.

Sheppard was being unfair. But then, Sheppard, like Ronon himself, had a habit of reacting before thinking things through.

He just hoped the colonel had allowed a little reason to seep in before he came charging in and started accusing McKay of doing it on purpose. After all…McKay had tried to stop him from increasing the speed on those two missiles.

Ronon pulled himself up a little—time to set that right. “Hey,” he offered, “about what I did….”

“Don’t.” McKay just shook his head, not looking up from whatever he was now tapping into this data tablet on his lap. “It wasn’t your fault.” He stood up from the command chair then, holding the tablet tight in one hand as he did so, and hit a couple more buttons on the arm of the chair.

“Yeah, it was,” Ronon replied, frowning a little. “I fired the missiles, and I sped them up so they’d hit the dart before it went through the Gate. I didn't listen to you when—”

“No, Sheppard was right. I should have had you take it down a lot earlier, just like he told us to." Stepping down off the dais, McKay walked distractedly over to one of the burnt out consoles. “I need to find a way to get the cloak back on,” he said then.

“McKay…”

“You should check the sensors. They’re still on-line. Maybe you can figure out where the Wraith are by combining life signs with the tech sensors. There should be a way." He frowned at the burnt out screens, waving a hand at Ronon. "I'm sure you can figure it out.”

Ronon watched for a moment as McKay knelt down in front of the console he thought controlled the cloak and started to pry open the panel at its base. Then, with a grimace, the Satedan turned around and tried to figure out how to make the sensors work more accurately.

_______________________________________

Sheppard and Teyla ran as fast as they could, following the trajectory of the Thermopylae, but it still took them almost fifteen minutes to reach the ship. With the gate down, the Wraith would probably be pretty interested in the only still flying ship on the planet—even if, right now, it wasn’t really space-worthy. Sheppard had been annoyed when McKay didn’t turn the cloak back on, but then, the rational part of him recalled that it was probably because the cloak had been damaged.

They reached the clearing McKay had landed in without incident, and Sheppard hoped that was because the Wraith on the ground were either up closer to the village or simply too far away to get here quickly. Not about to question their good luck, they headed straight for the closed entrance, Teyla reaching up to tap her radio to ask them to open it.

At almost the same time, the Thermopylae’s surface rippled…and the ship disappeared from view.

“Well done, Rodney,” Teyla said by Sheppard’s side. The colonel gave her a look. She didn’t return it, tapping her radio for real this time.

“Doctor McKay, Ronon, we are outside the ship. Can you…?”

“I’m dropping the stairs now,” Ronon’s disembodied voice floated down from the area where they knew the entrance to be. He must have already opened the door. “Hang on.”

Trying not to appear too impatient, Sheppard turned his back on the ship to scout the area, just in case. He saw Teyla do the same.

“Come on,” Ronon said then, much closer. Turning around again, they saw him half-in, half-out of the cloak, gesturing them inside and up the stairs.

_________________________________________

“I got the sensors to combine Wraith tech signatures with life signs,” Ronon told them as he led the way back to the control room at the front of the ship. “And the range is pretty broad—covering most of this side of the mountain, cutting off at the far end of the village; you know, about where that cliff is." He shrugged a little, "Picked up eight distinct signals—have to be Wraith stunners.”

"Just eight?" Teyla repeated.

"Yeah. Seems we already got most of 'em. Shouldn't be hard to finish 'em off."

Sheppard just grunted, causing Ronon to fall silent as they strode into the white control room, sunlight shining brightly through the windows to augment the lightness of it. The Satedan continued to lead, stepping over some fallen bits of metal to get to a specific sensor station. Teyla frowned at the newly burnt out consoles scattered around, and the ripped open panels with exposed wires. The whiteness of the room had hidden it somewhat, but there was clearly damage here.

Sheppard, though, was only looking for one thing. And he frowned when he didn’t see it.

Rodney wasn’t there.

“Where’s McKay?” Sheppard asked, looking at the Satedan as Ronon hit some buttons on the console. Hologram images depicting the side of the mountain appeared on the screen, along with a bunch of blips. Ronon turned at the question.

“He’s in the engine room. The ship took some damage.” Master of the obvious, that Ronon.

Sheppard studied the control room, “Can the ship fly?”

“Short distances,” Ronon shrugged, “So he said. But not far. Something to do with power levels. I didn’t really get the explanation.”

Teyla narrowed her eyes. “If it can fly, we should move it to another clearing while it is cloaked. The Wraith will probably be looking for it.”

Ronon nodded, not disagreeing. “That’s why he got the cloak back online first. He had to divert power away from something else to do it though.”

“What’s the something else?” Sheppard asked.

Ronon frowned, his brow knotting in annoyance. “Maybe you should just go ask him these questions.”

Sheppard gave a short nod, “Maybe I will.” Turning on his heel, he left back through the doors into the corridor.

Ronon’s brow furrowed. “Sheppard, wait…” But he was too slow.

_________________________________________________

Teyla watched the colonel leave, then moved the rest of the way to join Ronon at his station, her eyes studying the downturned face. The Satedan had sighed heavily when he didn’t manage to stop the colonel, and now leaned with his back against the console, looking down at the floor.

"Are you all right?" she asked quietly. Ronon gave an almost imperceptible shrug in reply, then shook his head.

"It's nothing." He lowered his head more, dark eyes tracing the patterns in the metal grate flooring. Teyla just nodded, accepting the non-answer for now. Standing next to him, she looked up at the 3D images floating around them, and smiled, impressed despite herself.

“You did this?” she asked, gesturing to the screens.

