upward over the mountain

Woolsey replacing Carter rocked Atlantis. It affected all their trade agreements and alliances as well. Which brought the Genii to Atlantis. John had been zoning out while Chancellor of Genea, Marshal Paramount and Chief of the Directorate of Science Radim and Woolsey exchanged diplomatic assurances and felt each other out. Half his mind strayed to the patrol roster Lorne had shown him at the daily military sitrep. His side still hurt, so John had been subjected to more paperwork even than usual.

There had been something in the roster that bothered him, but he'd been due at morning staff and told Lorne he would sign off on it later. Listening to Ladon and Woolsey fence oh so politely, John had time to review the roster in his head.

Higgs and LaRue.

John's mouth quirked in satisfaction as he identified the potential problem. Those two needed to be kept separate for a while, not walking patrol together. Aside from saving everyone from Michael, the Daedalus had brought mail and hard copy documents from Earth, including LaRue's final divorce decree. Higgs would take advantage of patrolling together to relentlessly pick at LaRue until he exploded. John had gone through something similar; he'd decked Dex behind the O club at Bhagram the week after the papers from Nancy's lawyer came in his mail.

He'd tell Lorne to separate them, leave out his own experience.

"I understand that your government has continued with its nuclear weapons program?" Woolsey asked.

"With the shielding Dr. McKay instructed us to develop," Radim said. "Everyone now carries a weekly exposure sensor."

Woolsey looked like he'd bitten into something rotten. "Everyone?"

"Everyone," Radim confirmed.

"How... impressive."

"As was the number of our people who would be dead without Atlantis' help. Dr. Weir was a generous woman."

Radim had looked genuinely regretful when told that Elizabeth was gone. He'd trod carefully around Carter, recognizing the steel under the friendly exterior. Now he was trying to feel out Woolsey and seemed alternately contemptuous and wary of him.

"Dr. Weir was a remarkable woman," Woolsey acknowledged and seemed to mean it.

"We'd begun to think your people were matrilineal," Radim said.

Woolsey began coughing and John hid a snicker.

"Then it's just a coincidence that two different women of great beauty and intelligence have been given - earned command here before you?" Radim asked innocently.

"Yep," John chimed in to prove he had been listening after all.

Well, and to annoy Woolsey. That was always a plus.

That switched Radim's attention to John, however.

"I believe congratulations are in order," he said. "The Genii have heard that the Athosians and Teyla Emmagan have been recovered."

"Some of the Athosians," John answered. "Not too many of them were still...alive." Human, he stopped himself from finishing. "But we've got Teyla back and her baby." Something to smile about amid the worries plaguing him since the drugs wore off after his surgery. They'd lost all of the Athosian victims of Michael's hybridization procedure when Caldwell killed Michael's cruiser except Kanaan.

Keller had reversed almost all of the changes to Kanaan, which made the other deaths even more of a tragedy, but there was something wrong between Teyla and Kanaan. None of the rest of the team had a clue what and they were afraid to ask her. No one wanted to remind her of everything she'd gone through.

Ladon nodded with a real looking smile. "A child is always the best consolation."

"Well, I think this does it for this meeting," Woolsey said. "Chancellor Radim, I hope we can look forward to a long and mutually beneficial relationship between the Genii and Atlantis."

Ladon mouthed platitudes back and they headed out of the conference room.

John was surprised to see Teyla in the control room with Torren. Something told him she'd been waiting for them.

Ladon greeted her and asked, "Is there anything I  or the Genii may do for you or your people?"

Teyla seemed to search Radim's face.

"Yes," she said at last. "I would have you stand as kith to Torren along with John, Rodney, and Ronon."

John blinked in shock. Ladon? Chancellor of Genea and a half dozen other titles Ladon who had once helped invade their city? Teyla wanted one of the Genii as the Athosian version of uncle and foster parent to Torren? Which would make them all family in a way, according to Pegasus tradition, since John and the team had already agreed to also stand as kith to the baby. He wanted to glare at her, but something in Teyla's expression stopped him. He realized she'd planned this.

Ladon looked as flummoxed as John felt.

Teyla held out her free hand while cradling Torren against her shoulder.

With a wary glance at John, Ladon took it. "I would be most honored, Teyla Emmagan."

"Hmph. Well. I'll leave you to work out any details," Woolsey muttered and left the three of them alone.



Teyla named her son Torren John Emmagan, in accordance with the Athosian tradition of surnames from the mother's line. She would introduce him as 'son of Kanaan' as she had always called herself daughter of Torren Tagan. Later, if Torren wanted to, he might chose the honor name he used to mark some other important relationship, such as his kith or his partner in marriage. Whoever was the most important relation in his life.

Teyla began introducing herself as Teyla Emmagan, mother of Torren, the first week after his birth.

Teyla explained it all before they swore themselves to basically act as Torren's parents if anything happened to her. She also teased Rodney and Ronon that she had chosen John as Torren's second name because only John hadn't pestered her to name her child for him.

"Better name the next one for both of us then," Ronon replied.

Rodney spluttered, "Hey, but I was there when he was born!"

"Yes, Rodney, you were there," Teyla agreed.

John blinked and muttered, "Next one?"

He also thought that if he could introduce himself by who was most important to him, he would simply point to the rest of his team, and flushed warm and happy when Rodney said, "So, that'd make me Dr. Rodney McKay of AR-1 in this ritual thing you want us to go through?"

Teyla smiled sweetly at him.

"I would ask you to speak as a someone from Earth, while John takes the part of Atlantis," she said.

Ronon grunted and then said, "Not much left of Sateda. You sure you want me?"

"Of course, Ronon. While you live, Sateda remains."

"You've got as much right to speak for Sateda as I do for Earth," Rodney added.

John thumped Ronon's shoulder lightly.

"Let's get this show on the road. Teyla, where do you want to do this?"

She lifted Torren, who was sleeping, higher in her arms.

"I thought the observation deck above the control room in the central tower."

The open deck on the roof of the control tower was too high and cold to attract many visitors, only techs went that far up and only to work on the collection of sensor arrays nested there. The whole city could be seen in every direction from the windswept top, though, and beyond the city, the sea stretched away to the horizon so distant it hinted at the curvature of New Lantea.

John loved it.

"Good choice," he said.

"If you're longing for a case of pneumonia," Rodney had to complain, but he didn't even demand they stop on the way to get an extra coat.

"This is your world now," John told Torren, holding the baby up to see, later. "And we're your family too, and I promise we'll never turn you away."



Morning senior staff after the monthly databurst consisted of Woolsey, John and Rodney, Keller, and Hollis, the current head of Services, along with an urn of overbrewed coffee, laptops, tablets, and the yellow legal pads Hollis favored over electronics. Often they brought their seconds with them rather than brief them later, which meant Evan, Radek, Biro, and Navit. Teyla attended on a schedule John had never quite pinned down. Shohreh Moktefi showed up periodically, when circumstances warranted consulting the expedition's new psychiatrist.

Most mornings, staff covered what missions and science experiments were scheduled for the day along with any overnight developments, but after the databurst, the meetings always centered on whatever had the IOA in a new tizzy. John tried not to actually call the 'urgent directives' tizzies except to Rodney, but still thought of them that way. Woolsey took them very seriously; the rest of Atlantis relied on John or Rodney to run interference.

Currently, the IOA worried that the Travellers had an Ancient warship and wanted threat assessments. Rodney and Radek wanted to work on a filter that would let Atlantis' long range sensors pick out when the Travellers' ships opened hyperspace windows. It sounded like a long term project. John tuned out the particulars, sitting back and watching everyone else. Both scientists were throwing multisyllabic technical terms at each other interspersed with math. Woolsey's eyes had glazed over. Finally, he snapped and told them to stick to the agenda.

They went over several reports from the SGC: scientific developments and something about slower dialing times in the Milky Way, possibly due to stargates dropping out of the network. No explanation for that. John read the intel reports on Goa'uld, Ori remnants, and the kasa trade with a little more interest.

Eventually the meeting shifted to Atlantis' concerns. Radek had a pet project; Rodney scoffed at. The gate team mission schedule had to be reviewed, along with the proposed missions, mostly to trading partners or diplomatic contacts trying to make up some ground since the Coalition was already falling apart. The end of the meeting was devoted to personnel problems, complaints, and proposed shift changes. 

Two weeks after the team had taken Torren to the tallest spire of the city and pledged themselves as his family, Teyla sat in on morning staff. When they had the regular missions sketched out, she dropped the bombshell John had been dreading.

"It is time to take Torren to Genea and conduct the kithing with Ladon Radim."

"Are you sure about this?" Woolsey asked.

Teyla gave him one of her looks, which had Woolsey backpedaling, blithering about personal choice and good relations until she nodded and said, "Among those people who travel among the stargates, it is common to ask someone from a neighboring and friendly world to stand as kith to your child. The Wraith seldom bother to cull small children; we teach ours to go to their kith if they are lost."

"We aren't enough?" Rodney muttered. "Didn't we say we'd look out for Torren?"

"Rodney," John hissed.

Teyla inclined her head to Rodney. "You did and I know you would honor your word, but we are all here. I would have chosen among my people, along with Kanaan, if that were possible."

"Okay, we get it, you don't want all your eggs in one basket," John said. He drummed his fingers on the table top and then asked, "But why Ladon Radim?" He didn't ask why Kanaan hadn't contributed any one to stand as kith. He was living with the rest of the Athosians in Atlantis, but didn't seem to be taking much part in Torren or Teyla's lives. John didn't get it. The guy had pushed past whatever brainwashing and mental control Michael had over him to let them all escape, but now hid himself away.

Okay, maybe he understood the last part, but not why Teyla was letting Kanaan get away with it. She would have kicked anyone else's ass. Love made even smart people act stupid. Teyla apparently was no exception.

Teyla smiled. "It is considered good luck to choose a child's kith from a visitor to your home. The Genii delegation were the first to come to Atlantis since Torren's birth."