“Huh?” Ronon answered, looking at her, then turning fully to peer at the screens above his station. “Oh, yeah. Kinda. McKay started it."

Teyla studied the arrays for a moment, before arching an eyebrow at Ronon. "What are we looking at?"

"Life signs, mostly. The Wraith are the red ones. Look,” he pointed to a series of red dots burning steadily away on one side of the screen. "I figure those five dots on the far side of the village are waiting for something, though I'm not sure what. These two, on the other hand...” he trailed off, showing the two steadily moving red dots headed in their direction.

“Are coming here,” Teyla nodded. She tilted her head at the blue dots sprinkled liberally within the village confines. One of the stationary red dots was surrounded by blue. “What are those blue dots?”

“General life signs not carrying Wraith tech,” Ronon replied. "Those are the villagers." He frowned, pointing to the one lone red dot surrounded by blue inside the village. “I’m hoping this Wraith is either dead, or tied up somehow.”

“That’s Innis,” Teyla said, smiling a little. “I gave her a Wraith stunner, although I don't think she really wants to use it.”

“Oh,” Ronon nodded. “Gotcha.”

They studied the map for a moment, before Ronon shrugged. “I say we go after the Wraith on the ground. Take care of them. Then let McKay fix this ship. Maybe he can get it fixed well enough so that, if a Hive does come, we can do some damage. If not, maybe it can at least get us off this planet.”

Teyla nodded, looking around at the still elegant interior, despite the damage. “I would love to take this ship back to Atlantis,” she said wistfully. “But if we can not…I would be just as pleased if it killed as many Wraith as it could.” She gave a dark smile, and saw it matched on her friend’s face. Then Ronon's smile fell as he turned around again, looking out the door leading to the central corridor.

Teyla saw him looking, and turned herself.

"Rodney can take care of himself," she assured the Satedan. "The colonel is angry, yes, but you know how Rodney reacts to anyone angry with him. He simply gets angry right back." She gave a small smile. "I am sure there is a good reason for what happened."

“Yeah, but," Ronon grimaced, looking at her, "you gotta understand—wasn’t McKay's fault. I fired the missiles.”

“I had guessed as much,” Teyla nodded. “But that does not matter…if it was Rodney who told you when to fire.”

Ronon grimaced, “Yeah, he did, but…”

“I know,” Teyla soothed, patting him on the arm.

“No,” Ronon shook his head, his eyes narrowing in annoyance. “I don’t think you do. You would have listened.”

That earned him a puzzled look, but Ronon didn’t respond to it. He just turned around, his attention back on the sensors.

________________________________________

McKay was kneeling in front of the power control panel Teyla had read for him earlier, arms deep inside the machinery. He was fiddling with something Sheppard couldn’t see when he reached the doors to the massive engine room, but the expression on McKay's face suggested it wasn't pretty.

Pausing, the colonel simply stood at the top of the dozen or so steps leading down to the main floor below, content for the moment to just watch the scientist work. McKay was his usual diligent self, pulling crystals and examining conduits and messing with wires with efficiency and confidence.

The colonel breathed to calm down the anger still roiling inside. He knew it was mostly irrational anger, that his emotions had gotten the better of him upon seeing the Gate destroyed, but…

After counting to ten, he started down the stairs and took a more careful look around, grimacing at the sight of more burnt out panels and the smell of cooling metal. Something was whirring softly, and he realized that there must be invisible fans inside the engine turbines he couldn’t see, cooling them down. The Thermopylae had been put through the wringer.

“McKay,” he called as he reached the bottom, stepping around a console in order to get to the man on the ground.

Rodney leaned out of the panel, looked up at him, frowned, then returned his attention to his work.

“Colonel,” he greeted coolly.

“McKay, I—“

“I think I’ve figured out a way to save those people in the second downed dart,” McKay interrupted quickly, not bothering to meet Sheppard’s eyes as he spoke, arms once more deep into the machinery. “I think I can connect the dart’s buffer to the main power supply on the Thermopylae. There’s a singular power conduit in this ship’s version of a mess hall that I can hook it up to. It won’t be enough to release the people trapped, but it will be enough to stop the signals inside from degenerating.”

Sheppard frowned, momentarily forgetting that he’d come here to yell at McKay under the sheer weight of the information that had just been thrown at him. Worst of all, only one thing really stuck out… “There’s a mess hall?”

McKay rolled his eyes a little, “Yes. There are three levels, remember? The central level, with the big corridor you just came down, then a level above and a level below.” He pointed as he spoke, showing doors with ladders leading up to them high up on the main wall, and two doors on this level even with the floor—all were closed and dark. “The bottom level is mostly one big room—hence mess hall.”

“Oh, right,” Sheppard nodded, remembering that they still hadn’t really had a chance to explore the ship at all, “I didn’t remember that.”

“Yeah, well, anyway,” McKay’s focus was back on the guts of the console, “once I’ve got enough power going to the mess, we can go get that buffer from the dart. Hook it up.”

Sheppard just nodded, then tilted his head, “Speaking of power, Ronon said there was something wrong with the power levels so that we couldn’t fly this ship too far.”

McKay grimaced, and a flush crept up his throat, as if embarrassed, “Yeah. A couple of the dart’s weapons fire managed to impact the main power coils. Took some of them out. I didn’t realize how much power was lost until it was over. It wasn’t helped by the fact that the shield device covering that big hole in the side expanded to fill every new hole that dart made…though I still don’t understand why. Anyway, it just drained more and more power. With main power so low, I don’t think we’re going to be able to fly this thing off this planet unless we want to fly without most of the systems operating, like artificial gravity and life support…”

“Or long range sensors or weapons....”

“Yeah.”

“But…it could, if push came to shove?”

McKay just grimaced, “Maybe. I’d have to do some serious rewiring though. And there’d be no life support anywhere but controls and back here, not even in the corridor joining the two. Make a long trip really horrifically awful—especially if we're going to try to cram a bunch of people in here.”

“But, don’t we have a hyperdrive? How long would it be?”

McKay shook his head, “We can’t risk using it with all the damage to the hull. I’m not even sure the ship would let us go that fast, knowing the strain it would put on the shields—if I can get them to behave. At best…we’ll be able to limp along at medium thrust. Meaning…slow. It could take a week just to get to the next solar system.”

“Hunh. How long to get to a solar system with a gate?”

McKay stopped working for a moment, his hands stilling on the wires, his eyes shifting around as if reading something inside his head…

“Two systems over,” he said finally. “P3G-112. It’s two systems over.”

“How long?”

“Three weeks. I’m not sure we have enough power to get that far, though.”

“Well…There’s the Daedalus. If we can contact it through subspace communications, which I’m guessing this ship has, it can come and get us wherever we go. It may be that, just getting off this planet to another that can support life with as many people as we can carry might be the way to go.”

McKay grimaced, but didn’t disagree. Neither spoke again for a few minutes. McKay shifted deeper into the console, so that more of his body was hidden.

“Sounds like a plan, then,” Sheppard said, dispelling the uncomfortable silence. When McKay didn't look up or lean out from the panel to face him again, he sank down next to him on one knee, crossing his arms over the bent leg.

And then didn’t say anything again for a few minutes. He realized he didn't know what to say.

For some reason, Sheppard no longer wanted to yell at McKay. Blaming the man was second nature, because McKay took it. Even if it wasn't his fault, the scientist accepted blame as quickly and as deeply as he took praise. His ego was just that big.

But Sheppard knew, deep down, this wasn't McKay's fault. The scientist had been out of his depth. He had asked him to do something McKay just wasn't skilled at, or even prepared for—he wasn't a pilot and he wasn't a soldier and this ship...wasn't a jumper.

The mistake, as always, was his own. He should never have ordered Ronon and Rodney to the Thermopylae. They should have found another way.

Rodney continued to fiddle, his hands moving quickly and efficiently inside the panel. The only indication that he even knew the Colonel was still there was the small furrow of his brow whenever he accidentally met Sheppard's eyes as he worked. At one point, he shifted more deeply into the guts of the console, and, unhappily, Sheppard knew it was so he wouldn't be able to see the colonel anymore.

At one point, Rodney muttered a small "ow" and Sheppard smiled when McKay shook out his right hand.

"You okay?"

"Pinched my finger," Rodney replied, pushing out from the console and putting his right index finger to his lips to blow on it. "Hate that. I think the Ancients must have had smaller fingers. Probably related to those same people who invented the 'some assembly required' furniture. You know the kind—where only if your fingers are half the size but twice as strong could you possible get the screw into the right place?" He snorted, peered back into the panel, sighed, then slid back in.

"Yeah," Sheppard nodded. "I know the kind." He waited a second longer, then sighed. "Look, Rodney..." he bit his lip for a second, then plowed on, "I'm sorry I yelled."

"Oh God," Rodney muttered, deflating a little inside the console. "You're kidding. That's why you're still here? To apologize?"

Sheppard's brow furrowed. "Yeah," he said, not hiding that he was affronted by that response. "Look, I was kinda pissed off, what with the whole," he waved a hand, "gate destruction thing, and—"

"So you yelled at me." McKay's jaw flexed as he pulled out a crystal from the console, looked at it, then placed it on the floor before reaching in for another. "What else is new?"

Sheppard pursed his lips, his annoyance growing, "Okay, fine. Yes. I yelled at you. Though...you kinda deserved it, you know. I mean, you have to admit, it wasn't your best moment, McKay. I know you were probably doing what you thought was best, but you should've thought ahead more. Thought about what was—"

"I know," McKay ground out. "You don't have to coddle me, Colonel." He leaned out from the panel, staring unwaveringly at Sheppard. "I should have let Ronon take down the dart earlier. I know."

Sheppard stared at him, taking that in, then his eyes narrowed slightly.

"So you could have?" he asked coldly. "You had the opportunity?" He hadn't been certain of that until this moment. He'd just assumed that events had gotten away from Ronon and McKay, that they'd been outmaneuvered and that was why the Gate had been destroyed.

McKay met his gaze for a few seconds, then looked away, his features losing their previous confidence. "Yeah," he gave a nod, and picked at a crystal he'd placed on his stomach. "There was a point when the dart was vulnerable. We could have taken it down. Ronon even asked me if he could fire. I told him not to."

Sheppard frowned, and all the anger he'd managed to quell surged back to the fore. "So...you actually deliberately ignored what I said to you, what I ordered you to do."

McKay grimaced, but didn't deny it. He just steeled his jaw and he placed the crystal on the floor by his side with the others.

Sheppard's eyes blazed and he stood back up like a shot. "God damn it, McKay! What the hell were you thinking? You knew the dart could dial the Gate, and you knew it would probably try to escape the moment it had the chance! And you didn't fire?"

McKay shut his eyes, then opened them again. "I...I was..." he took in a sharp breath, "I was trying to save the people on the dart. I thought if I could just—"

"Well, you were wrong, weren't you? You were wrong and I was right. You should have listened to me."

McKay's clenched his jaw so tightly at that, it looked like it might snap. The blue eyes regained some of their defiance as he met the other man's glare. "So I made a mistake. It’s not like it's my first."