"Guess Torren's lucky old Todd didn't pop in," John said.

"Sheppard!" Rodney exclaimed but Teyla laughed, happy and indulgent for a moment.

"When will you need to leave Atlantis to perform this ceremony?" Woolsey asked Teyla.

"As soon as it is possible. I would like to contact the Genii today, in order to begin the arrangements."

"Make sure they know we're coming with you," John said.

"Of course, you are Torren's kith as well."

"Oh, joy, another visit with the Genii," Rodney muttered. "I can't wait."

John agreed, but it was for Torren and Teyla, so they'd do it.



Despite their current status as something between neutral and allies, stepping through the stargate to Genea always ratcheted up John's stress level. Doing it sans armaments, with Teyla carrying Torren in a backpack-like sling, made his stomach churn and burn. He hoped Keller had stocked up on antacids; he'd be stopping by the infirmary for another bottle once they were back home.

He pressed his hand to his belly with a grimace.

"Are you okay?" Rodney whispered as they crossed the gate room floor.

"Sure," John said and stepped through the rippling event horizon.

He stepped out into hot summer sun and the drone of insects. Rodney, Teyla and Torren, and then Ronon followed him through. No one appeared to be near the gate, but the Genii probably had a squad of soldiers watching the gate from camouflage. John's stomach twinged at the possibility of ambush. He hoped it was bad powdered eggs this morning and not a developing ulcer.

"Right, right," Rodney muttered from beside John as they started down the road way to the Genii's Potemkin village. Ladon would be waiting for them there according to the arrangements that had already been made. They reversed their usual order since Ronon taking point meant him encountering the Genii first, a situation analogous to introducing a blasting cap to electricity.

The village might be a false front, but it would be easier to get out of than the bunkers. Besides, no way would he or Rodney let anyone take Torren down into those radiation contaminated tunnels. Those tunnels were the reason he hated spending any time at the SGC. They were too similar, dug deeper than graves. John needed the sky over him.

Rodney finished going through his pockets and shoved his hand in front of John. "Here," he said.

"What?"

Rodney grabbed one of John's hands and wrapped his fingers around a cylinder. John opened his hand and found half a roll of antacids, the papery foil, silver and white, torn off and folded closed at the end. He looked closer. Peppermint straight from Earth, advertising the benefits of added calcium. John grinned stupidly at it.

"Well, go ahead," Rodney snapped impatiently. "Take one."

John took two, handed them back and watched Rodney take one too. The taste wasn't great, but not exactly unpleasant either. The faint peppermint burn mixed with the chalkiness at the back of his tongue. He swallowed and said, "Thanks. How'd you know – ?"

"You get this look on your face, not to mention the whole clutching your stomach thing," Rodney said offhandedly. He was still chewing as he spoke, offering glimpses of pink tongue and white paste. John tried not to look too closely. Rodney still didn't believe in not talking with his mouth full. That wasted his precious time.

"Besides, I get heartburn any time the Genii come up."

Torren made a gurgling, happy noise. John turned to check and had to grin. The baby had his hands in Teyla's hair, pulling it loose from the ponytail Teyla wore. Ronon leaned in and freed her hair from Torren's tiny hands with patient delicacy.

"Thank you, Ronon," Teyla said.

From the look she gave him, John knew she'd noted his grin. He raised his hands. "Sorry."

"You may carry Torren home," Teyla ordered him.

John twitched a little at the thought of Torren's sticky, clutching fingers in his hair, but if it meant they went home after an unexceptional stay, he would be fine with it.

Maybe it was Rodney's antacid or just watching Teyla and Torren, but John felt better. He turned and lengthened his stride. They needed to get to the 'village' before planetary noon.

"I'm going to be sunburned, you know," Rodney complained. He cupped one hand over the back of his neck. A recent hair cut left it looking rather bare and vulnerable.

"No, you won't."

"I have a delicate complexion."

John glanced at him, suppressing a smile. "Like a flower?"

"Yes," Rodney agreed, "like a flower."

"Maybe a pansy?"

Rodney squinted at him. "See if I share my Rolaids with you again."

John smiled to himself, satisfied that he'd managed to annoy Rodney out of starting a rant on skin cancer, which would have inevitably morphed into paranoia over his cumulative rad index and mourning the offspring he would never sire. Or their tragic two-headed state. Though the tangential discussion of mutants and which of the X-women were hotter would have been amusing – at least until Teyla caught them at it.

He still sighed in relief at spotting the buildings the Genii had built to present the image of a 'simple, peaceful' people who did nothing but farm mile after square mile of land around the gate.

It turned out Teyla had been right to insist they wear civilian clothes. Ladon had bodyguards, all wearing Genii uniforms, stiff and hyper-vigilant as Secret Service agents, reminding John he was Chancellor Radim to the Genii, though Ladon had chosen casual clothing to reflect the personal nature of this meeting. John thought it might be the first time he'd seen Ladon out of uniform, then chuckled as Ladon appeared to be studying Rodney and him in turn. Ladon had been in Atlantis at various times, of course, but he'd never seen any of their people out of either military or expedition uniform, either.

Ladon greeted Teyla first, smiling at Torren, then John, Rodney and Ronon, before guiding them inside the cool shade of the village alehouse. It hadn't changed in the years since Teyla brought them to Genea the first time, looking to trade for tava beans, only they and the Genii had. They even managed some innocuous small talk, ranging from crop yields to the Genii's progress on energy sources that wouldn't melt their chromosomes to rumors of atypical cullings on the far fringe of Pegasus. The ale was cool, dark, and hoppy; the food, while not a harvest festival feast, was fresh and tasty. Ladon held Torren in his lap while they ate, letting the baby become acquainted with him before the kith ceremony.

It surprised John to see Ladon so at ease with Torren. He hadn't thought of the Genii as familiar or comfortable with children. He hadn't seen them with any kids before. Sora had been Tyrus' daughter, but she'd been an adult. He'd managed to not think about the Genii having children just like everyone else in a feat of denial that went straight back to Kolya's attempted invasion, because he knew soldiers had families. He'd always hated collateral damage. The smile faded from his features and Ronon gave him a questioning look. John shook his head; there was nothing wrong.

The beer didn't quite wash the bitter taste from his mouth, but John took another sip and concentrated on what Ladon was telling them. Torren had gone to sleep, peaceful and unaware of the undercurrents between the Lanteans, Athosian and Genii. Ronon sat back with his arms folded, out staring Ladon's bodyguards, but even he had loosened up enough to sip his ale periodically and grunt approvingly over the food. Maybe Teyla had the right idea: maybe the way to heal the bad blood lay in tying them together with blood.

"These cullings are different," Ladon said.

"How?" Teyla asked. She leaned forward and fussed with the soft cap on Torren's head.

The kid needed it to keep his head warm, he just had some wisps the color of new pennies so far. In coloring he'd taken after Teyla, copper haired and dark eyed. At least John assumed so. He still didn't know Kanaan except to say hello to, but he couldn't see much of him in Torren. The guy was tall, though. He hoped Torren got that from Kanaan, at least.

Ladon frowned at his tankard before speaking. "You're aware the Genii have agents on many worlds."

"Your intelligence network is the envy of the galaxy," John said, not quite sarcastically. There were plenty of worlds that had never heard of the Genii, though that didn't mean the Genii hadn't heard of them...and placed a spy with them or paid one of their own to inform. Espionage had never been an interest of his, but he'd picked up enough to recognize the Genii knew what they were doing.

"John," Teyla said.

"The Athosians aren't the only people who have disappeared without explanation," Ladon said.

John sat up straight. "You know something." He was still expecting Michael to pop back out of the woodwork. Just because they'd destroyed the bastard's cruiser didn't mean he hadn't escaped. John had a sinking feeling Michael had found a way to use the missing jumper to make it down to the planet and its stargate. The autopilot worked whether someone had the gene or not.

Ladon half shrugged, half nodded. "More what we don't know. In at least two cases, we had agents living among the people who disappeared. We have heard nothing from them. But in the third case – "

"Three other peoples have been taken?" Teyla interrupted in an uncharacteristic display of impatience.

"More," Ladon answered.

She looked at John and Rodney. "How could we not know this?"

"It's big galaxy," John said. He sounded defensive even to himself, but Teyla didn't know either and she had had a hell of lot longer to get hooked into the Pegasus grapevine. "Maybe the cullings got lost in the number of planets the Replicators wiped out or the Hoffan disease's victims."

Ladon shifted Torren in his lap.

"The worlds that are no longer accessible through the Ancestors' Rings confused our understanding of what was happening as well," Ladon said. He studied them as he asked, "That was not the Wraith?"

"No, that was a..." Rodney's voice trailed off. "Another enemy. They fought the Wraith a long time ago and then hid. We thought we could get them to fight each other again."

Ladon waited.

"They turned out to be worse than Wraith, if you can believe that," Rodney said. "I mean, they destroyed a lot of hives, but they decided the best way to beat them was to starve them out by wiping every human in the galaxy out. Hard to believe, but they were still pissed the Ancients liked humans better or something."

That made Ladon frown before he nodded. John raised his eyebrows. Ladon saw and coughed. "I'm familiar with the attitude from Commander Kolya," he said. "Though even he might have stopped at wiping out everyone alive in order to defeat the Wraith."

"Maybe," John commented. He thought Kolya wouldn't have blinked if he'd believed he would survive. By the end of their running feud, Kolya had cared more for revenge and power than stopping the Wraith or keeping the Genii safe. Always had or they would have been allies rather than enemies. Ladon had proved himself not only smarter than previous Genii leaders, but also better intentioned toward his own people in that regard. "Moot point now."

Kolya was dead and the Replicators were gone.

"So, your third agent? You got some kind of intel you can share?" he asked to steer the subject away from either Kolya or their part in the Replicators' attempted specicide. If Rodney went on, he might let slip they had changed the Replicator base code and started it all, not to mention their work with the Wraith against the mutual threat. Neither painted Atlantis in the prettiest light and it wasn't like they had that shining of a reputation in Pegasus as it was.