"So you made a mistake?" Sheppard repeated, sneering over the words. "That's all you have to say? Damn it, McKay, do you think I order you to do things for my health? You should have taken down the dart the moment you had the chance, but no, you had to try to prove that you're—"

"I get it!" McKay shouted at the colonel, glaring at him again, his blue eyes shimmering a little. "I said I was wrong," he added more quietly, turning back to the console. He blinked and put his hands back on the crystals inside the panel. "Look," he said, even more quietly, "I need to finish getting the power back on to the rest of the ship now, so we can maybe save those people in that second dart and get off this planet, so, uh...could you leave me alone now? I'm sort of tired of being yelled at."

Sheppard's eyebrows furrowed, "Tired of being yelled at?" He snorted, "That's rich, coming from you." He leaned back on his heels, crossing his arms as he glared down at the other man. "No. I'm not going anywhere until I know you've gotten my point."

"And what point is that, exactly?" McKay asked snidely.

"That you're a jackass, and if you're going to take charge of things, you need to think about more than just how cool the technology is  and how to be the biggest hero!"

That earned a moment of complete and utter silence. Finally, after the air in the engine room cooled from hot to freezing (at least in Sheppard's mind), McKay leaned out from the console and fixed the colonel with a stare so stone cold the colonel almost backed up a step.

"Tell you what," McKay lifted his eyebrows, no inflection in his voice at all, "how about, when we get home, you can belittle me as much as you like. Tell me just how childish it was of me to think I could fly this thing without you, and tell everyone that, once again, McKay screwed everything up because of his unmitigated ego and lots of people died. Better yet, tell them how it wouldn't have happened had you been the one flying. How, had it been you, everyone would have been saved. Because that's what you were going to say, right? Well I give you free rein. I don't care. But right now, I need to finish doing this work. So how about you run along back to your fellow heroes and let me be, huh?" And with that, he slid himself so deeply into the console, that he was literally nothing but legs.

The colonel drew himself up tight, arms pressed so hard into his chest, his triceps started to hurt.

Fine. McKay wanted to play it this way? Then he'd play.

"Sure, okay, Rodney," he said. "If that's what you want, then that's what you'll get."

"Great," McKay snarled from inside the console. "Fantastic."

"Couldn't be happier to oblige," Sheppard sneered.

"I'm sure," McKay answered, still not showing his face.

Sheppard shut his eyes and gritted his teeth. He did not need the last word. Turning on his heel, he strode away from McKay, aiming for the stairs without looking back.

“Colonel Sheppard, Doctor McKay,” Teyla’s voice called over the ship’s communication system, slowing Sheppard mid-step. “We have a problem.”

“Not another one,” McKay sighed heavily, pushing himself up out of the console. Sheppard was already jogging back to the stairs leading up to the central corridor.

“What kind of problem?” the colonel called, taking the steps two at a time.

“We were tracking two Wraith, believing them to be on their way here, but we were wrong. They are at the crashed dart that Doctor McKay and Ronon were looking at before.” She sounded far, far too calm.

“Oh, crap,” Sheppard muttered, running faster now. He was most of the way back to the control room. The sound of boots running along metal let him know that McKay wasn’t that far behind.

“Oh,” Teyla sounded strange, as she obviously saw something she didn’t like.

“What does ‘oh’ mean?” McKay demanded, huffing a little as he spoke.

Sheppard reached the main doors to the control room, and ran up to where Ronon and Teyla were staring up at the screens around Ronon’s station.

A cluster of red dots were gathered in one area—presumably where the dart was.

“What is that?” Sheppard asked, taking in a deep breath. “Wraith?” He counted the dots—there were at least six. “I thought you said you were just tracking two?”

“We were,” Ronon answered darkly. He turned to look at McKay, who came panting up alongside Sheppard, his brow furrowed as he looked at the same screen. “The Wraith somehow released their people from the buffer that Doctor McKay said couldn’t be used.”

“It couldn’t!” McKay insisted, his eyes wide. “I don’t…I don’t know how….”

“There are no other life signs,” Teyla noted, frowning. “Should there not also be blue life signs showing up if everyone was released from the dart?”

“McKay,” Sheppard frowned, “was there enough power to release just a few people, but not all?”

The scientist was staring at the screen, his eyes blinking away. Finally he looked down, his facing paling. “I didn’t think of that,” he admitted softly. Radek had found that out the very first time they released anyone from a dart’s buffer that you could release just one life sign at a time, if you could pinpoint it. Unfortunately for McKay and Lieutenant Cadman, Radek’s attempt to separate the life signs hadn’t been that accurate. The Wraith, on the other hand...

“The Wraith must have a means to distinguish their life signs from the rest,” Rodney said morosely as he wrapped his arms around himself. “I didn’t know they could do that. They freed their own, and left the rest inside.”

Sheppard’s jaw clenched, but, really, he couldn’t blame McKay for that one.

“What about the other people who were trapped?” Ronon asked, looking perplexed by the idea.

“Releasing those few Wraith from the buffer would have used all the power,” McKay said, not looking up. “The rest…all those trapped people…are gone.”

Teyla closed her eyes. Ronon looked furious. Sheppard had gone cold, turning his eyes to look out the windows at the blue sky. McKay still stared at the floor.

"They're moving away from the crashed dart," Ronon said then, his eyes still on the screen. Sheppard turned his eyes back, noting the gathering of red dots was, in fact moving. But not in the direction they expected.

"Why aren't they coming here?" McKay wondered next to him, obviously surprised. "Surely they saw the ship land?"

"The culling beam takes a lot out of you, even if you're a Wraith," Ronon growled, his eyes narrowed. "They're headed back to the village, probably to join the others and...."

"To feed," Teyla finished quietly. "Get back their full strength."

"Damn it," Sheppard said, bristling. His back straightened, hand unconsciously tightening on the P90 attached to his vest.

"Wait," McKay said, his eyes getting that deer in headlights look of his, "I just thought of another reason. They could be looking to find the other Wraith still on the ground, to do that mind thing they do," McKay tapped his skull then pointed to the sky, "to call for help. There are eleven of them now—that could be enough. If there are any Hive ships in the area..." He trailed off, not needing to finish the statement.

“Sheppard,” the Satedan turned to the colonel. “Permission to go and kill those Wraith in the most painful way possible.”

Sheppard snorted, then smiled thinly. “Granted.”

“Um,” McKay lifted a hand, “If we can spare a minute, I might have something that can help. I noticed on the ship’s schematics that the Thermopylae," he pointed behind him, "has a small armory….”

______________________________________________

CHAPTER ELEVEN: THE LOWER DECK

The armory was on the lower level, which they accessed through the floor hatches in the control room. On alert, because they’d yet to explore down here, Teyla led the way with her P90, moving slowly but confidently down the stairs to the floor below....

According to McKay, the lower floor was accessed by two narrow hallways, one on the port side and one on the starboard side. He told Sheppard that they functioned a little like the corridors on a 747—just without the fear of being run over by the drinks cart. Teyla just shook her head at that, hoping she never found out exactly what dangerous beast a drinks cart was.

Waving a hand over the panel to open the door leading to the portside corridor, Teyla grimaced as the powerful smell of mold and dust assaulted her senses. Curiously, unlike the central floor, control room and engine room…it actually smelled old down here. She guessed it had to do with the damaged hull—the ancient hole in the side would have affected this level more than the others.

She moved into the corridor, which was dark gunmetal grey in color, and a lot less attractive than the whitewashed central floor. It was far more utilitarian…and a little depressing.

Moving forward, she glanced at the numerous doors on her right, recognizing that they were probably just small, shallow closets. In contrast, on the left were only three wide doors. The first clearly read “Armory” in Athosian. Glancing down at the other two doors, she saw the word for “Kitchen” on the first and, even further down, “Gathering Hall” on the last—which was obviously the ‘mess hall’ Rodney had told her about earlier.

Waving her hand over the panel for the armory, the door slid open quietly to reveal…an almost empty room.

“Oh,” McKay’s voice was thick with disappointment, pushing past her to look around more carefully. "Damn."

“Doesn’t look like they left anything behind,” Ronon confirmed, walking in past Teyla—who still stood on the threshold—and stalking down one wall of nearly empty shelves. He picked up a couple of left behind objects, then put them down again. Obviously nothing of note.

“Keep looking,” Sheppard ordered as he too walked inside past Teyla. “We could use any help we can get. We’ve got maybe two clips left each that we got from Lorne’s team—it won’t be enough to kill the…how many Wraith were there?”

“At least eleven now,” Teyla said, moving out of the room and back into the hall. "Six near the crashed dart, and five on the far side of the village."

"Right," Sheppard shifted past the disappointed looking McKay to get to some boxes on a far wall. "Maybe there's some ordinance at least...."

Teyla lowered her head for a moment, listening to them banging away inside, then turned to look down at the other doors. Something felt odd, leaving a tingling along her spine, but she couldn't pinpoint what exactly. It just...for the first time, she felt like they were intruding somehow....

Walking quietly down the corridor, she stopped at the door to the kitchen and waved her hand over the panel.

Nothing happened.

She frowned, and tried again.

Still nothing happened.

The frown deepening on her face, she moved a little further and waved a hand over the panel for the mess hall.

Still nothing.

"Rodney?" she called, backing away. "Something is wrong with these doors."

"What?" he called back.

"I can not get the doors to the mess hall or kitchen to open," she answered. She looked back towards the armory in time to see his head pop out. He studied her for a second, as if questioning why she was even bothering, then curiosity overran reason and he came sauntering out, reaching her side quickly.

As she had done, he waved a hand over the panel to open the mess, but it didn't respond. Emitting a "hunh" of interest, he pulled out his scanner and ran it over the door.

"There's power," he muttered to himself softly, "so...why isn't it working...?" He tapped at the screen for a second, then waved it over the panel again. "Oh."

"Oh?" she repeated.

"There's a lock," he informed her, tilting his head.

She frowned, "Why?"

"I don't know." He frowned, put the scanner away, then dug his nails into the almost invisible seam around the panel. With a grunt, he pulled it off...revealing a series of crystals. He stared at it for a moment, then frowned. "Hang on...."

He pulled the scanner out again, then tapped something into the tiny screen. "Okay," he said, his tone still distracted, "I get it."

"What?" Teyla asked.

"The lock on the door is released using the same code I hacked to get to the black box. Whatever is inside, they wanted it protected until someone came along who could..." he trailed off, frowning.

"Who could...what?" she prompted.

"I don't know. Finish whatever the crew started, before they had to evacuate?"

"But they never finished their mission," Teyla noted. "They never reached the Lantean space station."

"I know," McKay frowned, sighed, then hit some more buttons. A second later, he waved his hand over the panel again...and this time it opened.

And both people froze.

The mess hall...had been turned into a morgue.

"By the Ancestors," Teyla breathed, stepping forward to the threshold, her eyes trailing across the large, plain room. It was cool inside—apparently the cloak was not the only thing that had been left running when the ship was evacuated. It also felt heavy in here, like someone was pressing down on her shoulders, forcing her to work a little harder to move forward.