Ladon allowed it, though John saw he'd seen through him.

"Yes. We had an agent in place in the city of Prima Nergal. They mined one of the elements our new energy program utilizes. Information on their production and trade needs were useful in negotiating with the Nergalese."

Ronon grunted. John glanced at him. After a moment, Ronon answered his silent question.

"Sateda did the same thing."

John filed that away. Sometimes he felt a little grateful Sateda hadn't been around as a galactic power by the time the Atlantis Expedition arrived in Pegasus. Of course, Ronon was a remarkable individual by their standards too, but John got the feeling that they might have succeeded where the Genii failed, if they'd wanted Atlantis.

"Our man in Prima – "

Rodney coughed and John kicked him, though he'd been reminded of Graham Greene too. It wasn't worth explaining if he let Rodney say anything, though. Rodney still mouthed 'Havana' at him. John manfully ignored him.

Ladon looked at them curiously. Teyla waved at him to continue and glared at both of them.

"Our agent was recording a report when the Wraith arrived on Nergal."

"How did you get the report?" Rodney asked.

"When our agent failed to initiate contact on schedule, we sent a recon team to Nergal posing as entertainers."

John made another note to himself. Never trust any of the wandering groups of musicians and storytellers who traveled the gate system. That was too good a cover for gathering intel not to be used more than once by more than one people. No one would even think twice about those nomadic types asking curious questions in most places. Part of their services included carrying news and gossip from world to world. A group or groups of them had probably been responsible for spreading pictures of him, Rodney and the other gene carriers through the galaxy when the Genii had a bounty on their heads.

Which brought him back to the Genii sitting at the table.

Teyla nodded at Ladon. "I see. I looked forward to visits to our camps by such players as a child. There are few worlds where they are not welcomed." Her lips quirked. "Despite any other agendas they might have had."

Atlantis being one, she didn't say, but John didn't mind in this case. Their security precautions had probably served them better than they'd known. It had to hurt, though, the way so many things she'd learned in the past four years had; that people she had known and liked had lied to her the entire time she'd known them, that her ability to sense the Wraith came from sharing some of their DNA, that the Ancestors were no more than a bunch of self-absorbed egomaniacs who made Rodney look like a humanitarian. Now one more memory was tarnished. She had to have known, but having her nose rubbed in it couldn't be very nice.

John turned his tankard on the wooden table top, making sure to keep it within the dark condensation stain. The metal sides were wet and cool beneath his fingertips.

"They found the city nearest the gate emptied," Ladon went on. "When they went to the agent's home, the recorder was in the open. Halfway through his report, he stopped and said that there were darts over head as well as Wraith on the ground. They were herding people toward a stationary culling beam. He said the Wraith appeared to be separating people into groups, using some sort of scanner."

"A stationary culling beam?" Rodney repeated. He had a piece of bread and cheese in his hand, half way to his mouth, but seemed to have forgotten it as he puzzled that out. "Then it had to come from a hive or at least a large cruiser in geosynchronous orbit. We haven't seen that before."

"Once," John said.

Rodney looked at him. John shifted uncomfortably. It had lit the night and he'd felt cold to his bones looking at it from the cloaked jumper. He'd imagined the Wraith reaching Earth and hadn't seen how Atlantis could survive and stop them.

"You weren't with us," he added.

"So they were sorting people based on some criteria your agent couldn't determine?" Rodney asked Ladon after a long beat, turning his gaze away from John to John's relief.

Ladon looked down, and then seemed to gather himself, even as he lifted Torren's sleeping form higher in his arms. "Almyus was interrupted before he could say more." A muscle in his cheek worked. "The recording ends as he shouts a name."

"A name?" John repeated.

"Tyre," Ladon replied. "Appar–"

Ronon pushed back from the table and jolted to his feet in a single violent motion, sending his empty tankard rolling into Teyla's, which spilled across the table. Ale flooded down onto John's leg and the floor as Rodney exclaimed, juggling both tankards as they threatened to roll on into his lap. The clang of the metal still rang as Ladon's bodyguards went for their weapons.

"Everybody calm down," John snapped. Tension shivered through his muscles and he clenched his hand against the reflex to reach for the sidearm that he had eschewed. He had a small back-up gun in the top of one of his boots, along with a knife in the other and lock-picks sewn into a seam in his jeans, but knew better than to reach for it. This didn't need to turn into a shoot-out; they were on the same side when it came to the Wraith at least. "Ronon. Get back in your chair. Ladon, sorry for mess."

Torren woke and began wailing, sensing the sudden change in the alehouse's atmosphere. Ladon patted his back like a pro while commanding the bodyguards to, "Put away your weapons. They aren't threatening me." He nodded to John and added, "It's spilled ale, not an attack."

Ronon glared at the bodyguards, obviously itching to burn away his anger fighting them, but came back to the table. He righted his fallen chair and sat. Rodney pushed the tankards back to the center of the table. John grimaced at the wetness soaking through the thigh and knee of his jeans. He was going to smell like stale beer for the rest of the day.

Ladon quietly shushed Torren until he'd settled again. He looked from Ronon to Teyla to Rodney, who determinedly looked at the table between flicking glances at Ronon, and finally to John. "I take it this name is familiar?"

"We've run across someone of that name before," John said carefully, watching Ronon, wondering how much more he should say.

"Wraith worshipper," Ronon growled. His hands were in fists.

Rodney opened his mouth, then snapped it closed, giving Teyla a wounded look, which John interpreted to mean she'd either kicked him or was grinding her heel down on his toes.

"They have grown bold," Ladon said. "Almyus' previous report mentioned this man coming to Prima Nergal in search of work as a bodyguard."

"Fits," John said.

Ronon scowled. "Traitor."

John didn't know what to say to that. Ronon had been made a Runner. He'd never been fed on, never felt his life drain away in a wave of agony. Never known the sweet rushing relief of having it all pushed back inside. If 'Todd' hadn't been a prisoner of Kolya too, if he'd been raised to fear the Wraith all his life, if his planet and home and people had been wiped out...John didn't know that he wouldn't have broken and become a follower too. He wasn't superhuman and neither was Ronon. Sometimes Ronon's relative youth and years outside any society made him almost naive about human nature, a sort of youthful idealism still buried beneath the survivor's thick skin.

Ladon lifted an eyebrow and John shook his head minutely. "Tyre lured us into a trap. We got out, so did he." He shrugged. "If he was with the Wraith on Nergal, he could have been acting as a spy, targeting specific people for them."

"The way he and Rakai and Ara used me to get to McKay," Ronon said.

"You had no way of knowing," Teyla comforted.

Ronon shook his head. "I should have – "

"The only thing you should do is let it go," John told him, rough and maybe a little impatient, because Ronon had been ready to walk away from them for his old friends. Maybe it was time he let it go too, he'd been hoarding that bitterness like an ugly pebble since the moment in the Wraith facility when Ronon went with the Satedans instead of the team. "Teyla's right."

"The real question is who and why would the Wraith be interested in specific people?" Rodney speculated. "Or specific groups." He looked at Teyla. "Like yours. We know at least one Wraith experimented on them..."

"You think it is the same one?" she asked. Her hand twitched abortively toward Torren. Michael's plans for Torren were still fresh in all their minds, but more so in hers. She'd seen and heard more than she'd ever spoken of to them outside a dry and emotionless report.

"Yes, no, maybe?" Rodney held up his hands. "I'm not an expert on Wraith motives. Let's be honest, I'm not good figuring human ones."

A blurp of sound from one of the bodyguard's radios interrupted before anyone could say more. "Prass Demera and your sister are on their way," the bodyguard said after listening to the message.

Ladon nodded and addressed Teyla. "Are you satisfied?"

Teyla studied the way he still held Torren and nodded. "Yes. I hope this will herald a closer relationship between all our people, as well."

She stood and the rest of them followed her to their feet. John caught the voices of two women outside and figured that would be Ladon's sister and Prass Demera, whoever she was, come to witness the kithing ceremony.

"Then let us continue," Ladon said.

They exited the alehouse, the bright afternoon light making everyone blink after the cool confines. John fumbled on his sunglasses, then nodded as he was introduced to the older woman. Dahlia looked much better than the only other time he'd seen her. She even smiled at them, though the brightness faded as Rodney fumblingly explained he couldn't take her greeting to Beckett.

Ladon didn't explain who Prass Demera was, but she seemed to be someone in the Genii government and uninterested in wasting any more time than she had to.

They walked out of the village and into one of the tava fields. The earth between the rows of green vines twining over rough tepees made from sticks had been weeded and watered recently. Dry on the surface, it crumbled and broke, then stuck in small clods to the soles of their boots. The scent of damp soil mixed with warm greenery, almost heady in its richness after Atlantis' nearly sterile environment.

Clouds of small insects flew up from the tiny flowers blooming along the tava vines. The hum and buzz of their wings disturbed John, a subtly wrong harmonic that resulted from a different number of wings than insects used on Earth. Rodney waved his hands, slapping at them and ducking away, muttering outraged imprecations at the universe.

"Here," John said when they stopped, catching Rodney's arm to hold him still. "Let me...They're in your hair."

"Oh," Rodney breathed. "Ack, get them off."

John brushed the little bugs out of Rodney's hair, telling himself the warmth he felt at the soft tickle against his fingertips came from the sun. The bugs were tiny, pokey little things maybe three millimeters long, with flat shells of rust orange spots on shiny green. They flew away into the vines again without much encouragement. Rodney fidgeted and shook his head anyway.

Ronon laughed.

"At least I won't be picking them out of my hair for the next week," Rodney sniped at him.

"They're harmless," Dahlia told them. "They actually do good. They eat a kind of scale that grows on the vines."

"Excuse me if I have no confidence in the benign intentions of anything insectoid in this galaxy," Rodney replied and John secretly agreed. He flicked a final few of the bugs off Rodney's shoulder and his own arms.