"Well," McKay said softly after a moment, making no move to follow her inside, "now we know what happened to the crew that didn't survive the crash."

Every table had a sheet on it, and under every sheet was the unmistakable form of a body. There were also bodies on the floor, and some on benches. They had tags on them, presumably identification tags. Atop each body, at about chest level, was a small glowing, blue object that reminded her of the personal shield device once used by Rodney...

"What are...?" she gestured at the device on the nearest body.

"They're devices to hold the bodies still, and to help preserve them...a little like a stasis field," Rodney answered, his tone morose. "There were several found in the room next to the crematorium on Atlantis." He swallowed, and lifted his hand to look down at his scanner. "It's amazing they're still running. I'm sure they were never intended to last this long."

Teyla didn't respond, realizing it really didn't matter.

Moving into the room slowly, she walked slowly up to the first table, glancing at the outline of the face hidden by the white sheet, then to the tag on the chest, written in Athosian. Her breath stilled in her chest as she saw the symbol above the words—a green triangle, in the center of which was an eight pointed star. Licking her dry lips, she read the words below the symbol—the symbol of the Thermopylae.

Andrea Slocum, Engineer, died honorably in battle. Survived by a husband, Belem, and two children, Deering and Duykfen.

She swallowed thickly, stepping over to the next table, and the next sheet covered body.

Halling Elhorria, Second Officer, died honorably in battle. Survived by a wife, Ismay, and a son, Linton.

With a frown at the familiar first name, she moved on to the next.

Captain Leyda Emeras, Captain of the Thermopylae, died honorably in battle. Survived by a husband, Thayer.

"Teyla," McKay called softly, and she could hear the worry in his voice.

Teyla didn't answer, moving to the next table. This one carried the mark of Atlantis on the tag instead of the white star, and, instead of Athosian, the tag was written in Ancient.

Donal Magay, Lantean Science Officer, Ship-Builder and co-creator of the Thermopylae. Died honorably in battle.

"Teyla," Rodney called again. "We need to get going."

She glanced back at him, lowered her gaze, and gave a small nod. With a far more somber air than he had ever seen her carry, she walked quietly back to his side in the hallway. He shut the door behind her.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly, watching her with concern.

Her brow furrowed slightly as she looked up at him. "For what?"

"Well," he grimaced, "I mean....they're...your people."

She gave a tiny smile, "It is not as if I knew them, Rodney."

"I know," he said, clearly struggling. "Just, you looked...you know...sad."

Her smile grew, "It is all right, Rodney. I am fine."

"Hey, you two!" Sheppard said, grinning as he walked out from the armory and waving at them. "We found something which I'm pretty sure are grenades. Meaning, we have some extra oomph!"

Teyla met his gaze, and Sheppard's grin faltered, aware that he must have just missed something. When he frowned, opening his mouth to ask what the matter was, she cut him off with a raised hand.

"Shall we?" she asked, hefting the P90 in her hand.

_________________________________________

CHAPTER TWELVE: DOWN TO THE WIRE

McKay followed Sheppard closely as they made their way through the thick forest, too tired to try to walk with any sort of stealth. Not that he could walk with stealth when he wasn't tired, especially not uphill, but it was the thought that counted. As he trudged along, his eyes went back and forth between his feet and his hand held scanner, which was currently displaying sensor readings downloaded from the Thermopylae, providing the location of the Wraith. The signal connecting the two wasn't strong, and faded in and out, but McKay easily got it back again every time it dropped.

Ahead of them, Ronon did all the stealth for them, leading the way by a significant distance, following his senses, moving fluidly through the trees without a moment's hesitation. He seemed to know where he was going by instinct alone—McKay's hand signaled directions only seemed to confirm Ronon's direction rather than actually pointing him anywhere. Made McKay wonder why he even bothered coming along. His control of the scanner was the only reason he was with them and not back fixing the ship, and right now he wasn't sure it was a good enough reason.

Teyla moved quietly behind, covering their six, also moving with almost no noise. He glanced back at her, frowning a little at the coolness of her features. She seemed even more distant than normal, which worried him. He knew what they had seen in the ship's mess hall had affected her, despite her words, but he didn't really know why. More to the point, he didn't know how to make it better.

Next to him, Sheppard was fairly stealthy, though how he managed to be stealthy and 'laid back' at the same time was a mystery to Rodney. It was also pure Sheppard. He could tell that colonel was still angry with him—could see it in the way he held his head and fixed his jaw—but there wasn't anything he could do about that either. As with Teyla, McKay couldn’t see any way to fix it. But, different from Teyla...this time he knew it was his fault. Sheppard had put his faith in him...and once again, he'd failed.

And now they were trapped.

Because of him.

Meaning, not only could his team die, but a whole lot of innocent people could be killed, culled...their planet destroyed. Because of him.

Ironic, really. He'd been so sure they were walking into a trap on this planet. Trap, trap, trap, he muttered in Sheppard's ear, almost as if he'd willed it into being. He had accused innocent people and his team of leading him into danger. Turned out, the biggest danger on this planet...had been Rodney McKay.

And Sheppard's trust has been broken again. Once was bad enough, and it had taken a long time to get it back again. This time, though...this time...he didn't know if Sheppard would give him a third chance.

Christ, why had he argued back in the engine room? He hadn't meant to. He'd meant to let Sheppard yell, for the colonel to get it out of his system, knowing that Sheppard didn't really mean it, and would forget why he was angry pretty quickly, as the colonel always did. But...instead, he had snapped right back. Almost egging the colonel on, wanting Sheppard to know just how badly he'd screwed up. Why couldn't he control his mouth? Why did he always get so angry? Probably because Sheppard hadn't started off yelling...he'd started off apologizing. It had thrown him off...