"May we finish this?" Prass Demera inquired.

Turned away enough Demera couldn't see, Dahlia rolled her eyes.

"We appreciate the time you are taking to witness," Teyla said, all smooth diplomacy.

Demera looked somewhat mollified, something that probably wouldn't have held true if she'd heard Rodney mutter, "As if she was doing anything important. Really, if I can leave my lab for this and come through the stargate from another planet, I think she can take an hour away from pushing paper or whatever inane make-work Genii bureaucrats do. Probably making lists of what lies they're telling who."

John coughed hard, choking back laughter and drowning out Rodney's rant. Ronon slapped him on the back hard enough to make him stumble, so that Rodney caught his arm to steady him and, thank Christ, shut up. By the time they'd sorted themselves out of their Three Stooges routine, Teyla was glaring at all three of them.

Everyone settled into respectful silence as Ladon began the simple ceremony.

He held Torren in the crook of one arm and unwrapped the blanket holding him, then drew off everything but his diaper, handing it all to Teyla. He held Torren up then, showing him to everyone, Demera, his sister, the bodyguards and John's team.

"This is Torren Emmagan, son of Kanaan and Teyla," Ladon said.

He held Torren up to Teyla, who pressed a kiss to Torren' forehead.

"This is Torren Emmagan, child of Athos."

"Child of Athos," Teyla repeated.

Ronon, then John, then Rodney repeated her words.

Ladon brought Torren to face Ronon, who bent and solemnly bestowed the gentlest of kisses to the crown of the baby's head. Torren grabbed one of his dreads as it swung forward and pulled, laughing with delight. Ronon detached Torren's hand with a smile.

"This is Torren Emmagan, kindred of Sateda that was, kith of Ronon Dex," Ladon stated.

"Kindred of Sateda," Ronon rumbled. "Kindred of mine."

The sun heated the back of John's neck and soaked into his shoulders through the well-worn dress shirt he'd worn instead of a tee. His palms were damp, even though he'd already undergone the ceremony once in Atlantis.

Ladon moved to face John and John bent closer, inhaling the scents of milk and baby powder and the sweet smell that all babies seemed to have, kissed Torren just as Ronon had, dandelion-fine baby hair tickling his nose before he straightened. He met Ladon's gaze without flinching, so that he could see that John would do anything to keep Torren safe.

"This is Torren Emmagan, child of Atlantis, kith to John Sheppard."

John flashed on holding Torren himself, saying those words, standing with his team on the highest spire of Atlantis, where the wind ruffled their garments and strange seabirds dove and cried, feeling in his bones the way the city seem to hum into wakefulness for an instant as he knelt and set Torren's bare feet to the deck for a ten count.

"Kindred of Atlantis," John swore. "Kith to me and mine."

Citizen of his city wherever Atlantis rested, he'd sworn silently and repeated to himself again. First child born to it in ten thousand years even if he had come into the world on a Wraith cruiser, and when he was old enough, Torren would receive the gene therapy as his due.

Ladon brought Torren to Rodney next and last. Rodney, who stood straight and steady, the expression on his face just as grave and serious as Ronon had been, no sneer or sarcasm evident.

Rodney kissed Torren carefully.

"This is Torren Emmagan, child of Earth," Ladon said. "Kith of Rodney McKay."

"Kindred of Earth," Rodney declared, quiet and sure. "Exactly as my own."

Ladon stepped back and held Torren a little high, showing him to Demera and his sister. Then he sank down to his knees and held Torren so that his bare feet pressed into the soft, damp soil of the tava field.

"This is my world and my home," Ladon said. "So now it is yours, Torren Emmagan. You are my kith and I will always have a place for you. As my kith gift, I swear to do all that I may to keep peace between Genea and the peoples of Atlantis and Athos." He got to his feet and declared in a voice that carried, "This is Torren Emmagan, child of Genea, kith to Ladon Radim."

"Child of Genea," they all chorused, even the bodyguards.

"So it is witnessed, so it is done," Dahlia stated. She turned to Teyla and added, "He will always have a place among the Genii."

"Thank you," Teyla said.

"May I hold him?"

Teyla and Dahlia redressed Torren, Dahlia cooing a little and looking wistful, while Demera ponced away, grimacing down at the dirt on her shoes in a way that made John laugh.

Ladon stepped closer. "Colonel Sheppard. I meant my promise to Torren. Whatever the Genii learn, we will share with you."

John cocked his head. "No one expects that, but if you find some clue to what's going on with the Wraith, we'll take any help we can get."

That garnered a nod of acknowledgment.

"If we knew what this Tyre looked like...," Ladon speculated.

John nodded at Ronon. "We don't have any photos of him, but I think we could get one of our people to draw a pretty good likeness. He has some Satedan tattoos. Those are pretty distinctive." He didn't know if Ronon would be willing to work with Evan, but he and Rodney and Teyla could describe Tyre. Maybe better. They'd seen him as he was, not overlaid with memories from years before.

"Once our network knows what he looks like they can be on watch for him, even if he uses another name," Ladon agreed. He watched Dahlia stroke her finger over Torren's cheek. "The Athosians were always honest traders. Generous people. Perhaps we can make up for the deceit with which the Genii treated them."

"It would be a good start," John agreed.



John reminded every team going out of the need to keep on the lookout for any information on Michael or the Wraith culling patterns shifting. It had become the part of every pre-mission briefing. Don't interrogate, don't give away too much by asking leading questions, but sit down with folks and encourage a little gossip and write it all up in the AAR.

So far it hadn't netted them anything, but intelligence gathering was a job for the patient, the pattern spotters and puzzle solvers who would piece tiny bits of disparate information together until a recognizable picture formed out of a thousand meaningless pixels.

There were only rumors, though, of worlds deserted, villages left with food still on the table, fields abandoned, farm animals untended, dead or gone wild. Culled, the stories went, though the rest of a world might remain untouched without explanation. Nothing contradicted the Genii story Ladon had given them, though nothing confirmed it.

Woolsey's lips thinned as John told Lt. McCready to make sure to ask the Khluf traders if they'd heard anything about hybrids before sending the youngest of their gate team officers off. John nodded to him. He could bring it up if he wanted John to stop. He knew that the time was approaching when Woolsey, acting on orders from their SGC and IOA overlords, would cut back or completely cancel any missions solely aimed at aiding trade and aid, but he'd kept those to a minimum just to keep the option available as long as possible. Telling their people to keep their ears open while they hunted energy sources and weapons didn't cost anyone anything.

Teyla attended all of the trade mission briefings and most pre-mission meetings, even when AR-1 wasn't tasked. Advising them on local custom and anything she knew about proposed mission destinations had been part of her job on Atlantis from the beginning. Their mission goals had slowly but steadily changed since establishing contact with Earth, but her input remained more valuable than any SGC diplomatic guidelines.

She watched McCready's team walk into the event horizon with a wistful expression. She'd gone out twice with Lorne's team when her presence had been necessary to secure contact with the Gada, but had stayed in Atlantis otherwise, excepting only the trip to Genea. Watching others go while she stayed behind had to be painfully familiar after the last few months. John wandered if she felt restless and trapped as he would in the same circumstances.

It made him feel ashamed and he promised himself he'd do his part to free her up even a little.

He knew she loved Torren with everything in her. He felt the same way; so did Ronon and Rodney. Torren had changed the shape of Teyla's life though, in ways she couldn't have anticipated. She'd counted on the support network the Athosians provided for all parents, the community of people who were always available to care for a child. Instead, she was forced to spend almost all her time caring for Torren while the traumatized and unsteady Athosians struggled to rebuild their lives while living in Atlantis.

Atlantis didn't have daycare and while there were more than a few people in the city who would have and wanted to help, they all had their own duties. Most couldn't split their attention enough to work and babysit at the same time. Not that Teyla would ask anyway, but John couldn't take Torren to the firing range, Keller couldn't set up a crib in an infirmary that doubled as an emergency department and dealt with offworld teams that could be infected with anything, Rodney couldn't study unknown technology and change diapers. Ronon was perfectly willing to strap Torren to his back on morning runs, however, which just highlighted that they weren't utilizing his skill sets. He needed to be putting together solo and team survival training for everyone in Atlantis whether they went off world or not. Which brought John back to Teyla's dilemma and how alone she was in Atlantis.

John hadn't anticipated losing Teyla as a team member after Torren's birth. He'd simply assumed she'd be back as soon as she physically could. He had to admit that had been just amazingly stupid and he couldn't quite shed the petty resentment he felt that she'd done something that changed the team's dynamic so much, without even a hint or warning. It made him act like a dick; he knew it, but often couldn't stop himself, even though he loved Torren and would rather have his hands cut off than deny Teyla whatever happiness she could find.

Maybe, if he refrained from shoving Kanaan against a wall and demanding what he meant to do for his son and Teyla now that he was back, it would make up a little for what a poor friend John had been when Teyla told him about Torren.

He'd begun worrying about something else. Teyla hadn't been part of the regular AR-1 mission roster for months. The allies for whom she'd acted as leader and ambassador were refugees and never highly appreciated on Earth anyway. How long until Coolidge or some other xenophobe in the IOA wanted Teyla removed from Atlantis entirely?

If it came to that, John feared even something as desperate as he or Rodney marrying Teyla wouldn't make them back down. The IOA wouldn't even recognize a Pegasus marriage unless they saw some benefit in acknowledging it. Which brought him around to being unwillingly pissed at Teyla all over again, because she and Torren just might be the tipping point and he didn't know which way he'd go, if he would give her up or go with her, exactly how much he would give up. Because it wasn't the same as dying for something, not at all.



The break came a week after McCready's gainless mission, an unscheduled dial-in half way through the lunch hour marked by Chuck's voice from John's radio earpiece, "It's the Genii's IDC."