That and the thought that, if a Hive came now, they would have nowhere to hide. They'd all die. Captive and trapped.

Trap, trap, trap.

He swallowed, looking around at the surroundings...and tripped on a root. He returned his attention to his feet and the scanner.

Focus, McKay.

"Stay focused, McKay," Sheppard said in front of him, frostily, and Rodney shivered at the mental echo.

How was he going to make this better?

"We're almost to the crashed dart McKay and I were looking at earlier," Ronon informed them in a whisper, speaking over the radio instead of calling back to them. Sheppard grunted acknowledgement, showing he understood with a thumbs up. McKay looked down at the scanner again.

And then he stopped.

Sheppard stopped next to him, frowning. Up ahead, Ronon stopped as well.

"What?" the colonel asked, moving closer to McKay. "Wraith?"

McKay didn't answer, just started fiddling with the scanner, narrowing its range and changing it's parameters slightly. Something had flashed, briefly, in the near vicinity. It had disappeared again almost immediately, but there had been something there.

"How far are we from the dart?" he asked finally, looking through the trees to Ronon who had sidled back into hearing range.

"We're close," the Satedan replied, jerking his head in a certain direction and McKay looked that way as if he could see through the trees. "Less than a hundred yards," Ronon added. McKay could easily see the frown on his face as the tall man moved closer. "I thought you said all the Wraith had moved on."

"They have, or at least," Rodney looked down at his scanner, "all the Wraith tech attached to a life sign has moved on. At least...I thought that was the case...."

Sheppard pushed closer, looking down at the small device in McKay's hand. "What the hell does that mean? Have you made a mistake?" The again wasn't spoken, but McKay heard it anyway.

"No," McKay ground out, stifling his annoyance at the question. He fiddled with the scanner some more, changing the parameters even more, and the light flashed again on the screen. "But...." And then he understood. It was power. "Oh my God." Without even thinking, he bounced up onto his toes and started to run. Ronon was immediately on alert, looking around, as if expecting to be attacked at any second...and McKay blew right past him, running straight for the faint red dot on the screen that he'd managed to strengthen. It was so faint...

The others caught up quickly, easily, and Ronon soon understood McKay's intent...and ran ahead.

In seconds, they were at the crashed dart, and McKay was up on the wing, holding onto the damaged upper half and pointing the scanner at the buffer.

"There's still power here," he said breathlessly, panting heavily from the run. He smiled dumbly when he saw Sheppard leaning to peer inside from the other side, the colonel's expression uncertain. Teyla and Ronon circled the area, weapons raised and ready—everyone was on edge.

"Power?" Sheppard's eyebrows lifted, "But you said—"

"It's practically non-existent. Almost like...like the echo of a shout, fading quickly. But it's there. The people inside this thing...they might still be saved." McKay was breathing faster now, his eyes wide. Sheppard stared at him, frowning.

"But—"

"I need to take the buffer out now, take it back to the Thermopylae, and—"

"McKay, no. We need you and the scanner to help us pinpoint the—"

"I'll show you how to use it," Rodney insisted, already pushing himself up higher on the wing in order to slide into the damaged area. "It's easy. It's just like using the life signs detector mode, just with a few extra filters."

Sheppard shook his head, "I don't want you on your own, McKay. If you get attacked getting back to the ship, then none of us will ever get off this planet."

Rodney frowned, looking down at the buffer, then up again. He understood—really he did. Sheppard wanted him close to keep on an eye on him, with good reason.

But it wasn't enough to quell the need inside him to save the people trapped in this buffer. If he could...he had to try.

He had to do something right today. This was something he could fix!

"Please," he said. "Please let me do this."

"No," Sheppard said, backing away from the ruined ship. Rodney watched him go. "Not this time, McKay. There's no time. We can't risk it."

"I'll be okay," Rodney promised. "It'll—"

"I said no."

"Sheppard."

"I'm not saying it again, McKay."

Rodney stared at him, refusing to let up his gaze. Sheppard had moved around the dart and was now standing at the base of the broken wing on which McKay was balanced.

"Let's go," the colonel stated.

McKay's jaw set. "No."

"Damn it, Rodney," Sheppard hissed, stepping closer, "We don't have time for this."

"I know." And with that, McKay grabbed at the edges of the dart and climbed into the wreckage—hissing a little when he cut his shin on a piece of jagged metal. Just another cut. He had enough of them—what was one more?

"McKay!"

But Rodney was already inside, crouched down in front of the damaged buffer, running the scanner over it. He didn't look up, just found the power points and pulled out his knife.

"What are you doing?" Ronon snapped in annoyance from somewhere out beyond the ship. "We need to go!"

"Let him work," Teyla hissed quietly in response. There was a stiffness to her voice, one which seemed to quell any answer from the Satedan.

Sheppard just huffed in annoyance from somewhere near McKay's head. He had obviously climbed up on the wing and was watching Rodney.

The scientist worked efficiently and ruthlessly, cutting cords and slicing through the dart's organic innards. Finally, he turned and looked up at Sheppard. As he suspected, the colonel was glaring down at him from a few feet away, crouched on the wing. McKay looked down at the scanner he'd placed by his leg—he didn't need it anymore. Lifting it up, he changed the settings on it back to where they had been before—connected to the Thermopylae's sensors—then looked up again at Sheppard.