John left his tray and headed for the control room at a controlled lope, taking a transporter instead of the stairs, opening the team's channel on his radio as he went. "Rodney — "

"I heard. I'm on my way up."

"Teyla and Ronon are training. Can you get them on your way?" They'd all wrecked too many headsets while sparring and took them off now, relying on the city comm to alert them in an emergency. This wasn't, yet.

"You couldn't send one of your men?" Rodney whined.

"It's on your way."

John pressed the control room icon on the transporter destination grid.

"It is not."

"Well, you're closer than me. Gotta go."

"Fine. I'll get them."

The doors opened.

Woolsey was already out of his office, facing the camera pick-up and main display screen in the upper level of the control room. He had his arms folded. The display showed rolling waves of harsh static, the sort John associated with nineteen-fifties TV. "Try — "

"I've got it," Li said.

The static resolved into a wavering image of Ladon Radim, bearded face too close to the camera lens, the tint subtly off. He stepped back, revealing a hint of the room he stood in, another Genii at console of equipment. A scratchy voice said, "They should be able to see you now, Chancellor."

"Colonel," Ladon said, proving that he had a visual image of them as well. "Mr. Woolsey."

"Chancellor Radim," Woolsey replied. "This is unexpected."

Rodney, Teyla and Ronon arrived, aligning themselves with John. He didn't need to see them, even; their familiar scents, coffee, incense and leather changed the air of the control room, laced with the lingering ozone sting of the transporters.

A small smile lifted Ladon's mouth at the corners. "Atlantis and the Genii are allies now."

Behind John, Rodney gave a little choked sound.

"Ladon," Teyla said. She stepped around Rodney to stand between John and Woolsey and smiled at the camera. "You and the Genii are untroubled?"

Ronon settled next to John. Heat radiated from his body and the smell of clean sweat mixed with the leather, familiar from a hundred work outs.

"We are," Ladon replied. He fished something off the desk he stood beside and held it up. A copy of one the pictures they'd drawn up of Tyre.

Adrenaline jolted through John. He felt Ronon tense beside him, heard Rodney whisper a soft curse.

"We have a news of this man," Ladon said. "He showed up in Avibo according to our agent there. Two days ago."

"Took long enough to let us know," John said.

"Our man has been watching him. He's sure the newcomer is this Tyre, though he's calling himself Hakan."

Ronon grunted. "It's him. Hakan was one of our squad mates, before Sateda fell. A friend of Tyre's." The sneer in his voice didn't completely hide the betrayal he still felt.

"You need to take him alive," John said.

"We're preparing a strike force to capture him."

"That's very interesting, Chancellor Radim, and we appreciate being informed, of course," Woolsey interjected.

"What do you need?" John asked, ignoring Woolsey when he glared at him.

"One of your jumpers," Ladon replied immediately, "and a pilot, obviously. I'd prefer to not terrorize the Avibii."

John tapped his radio. "Lorne. I want you and a squad geared up and in the jumper bay — " He looked at Ladon's face on the screen. "When?"

"Our force will be ready to gate to Avibo in two hours," Ladon said. "I'm sending nine men."

"Twenty minutes," John told Lorne. "You'll be joining the Genii, picking up a hostile in a non-hostile village. I'll brief you down there. Everyone carries stunners."

He didn't wait for Evan's acknowledgment, just nodded to Ladon. "The jumper will be there in a hour, max."

"Thank you," Ladon said. "We'll be waiting."

The display fizzed into static and the wormhole flickered out.

Woolsey turned on John. "Don't do that again," he said.

Before John could open his mouth, Teyla spoke. "John, I would like to accompany Major Lorne's team."

"Me too," Ronon said.

"Shohreh has agreed to care for Torren today. If Tyre is guiding the Wraith to these villages, then someone should warn these people as well."

"Look, I'll take a second jumper, stay cloaked, and make sure this isn't some kind of trick, but if Tyre is really out there, we need to know what he's been doing and our best chance is to have people on the ground with the Genii," John told Woolsey. "We need the intel."

"Right, and if Tyre is still working for the Wraith, he may very well have some of their equipment, so I'd better get ready too," Rodney said.

"We're wasting time," Ronon added and strode away before Woolsey could say anything, which John considered the smartest course.

"Director," he murmured and retreated before Woolsey could give him a direct order to stand down. John didn't think he'd recall him via radio; Woolsey had to know his record in that regard.

"We're going to talk when you get back, " Woolsey called after him.

Teyla hurried and squeezed into the transporter along with John and Rodney. Rodney sent them on the way to the hub nearest the gear room and said, "You think this is for real?"

"I believe so," Teyla said.

The doors opened and they started out. Rodney strode ahead, on his radio, talking to Radek, "You're in charge the rest of the day. Yes, I know. You'll have to oversee it yourself, something's come up. Offworld. Yeah. Okay. Thanks and ...you know, don't let any of the morons blow you up."

Teyla caught John's wrist in her hand, a light yet firm touch, pulling him to a halt. "John. Thank you."

"For what?"

"I know if you had not pushed, Mr. Woolsey would not have agreed to send Major Lorne and a jumper."

"Hey, it isn't like we don't need intel on whatever the Wraith are up to," he told her. "This isn't just about you."

Teyla studied him. John resisted the urge to squirm.

"If you say so," she finally agreed, but that was just letting him off the hook. He knew she didn't believe it.

"Are you going to stand there all day?" Rodney called from the gear room door way.

"I will meet you at the jumper bay," Teyla said. "After I change, I wish to stop at Shohreh's office and bid Torren good-bye. She should know I will be going offworld."

"Okay," John said and they parted, Teyla headed for the women's end of the shared room.



Halfway to the jumper bay, Rodney started talking

"I've been holding onto this until I thought we needed it, but I think, considering our history with the Genii and the circumstances, this is the time, also if nothing happens then so much the better. You could consider this belt and suspenders and I really think you ought to let me do it. It won't take me more than fifteen, twenty minutes, I swear, and will be so worthwhile if they double cross us or we run into the Wraith, because they've begun compensating for the Ancient tech, in case you hadn't noticed."

Rodney walked faster as his words sped up, and his hands described arcs in the air that punctuated each declaration. John had to lengthen his stride to keep up as they approached the jumper bay.

"Rodney."

"I know, I know, you're thinking, why now, but really, why not? It's not that this has been a secret project, just that I've only been able to work on it in my spare time, which is, well, mostly nonexistent, and I didn't need you hanging over my shoulder asking when I'd be finished anyway. That's very annoying, you know, and it does not make me work faster."

"Yes, it does."

"No, impending painful death makes me work faster, you just irritate me and make me stop to explain what I'm doing when I could be doing it twice as fast if I wasn't constantly interrupted to dumb it down for your amusement," Rodney snapped. His stuttered to a stop in order to glare at John full force.

John kept walking and drawled as he passed Rodney, "If you say so."

Rodney broke into a trot to keep up, but his glare morphed into self-satisfaction as soon as he drew even. "As it happens, I am an unparalleled genius, even by my own standards, and even with criminally limited opportunity and constraints, I finished the program and did a simulation a week ago, so it is ready." He finished with an unvoiced yet clear 'Hah!'.

"Okay," John drawled. The doors into the jumper bay slid open ahead of them. "What is it?"

"What?"

"You never said whatever you're taking about."

John loved the jumper bay. The overheard iris was open, providing light that gilded each level and air that didn't depend on Atlantis' environmental systems. It hummed with the power feeding the jumpers neatly docked and charging there. Voices echoed from the walls, reminding him of a hundred different hangars he'd known during his career.

New Lantea's chillier climate made the jumper bay colder these days, but John didn't care.

Rodney immediately tugged the zip on his jacket higher though as they walked in, grimacing at the cool air curling through the bay from the open roof. He didn't complain, however. Probably too taken aback by John's words. His mouth had fallen open and he stared. It started to close twice, but fell open again. "Oh," he finally managed. "Didn't I?"

"So?" John cocked an eyebrow at him.

"Yes. It's a modification to the modulation of the jumpers' shields and the cloaks, basically."

Evan had his men standing ready at the hatch to Jumper Two. He stood next to Ronon just to the side. When they added Ladon's men and Tyre, the jumper was going to packed like a sardine tin. John nodded to him and he nodded back.

"Hey, where's Teyla?" Rodney asked.

Light steps behind them accompanied Teyla's voice. "I am here, Rodney. Are you ready to go?"

"Not quite yet."

"What does the modification do?" John asked. He wasn't enthusiastic about last minute changes to the jumpers before a mission.

"It's a small but significant change that should not only double their strength but harden them against detection by the Wraith or anyone else familiar with the way jumpers have always worked," Rodney said.

"Ten minutes," John told Rodney.

"What?!"

"Do Jumper One, we haven't got time to modify both."

"I said I needed twenty," Rodney protested, even as he headed for Jumper One.

"McKay."

Teyla smiled at him, though it looked strained.

"Major," John said, and began briefing Evan and his men on what he expected from them. Two of them were veterans of previous encounters with the Genii, including having their deaths faked after they had been taken prisoner during Ladon's coup. Teyla slipped into Jumper One as he finished.

"Remember we need him alive," John reminded Ronon. He would have rather had Ronon on Jumper One with them, but they needed someone with Evan's team to confirm Tyre's identity. He caught Ronon's gaze, holding it until Ronon got it. This wasn't about revenge or the honor of Sateda; it was finding out what the Wraith and their worshippers were up to and maybe saving some other lives. Or at least stopping anyone else from dying..

He clapped Ronon on the back and turned back to Evan. "The Genii have radios, so they're capable of monitoring ours. Use the encrypted channel. We'll be monitoring your transmissions."

"Got it," Evan told him.

"I know you have no love for the Genii, but if they're on the up and up, this is a hell of a favor, so remember you're acting as their support today."

"No more than you do, sir," Evan replied, confident and comfortable, a slight smile present. "I'll keep sweet, no worries."

"Worrying is my job," John said.

Rodney poked his head out the back hatch. "Could we get this show on the road? Or should I sit down and play a game or two of Freecell?"

"Done already?" John asked. He waved Evan to go and jogged over the Jumper One himself.

"Ten minutes you said."

"And you said twenty."

"I'm just that good."

"If the smug gets any thicker in here, Teyla won't be able to breathe," John said as he took the pilot's seat.

"I can breathe just fine," Teyla said.

John turned and grinned at her. He wanted to say how good it felt having her in that seat again. He missed her any time the team went out without her. Instead, he made a face at Rodney and said, "Buckle up."

Rodney made a face back at him, and said, "Way to get her back on the team."

John concentrated on the console in front of him.

"Sheppard," Rodney prompted.

"It would be good," John mumbled. "If you were. Back. When you're ready."

"Smooth," Rodney mocked, but John snuck another glance back over his shoulder and Teyla looked pleased.

He activated the comm. "Major Lorne, I'll be following you through the stargate, so don't stop too close. We'll be cloaked and radio silent, but we'll be right behind you all the way."

"Yes sir."

"Cloak activated," Rodney said.

Ahead of them, Jumper Two lifted off.

"Let's do this."



John hovered their jumper directly above Jumper Two. If Rodney said even the Ancients wouldn't be able to detect them with the modifications he'd made, John believed him, but there were things like air displacement that were a dead giveaway. Blowing grass would tell anyone with eyes and ears something was there, whether sensors said so or not.

Evan kept his radio on, mic open, as he met with Ladon ad the Genii in charge of the pick-up team and they listened in.

Ladon showing up himself was either an indication of how important this was to the Genii or that it was a personal matter for him. No way to know yet.

Ladon's men had been waiting at the stargate, geared up and ready. Ladon had been with them, greeting Evan courteously before introducing the officer in charge of the pick up. The Genii solders weren't in uniform, instead dressed in the sort of homespun farmers clothing worn by half the galaxy. The weapons they carried were top of the line Genii manufacture, though.

Evan must have had his microphone cranked to the max. Everything he said came through overly loud, while nearby voices came through as well, a little more blurred, overlain with the sounds of rustling fabric and his breathing.

"Let me," Rodney said. "I can clean this up."

Both sides of the conversation began coming in clearly as Rodney worked.

"Strike Leader Madar Lacos," a rough voice said. In the grassy field where the jumper had landed, Evan stepped forward and offered his hand to a tall Genii.

"Major Evan Lorne."

"We've seen pictures," Lacos said, amusement curling clear through his voice despite the less than optimal transmission.

Beside John, Rodney snorted. "Seen them, distributed them, kidnapped, offered a bounty...Oh, wait that was you and me." He flicked his gaze toward John.

"Ah, the old days, when we were wanted," John said, sharing a glance with Rodney, who ducked his head, hiding a smile.

"We'd hoped Colonel Sheppard would come," Ladon said.

"He was busy."

"We're wasting time," Lacos commented.

"Okay," Evan said easily. "My orders are to fly you wherever you want. My men stay with the jumper unless you really need them and I fly you back here with the prisoner. Any problems with that?"

"None. We won't need any help." Lacos sounded put out by the implication his men might need back up. Not surprising. One thing the Genii never lacked was pride.

"Ronon can confirm this guy's identity."

"The Satedan?"

"Yes."

"Fine. He stays out of the way."

A rustle of paper carried through the microphone. Ladon or someone unrolling a map for Evan. John wished the jumper had surveillance cameras he could use to zoom in on it. He gently manipulated the drive pods to position the jumper in an on-its-nose hover so that he could see the ground through the front viewport.

"Avibo is here, where the Treem River leaves the Iron Hills," Ladon said.

"Looks like about two days march on foot from the gate," Evan commented, cluing John in smooth as butter and just as innocent.

"Yes, that's why we asked for your help."

"Funny place for newcomers to show up."

"They mine iron ore. Workers are welcome from anywhere."

"Do you know enough now, Major Lorne?"

"Most pilots like to know where they're going, Strike Leader. As well as what they're likely to run into."

"You know now."

"Charming," Rodney commented.

"We'll be back in two shakes of a lamb's tail," Evan told Ladon.

"What does that mean?" Teyla asked, sounding cross.

"Two snaps of McKay's fingers."

"Oh."

"Hey!"

John took the jumper straight up, out of Evan's lift area.

"Dialing the gate," he noted, watching the stargate cycle. "Rodney, you getting the coordinates?"

"Yeah."

Jumper Two hovered just outside the splash zone. John brought Jumper One in line right behind it.

He accelerated forward as Jumper One entered the wormhole, following it in less than a second later, tight enough only a close and paranoid observer would catch the extra ripple of something else passing the event horizon.

They came out into pre-dawn darkness, stars shocking bright, carpeting the sky thicker than Earth's sky had ever boasted, even before the era of light pollution from an industrial society that never completely slept. Avibo circled a star far closer to the Pegasus galactic center than most, but not close enough to notice the dark hollow of a super massive blackhole at its heart.

Jumper Two took a course curving into a right angle from the stargate, in the direction of the dawn.

East, John thought. Sunrise side whispered in his brain, in the abbreviated trade tongue everyone who passed through a Pegasus stargates picked up. It made things easier, let them talk without interpreters to figure out a new language each time they made contact.

Right up until they ran into people who hadn't gone through the stargate in a while and found out just how far language could drift. 'We're explorers' in trade tongue ended up meaning 'we're invading'. They hadn't figured it out until they brought someone from that world through the stargate with them and let linguistics do their part.

Lacos seemed to have his plan together. Pre-dawn raid had to have been figured before they left Genea. That explained his impatience. Everyone in Avibo would be home, out of the way and accounted for, as the strike team went in.

John followed Jumper Two, hanging back about two lengths. The Iron Hills were black silhouettes against a sky just beginning to pale at the horizon, indigo fading into lemon where the rounded shapes of an old, old geological formation opened into the flat lands. He could just pick out the silver thread of the river Ladon had mentioned.

"Land outside the town, where the river turns," Lacos told Evan.

"You know where Tyre is?" That was Ronon. He'd turned his radio on too.

"Fadar will guide us."

"Rodney, can you — "

A HUD display resolved over the control console, offering a green-lined gridwork version of the town, life signs glowing within most buildings. Another clump showed next to a jumper symbol and the river. Rodney kept typing and several of the jumper life signs changed to blue. "I've tagged the signs with the signals from the subcutaneous transmitters."

"Yeah, that," John said.

The HUD showed Ronon, Evan and his marines as blue dots surrounded by the nine lifesigns of the Genii strike team. Ronon's radio remained silent as the team exited the jumper and infiltrated the town, heading directly for an outlying house that had to be Fadar the spy's home. Teyla slipped out of her seat and hovered behind John's chair where she could see the display better. Outside the viewport the stars were fading, the sky along the horizon glowing nectarine and rose. A few lights were coming on in the town, the flicker of candle and oil lamp slipping through shutters and curtains. Curls of smoke twined into the sky from more than one chimney.

John shifted the jumper until they could observe Fadar's house, listening without comment as Fadar consulted with Lacos, confirmed that 'Hakan' remained in town, supposedly looking for work as an ore shipment guard. He'd rented a house several streets away from Fadar's, one that had been abandoned after the last culling.

The Genii team didn't talk after they left Fadar's house. The colorless pre-dawn illumination probably provided them enough light to rely on hand gestures if they were a practiced team. Lacos seemed experienced enough; Ronon hadn't said anything anyway.

John took their jumper higher, hovering over their life signs, hoping none of them noticed the way the chimney smoke twisted on displaced air currents. He doubted the Genii would look up. Aircraft weren't common in Pegasus, despite the common knowledge that flight was possible.

"This is just so thrilling," Rodney complained. "I'm going to scan for energy signatures. Woolsey might be a little happier if we bring back something he can bribe the IOA – I mean, useful data."

"You do that," John told him absently, checking his altitude to hide how that had warmed him inside.

The thing was that Rodney didn't pay attention to many people. He paid attention to Sam Carter, to the team, to Radek and a few others in the science department, the ones who pushed themselves to the same limits he did. His disdain for Woolsey hadn't eased with time, either; Rodney resented the man for replacing Carter, especially the way he had. John had trampled over Woolsey's prerogatives enough this time that he might be facing trouble . It surprised him that Rodney had noticed. Rodney would, if he had to, put his life on the line for people he'd never met and thought were idiots and fools, but right then he was trying to cover John's back, something he'd only do for someone that mattered to him.

"Rodney?" Teyla's rising voice snapped John's attention to the co-pilot's display.

"Oh, this is not good," Rodney said. He hunched further over his laptop, fingers racing over the keyboard, squinting slightly. Several new displays opened. One showed a gridwork image of the planet, their location a bright spot just to the side of the daylight meridian. A red energy signature appeared to be holding station above the atmosphere, the rotation bringing their position into a straight line relation to it. Not their position, John realized: Avibo's. That was a ship up there.

"Wraith," Teyla whispered. Her hand grabbed onto John's seat and tightened as she swayed. He risked a glance back and saw she'd squeezed her eyes shut. "A Queen."

God damn it, he thought, but he activated the radio, and said, "Major Lorne, cloak you jumper now."

"Sir?" Evan sounded startled; they'd agreed John's overflight would remain radio silent and simply observe if the Genii were playing it straight. "Do I need to seal up or relocate?"

"Wraith ship just outside the atmosphere," John told him. "Just cloak for now, our people need to be able to find you."

"It's not a hive," Rodney said, puzzled, looking to Teyla.

Evan muttered something obscene sounding. The caret displayed for Jumper Two went dark.

"I feel her."

"What is it?" John asked Rodney.

"Cruiser."

A swarm of dots left the cruiser, the numbers beside them running down as they penetrated the atmosphere, spiraling around the Avibo target while bleeding altitude.