"Catch," he said, tossing it. The colonel caught it one handed and looked down at it. McKay cleared his throat, "It works in essentially the same way as when it is a life signs detector, but be aware that it isn't anywhere near as precise or accurate. Fact is, it's picking up a lot of interference from all the tech on this world—ours included. So, anytime the screen seems to fade in and out on you, or loses specificity, or you think it's not taking correct readings, adjust it as if you were changing the settings for distance on the life signs detector. Like I said, it's easy."

Sheppard grimaced.

"Take it and go," McKay said then. "I'll be fine. We know where all the Wraith are and there's no darts to worry about anymore—I won't be in any danger going back to the Thermopylae alone."

"You can't be totally sure of that," the colonel said quietly.

"I'm ninety-nine percent sure," Rodney replied quickly, looking again at the buffer. "And these people don't have time anymore for us to argue about it. You need to go and protect the Cutsarkians in the village, and I need to do something to save these trapped people."

"McKay," the colonel said firmly, his gaze still on the handheld, "If you don't climb out of there right now, I'll—"

"Damn it, Colonel, don't you get it?" Rodney stressed suddenly, gripping the edges of the buffer to pull it out. "I can save them!" He stared up at Sheppard, willing him to understand. "Please! I can save them."

The hazel eyes lifted slowly from the scanner, focusing on the crouched scientist.

"I can save them," McKay repeated almost at a whisper. "Please."

Sheppard just met the other man's gaze, then shut his eyes, turning his head away.

"Please," McKay begged, one more time. He didn't deserve it, he knew. He didn't deserve the Colonel's trust that he could do this. Didn't deserve a third chance.

But this wasn't about him anymore. It was about the people inside the buffer.

"Colonel," he let out a shaking breath, "I can do this. You know I can. I can save them. Please...Trust me."

The colonel winced at the last two words and sucked in a tight breath....Then he was gone, out of sight of the scientist, having slid down the wing and away.

"Ronon, Teyla," the colonel called angrily, "Let's go."

"What?" Ronon asked. "What about...?"

"He's going to try to rescue the people in the buffer. The rest of us have some Wraith to kill."

"But..." Ronon wasn't letting it go.

"That's an order, Ronon. We're moving. McKay!" Sheppard called back, "Radio contact!"

"Right!" McKay answered to the air. "Good luck!"

Sitting still within the dart wreckage, McKay listened as first one...then three sets of feet jogged away from his position. He closed his eyes for a second, repressing the scared part of him that wanted to call them back, then opened them again, determination filling his frame. He wasn't going to let anyone down this time. Straightening, he gripped the edges of the slime covered buffer...and pulled it free of the dart.

___________________________________________________

Sheppard remained silent as he wove through the woods with Teyla and Ronon, his eyes shifting between McKay’s scanner in his hand and the surroundings, his mind mentally mapping the area for defensible and offensive positions. They already had a few locations in mind to use near the village as attack points, if they could lure the Wraith to them, but, in case they couldn’t…it was good to have back ups.

The other two members of his team did not speak either, their attention focused completely on their surroundings, but the silence was not comfortable. He felt tension from every member of his team, and it was not just related to the circumstances they found themselves in. Fact was, though he knew where his own anger stemmed, he did not totally fathom what was going on inside the others' heads.

Up ahead, Ronon continued to control point, setting a swift pace that forced his teammates to move more quickly than they might have otherwise. It was also much quicker than the pace they had kept when McKay was with them—one of the benefits to not having Rodney there, Sheppard knew. They had a better chance now to stop the six or so Wraith they were tracking before the monsters reached the village. Of course, that still left five Wraith unaccounted for—the ones near to the village already—but they would have to deal with that when they got back up there.

Teyla glided along behind, quieter than either of the two men. Sheppard wasn’t deaf—he’d heard her solid support of McKay when Ronon had tried to hurry them up. It hadn’t affected John’s decision to let McKay stay behind, but it hadn’t hurt either. What was more interesting was the lack of rejoinder from Ronon. It wasn’t like the Satedan to just give in when there were Wraith to hunt. Teyla also didn’t always take Rodney’s side in arguments, at least not so pointedly…not that there were sides to this situation per se.

Unless they were the sides of a prism—multiple and uneven and confusing.

The ground tipped more steeply upwards, forcing them to hike more as they closed in on the plateau on which the village rested. More trees were down up here, the wind harsher and colder. Glancing up at the sun, Sheppard noted it had dropped down in the sky—it was about mid afternoon now. It felt like forever since this morning, when he’d argued with McKay over whether or not this was a trap.

His jaw flexed, aware of the irony. They had ended up trapped, not by the Cutsarkians, but by their own mistakes. Mistakes he and his team seemed to have made in spades. In baseball, they called them forced errors. He understood the true meaning of that phrase all too well after two years in the Pegasus Galaxy. Hell, he'd known the meaning of it after his first tour in Afghanistan.

Repressing a sigh, he looked down again at the scanner, and frowned to find that the screen was showing far too many dots—interference clouding the link to the Thermopylae’s sensors. Shaking it a little, he was forced to take his other hand off his weapon to try and adjust it, something he hated doing. Even so, as he played with the device, the screen flickered but didn’t improve.

“It’s easy,” he sneered, repeating McKay’s words from earlier. He snorted, wishing McKay’s ‘easy’ was the same as his ‘easy.’ He wasn’t an idiot—hell, he actually knew himself to be pretty above average in the smarts department—but he wasn’t McKay either. Not many people were.

“Has it stopped working?” Teyla asked quietly, rolling up alongside and glancing at him.

“No,” Sheppard frowned, “It’s still working, just not properly. I tried to adjust it but—“

“We have