"That's new." The queens were rare and important enough to the Wraith he'd thought they stayed in the hives. Todd's words came back to him. There is much you do not know about the Wraith. No kidding. The stupid Ancients hadn't bothered to find out. How they'd expected to win against an enemy when they didn't even understand them...The problem was once you understood the enemy, they became real and it cost more in personal terms to kill them. John did his best to not think about Todd for just that reason.

"Hmn."

He watched the darts on the HUD.

"Ronon, buddy," he radioed. "You've got incoming darts. Twenty of them."

Rodney had gone on working and now said, "Tell him that there is both a radio and subspace signal coming from two houses to the west of his location."

"Get that?" John asked.

A grunt indicated Ronon had, then he laconically warned Lacos without even giving away he'd received a transmission on his headset. "Darts." He could have heard the sonic boom as they decelerated through the sound barrier.

Faded, barely audible, John heard one of the Genii mutter, "Ancestor's balls!"

"Mythical," Rodney said.

"What?"

"The Ancients didn't have balls."

It made John laugh; he couldn't help it.

"I mean, if they had, they might have used them, and then they'd have needed some decent beds," Rodney went on, warming up to the subject, while John went on chuckling, even as he monitored the darts' approach and the strike team's status. "They weren't midgets, we've seen them, so what the hell is with the beds that are too short for any human being of normal height — "

John wanted to know that one too. You either slept propped up, curled in a fetal position or feet hanging off the bed. It sucked. Some nights he considered hijacking a gym mat and sleeping on the floor.

" — permanent damage to my back and — "

"Someone should warn the townspeople," Teyla said.

John eyeballed the first dart, a black dot against the sky, barely visible, but rapidly growing, until he could see the growing light reflect from its belly. Others were behind it. For another half second, their approach remained silent, the screaming roar of engines still outrun by their speed. Then it arrived, shaking windows and doors, a clap of doom through the once still air.

"I think they know," he said.

"You know, you might want to get us out of here," Rodney interrupted himself to say. The first darts were screaming toward the town. It wouldn't take Ronon's hearing to detect them, the sound even shivered through the jumper's hull. "Because while they may not be able to detect us? One of them could run right into us if we're — " He pointed at the dart flying straight at them, looming suddenly huge in the viewport. " — in the way!" Rodney's voice rose to shriek itself as John sent the jumper into a brutal evasion maneuver, glad it didn't have wings to tear off under the strain. They scraped over the roof of one house, ripping away shingles that showered down to the street beside it. "Oh my God, you're going to get us killed!"

"Calm down, Rodney," John drawled as he dropped the jumper down into the street between two buildings in a maneuver he wouldn't have risked with a helicopter. "We're fine. Darts are fast movers, but they aren't made for getting down in the treetops, so we can just stay out of their way."

Rodney sucked in a couple of wheezing breaths, glaring at John, before choking out, "I hate you so much."

"What?" John glanced at him, but Rodney's eyes just got wide.

"Pay attention to the flying!"

John corrected to keep from scraping away a second floor awning. A proximity alarm began dinging in the background. He told the jumper to shut it down.

"Hate, hate, hate," Rodney chanted. "Hate."

"Rodney," Teyla said.

"Hate."

"Come on, Rodney."

"You're smiling, you adrenaline-addled lunatic! You enjoyed that and I almost had a heart attack." Rodney tried to incinerate John with the power of his glare — John knew it from previous missions — then when that failed went back to his laptop, still repeating, "Hate, so much hate. Both of you."

John grinned for a second. Riling up Rodney never got old, even in the middle of a small corner of hell.

His amusement disappeared as the first culling beam stabbed to earth. He'd reached the edge of town and begun guiding the jumper toward the river, intending to follow it to where Jumper Two waited in cloak. The eye searing white of the beam touched down within easy view, showing them the clutch of Wraith drones it left behind. John jigged the jumper to the side, hoping none of them would hear the sound of its passing.

The darts circled the town. John lifted the jumper high enough to watch as they sent down more drone parties, coordinated in a way he hadn't witnessed from the Wraith before. They surrounded the town at a series of equidistant points, spreading out and working in tandem. It disturbed him because it was smarter, more calculated than the hungry animal attack style they usually displayed. This looked more like when they'd attacked Atlantis, not a culling. They were trapping everyone in the town within a net, while the darts loitered overhead.

"John — "

"Wait," he said, watching. "We need to know what they're doing." He knew it sounded cold, but he and Teyla had had this out before. That cruiser up there had more then enough darts to take out two jumpers and the Genii team. The mission came first. Ladon's intel had been right. This wasn't a normal culling. The Wraith were doing something different.

Rodney swiveled his chair enough to face her where she still stood behind John's seat. He reached over and closed his hand around her wrist, the movement a blur in John's peripheral vision. "That's a cruiser up there." He spoke quietly, a striking change to the whining tone of only moments before. "Hundreds of Wraith, too many darts to shoot down even if John and Lorne use every drone they've got. We can't stop them here and now. Teyla, you know."

Christ, when had Rodney learned emotional triage?

Because he knew that's what Rodney was doing, cutting out the emotions that wouldn't help them stay alive.

John stared ahead into the rising sun, letting it burn the tears from his own eyes, because it got easier and the pain only came back if you looked at the people with you, the ones who still felt it too. What could he say to Teyla that he hadn't said before? She knew he was only a man, not a savior, no matter his promises, no matter what he was willing to sacrifice of himself. He had obligations beyond his desire to be the dream she'd once thought him to be.

What could he say that Teyla didn't already know, even if she hadn't let herself think of what it meant here and now?

The Genii were here to find out what the Wraith were doing, why their culling pattern had changed. John and their people were along because they might uncover something to either protect Atlantis or use against the Wraith. If they interfered now, they might lose their only chance. If the Wraith weren't up to something, then they were all wasting their time. If the Wraith killed the people of Avibo, then they had likely done the same elsewhere, despite the new pattern.

If, or, maybe...They never had enough information to make good decisions. John blinked into the light and swallowed hard. The innocents of Avibo wept and screamed, herded before the implacable drones. They didn't know anyone saw their plight, couldn't feel betrayed by that or that no rescue came. They expected none.

Teyla's hand came to rest on his shoulder, jolting him from his thoughts, warm pressure and silent absolution. He coughed around the tightness in his throat.

"Ronon and the rest of them need to get out of there," Rodney said.

"Yeah." He cleared his throat again. "Major. Are you tracking anything near your jumper?"

"No sir. I've got the cruiser on sensors now and the darts. Why didn't we see them before?"

"The cruiser was on the opposite side of the planet from the stargate. Looks like they were waiting for dawn, just like we did," Rodney explained.

"You get that, Major?"

"Yes sir."

Rodney stared at his life sign display and John followed his gaze. The Wraith were sweeping inward, their signs merging with the humans indistinguishably. Lacos' team stood out, a clump of signs moving independently of the Wraith. Tyre, presumably, remained in the house with the energy reading. No Wraith appeared interested in it. Wasn't that curious? John wished they'd quizzed Todd a little closer on the subject of feeding. Did the Wraith sense life or biochemical energy or some kind of psionic signature? They could make people think they saw things that weren't there; did they also sense people thinking? Queens could pull information from your head, so the telepathy wasn't just a push thing. They could have learned so much more from Todd if they hadn't been so damn squeamish about facing up to what he was while they worked with him.

John had been the worst about it too. He'd avoided anything to do with Todd, not wanting the reminder, not just of the feeding, but the gift, the rush of life back into his cells, the way the enzyme had sung through his veins for a day after, and worst of all, the way his senses had nearly overwhelmed him, nearly as acute as they'd been during the retrovirus experience. He'd never admitted how frightened he'd been until Beckett gave him a clean bill of health after that. Seeing his Wraith had uncovered too many raw places in his psyche for him to be comfortable with anything but repression and denial. Hell, he'd only dubbed the Wraith 'Todd' after he'd been gone.

"The cruiser is coming down," Rodney said.

"Ronon, hurry Lacos' ass up," John ordered. All he got in return was a grunt, but the strike team appeared to move finally, splitting to surround Hakan aka Tyre's house and entering from two points. They weren't taking a chance of him rabbiting out a back door.

The cellophane cracker crackle of gunfire heard through a tiny radio pick-up made all three of them in the jumper jolt. The gunfire stuttered again, then the distinct sound of Ronon firing his gun. "Stay down," he snarled over the background of Genii shouting curses, thumps and bangs that finally settled into silence.

"Have you got him?" John radioed.

"Yes."

Rodney bent forward and John glanced at him. Green lines reflected in his eyes and traced over the topography of his face. He frowned, typed a command and switched off the planetary display, replacing it with an almost familiar graph of a wave function. John narrowed his eyes, reading the numbers beside it for a clue. "Subspace?" he guessed.

"Yes," Rodney muttered, distracted as he read something on his laptop.

The morning sun poured through the jumper's viewport, turning Rodney's skin from pale to flushed between reflected lines of green light. His hair stood out in short, disorganized tufts. He'd forgotten to have it cut again, which John thought was Rodney's unconscious method of denying his gently receding hairline and found endearingly irrational. He felt overwhelmed with affection for Rodney in that moment, all his foibles and fears that were wrapped around a basic decency he'd probably deny to his last breath. Someday, Rodney would be known as a great man for his achievements, but it was his flaws as much as his intellect that made him more than a great scientist. Rodney was the foundation that held everyone in Atlantis up, whether they realized it or not and John wanted to reach out and soak in some of the firm purpose and maybe give back some of his own confidence right then.

He shoved it down, though, where he kept all his impulses about Rodney and had since Everett walked through the wormhole.

"He's got equipment here," Ronon said. "Wraith. A lot of it."

Rodney turned on his own radio and snapped, "Describe it."

"Looks Wraith. Gooey."

"Really helpful, Ronon," Rodney said. "Can you fit it in the jumper? I assume you can carry it since he must have brought it here with him."

"Not and shoot," Ronon grumbled in an undertone.

"Well, get the Genii to carry some of it."

"It's Wraith."

"Yes, yes, we've established that. It's sticky, disgusting and half-organic. Don't tell me you've suddenly developed a prissy streak, I once saw you taste some vile orange scat, you may remember."

John wondered when the hell that had been; he certainly thought he'd remember something like that and he didn't. He watched the HUD. The team, including — he counted — Tyre, were exiting the house. They started toward the river. Teyla leaned over his shoulder. "Do you believe he will know where my people have been taken?" she asked. Her breath ghosted warm over John's ear.

"I hope so," he replied in all honesty.

The cruiser took a position directly over the town square. Its shadow darkened the open space, before a culling beam shot down from its belly. Brighter than the beams the darts used, it seared the eye even in daylight. The circumference didn't equal the one John had seen reach from a hive in orbit to the surface. That didn't make it less frightening. The drones on the ground pushed and even threw people into it. Those that tried to break away and run were stunned and tossed in too.

Not a single life sign had dropped off the display during the round up. The drones weren't feeding. Drones fed even in a fight, gathering strength and healing wounds. No one had fought them in Avibo, but it still bothered John. Atypical behavior meant they were under strong control. Teyla had said there was a queen in the cruiser. He glanced at her.

"No problems?" he asked.

"No, she is unaware of my presence. I have not entered the hive mind," Teyla answered. "I — "

"Don't even think about it," John said. "I know you want to help, but we're going to do it without letting the Wraith know we're coming."

Teyla closed her mouth. She looked rebellious for a moment before nodding.

"Ronon, tell Lacos to go around the town limits," he radioed. It looked like teams of Wraith were working outward from the town square, searching out the few people they'd missed.

He watched Lacos' team and Ronon move out. They took a path that paralleled the river and would bring them to Jumper Two without entering the town limits again. Several darts had curved up from the sky around the village and returned to the cruiser's launch bays. John's hands itched on the jumper's controls. He loved the little ships, but ached for something that could chase the cruiser into hyperspace when it jumped out of the system. It could be done; the Ori had done it, hounding the Odyssey to its destruction, tracking its Asgard core through hyperspace in a fashion no one had reverse engineered yet. He'd sat through more than one rant on Rodney's part over the loss of the Asgard and all their knowledge. Rodney could virtually recite the report Carter had written afterward, if it hadn't been for the furious foaming at the mouth. Well, maybe Rodney hadn't actually foamed at the mouth, John acknowledged, but there certainly had been some flying spit.

Four dots that had to be Wraith split away from the others and assumed a course that would intercept Lacos' team before he reached Jumper Two.

"Damn it."

When the team changed course, probably going around some ground obstruction, the Wraith adjusted.

"Rodney," he said, "the Wraith are tracking — "

"Yes, I can see, thank you very much. I just don't know how — Sonovabitch."

"What?"

Rodney stabbed his finger at the HUD display, then turned his wide, we're-so-screwed gaze on John. "I thought Tyre must have some kind of communicator among the equipment Ronon found in the house. I saw the damned transmitter signal." He scrubbed at his hair and then sucked in a breath before finishing, "I saw it and didn't make the damn connection. He's not communicating with them, he has a tracker in him just like Ronon did."

"Tyre is not a Runner," Teyla objected.

Rodney shook his head. "So what, you don't think the Wraith can use their equipment for more than one purpose?"

"So, it's like our subcutaneous transmitters," John said.

Of course, if the Wraith could hunt a man for sport and training, why not send another like a hunting dog — no, a Judas goat — in to find exactly what they wanted, then just home in on the tracker as soon as he stopped moving. They probably tagged their favorite worshippers like chipped pets on Earth. John's mind raced forward to what Tyre being tagged meant.

"Ronon, tell Lacos that they can't take Tyre to Genea. The Wraith will follow, they can track him like a runner, they're on your tail right now," he radioed.

Ronon grunted, then began talking. John dialed the feed from his radio down.

They couldn't take Tyre back to Atlantis for the same reasons. Not until they got that tracker out of Tyre or neutralized. Sonovabitch.

"Lorne, get back to the gate and Atlantis, inform Atlantis we need Keller to do an emergency operation in the field to remove a wraith tracker. You need to be ready when we dial in with our location. We'll be picking up the Genii team and the target and heading for somewhere without a population," John said.

"Sir, we can — "

"No, this jumper has better shielding," Rodney said.

"That's an order, Major. Go."

"Going, sir," Evan acknowledged. "Jumper Two, out."

"Acknowledged."

John took the jumper straight down the river toward the strike team. The Wraith would be in stunner range of them in another moment, once they cleared the last house. He skimmed along the water, throwing a wake of froth behind the jumper. "Teyla, I want you to cover the Genii, just in case," he said.

"Very well." She didn't sound pleased and he understood, they were supposed to be allies in this, but the Genii had burned them before and he didn't know Lacos. There could be grudges involved. He'd killed too many of their people over the years to ever be easy with one of them.

The river curved past a tree leaning far over the water. John jigged the jumper to the side, but they were moving fast and the far bank was a steep face of rocks, so not far enough. A limb scraped against the jumper's side and tore away with a gunshot like crack. It made every one of the Genii suddenly visible along the town side bank look up. He could see two men had pieces of sticky purple-red Wraith tech strapped to their backs. Two more had Tyre slung between them though he was on his feet. Ronon and a blond man a head shorter than him were covering the team's six.

John took the jumper to the river bank and spun it, dropping the back hatch open. The jumper was a little lower than the bank and the hatch hit the ground with a jarring thud before it finished opening.

"Ronon, get everyone in here now!" John shouted into the radio. "The jumper's right behind you."

"Oh, Christ, they're too stupid to get it," Rodney snapped and jumped from his seat. He raced back out of the jumper and up the inclined ramp.

John twisted his neck and tried to help by bring the jumper up to level. He saw several of the Genii jump as Rodney appeared from seeming thin air. Then Rodney grabbed one man's arm and shoved him into the jumper, yelling, "Get inside, the Wraith are coming!"

A stunner bolt punctuated Rodney's warning, sizzling into the ground at their feet.

Ronon and the blond man immediately shot back at the drones that had appeared, marching toward them.

"Rodney! Get back in here!" John yelled.

The Genii flung themselves and Tyre inside. Rodney tumbled after them, narrowly avoiding another stunner blast that hit and dissipated inside the jumper, sending sparks fingering along the overhead bins.

"Ronon!" Teyla shouted. "Move!"

One of the drones went down, but two more kept firing; the air tingled from the stray energy, sending a static buzz through John's nerves from the jumper's systems. Two of the Genii dropped to crouches just inside the jumper hatch and began firing cover for Ronon and their man.

Tyre had been thrown to the floor and forgotten. Rodney scrambled past him back to the co-pilot's seat, cursing when he tripped and fell only to catch himself against the seat back. "Macho morons, don't listen to sense, you think they could find a better time to measure who has the biggest balls — "

John lifted the jumper higher, clear of the bank and reversed power, sending it sliding back toward Ronon and the last Genii. The ramp dug into soft soil and violently threw up divots of dirt and grass that thumped against the two men's legs and fell inside too. It screeched in protest, a light on the pilot's console warning that the mechanism was over stressed and alignment had been compromised; the jumper would no longer seal against vacuum. Radek was going to rip him a new one for that.

He'd twisted around enough to see out the open cockpit bulkhead through the main jumper cargo space to the open hatch. The blue sizzle of the stunner bolt that caught Ronon in the side and sent him down left yellow and orange afterimages in John's vision. Ronon crumpled sideways, his gun falling from nerveless fingers, landing on the dirt strewn ramp.

The Genii that John thought might be Lacos, stumbled back onto the ramp. He emptied his weapon at the advancing drones and then threw it back into the jumper, before crouching and grabbing Ronon's arm. The instant Ronon was more on than off the ramp, John triggered the hatch closed. It pushed Ronon inside as it came up, blocking any more stunner blasts. Ronon's gun skidded onto the decking.

John wasted no more time and sent the jumper arrowing toward the stargate, though it occurred to him he owed Rodney, Radek and the rest of the jumper maintenance crew a huge thanks for rigging the new hatch controls to the pilot's console. The jumpers might not have been originally engineered with combat ops in mind, but the oversight, considering the level of Ancient technology, had boggled all of them. Rodney had muttered viciously through the entire retrofit of their little fleet. John considered it little strange himself, since he'd been able to open and close the trunk of his last car from the driver's seat and he'd have thought something similar would have occurred to someone designing the jumpers; it was just a modification of the circuits and program that let them lock up with a remote from outside.

That was a puzzle to debate in the mess some time. He needed to concentrate on the here and now.

They needed to get to the stargate before a dart could, otherwise the Wraith would dial where they wanted and keep the gate occupied for the thirty-eight minute window.

The blond Genii made his way forward past his men. He pushed Tyre out of his way with a boot. He had bruise forming on one cheekbone and bloody knuckles that probably corresponded to Tyre's bleeding mouth.

"Colonel Sheppard, we were led to believe you weren't available for this mission," he said. He watched the earth, trees and grass blur beneath them. "I am Strike Leader Lacos."

"Yeah, about that..." John gave him a sheepish smile. "We just came along for back-up. We're not here officially, I guess you could say."

"Why reveal yourselves then?"

"This jumper has a better cloak and we figured out Tyre has a Wraith tracker somewhere on or in him, like a Runner. If you'd taken him straight back to Genea, they would have followed you there."

A muscle ticked in Lacos' cheek.

"So, Lorne's jumper went back to get a doctor who can operate, take the tracker out. We'll rendezvous somewhere neutral, in case they're smart and try tracing DHD addresses."

"I will inform Chancellor Radim of your care for our people."

"Rodney, dial up that rock world we checked out two weeks ago," John said. "Look, Lacos, we don't want the Wraith feeding on anyone, not even enemies. Which, you know, your people aren't."

"Anymore," Rodney muttered. His hands moved over the dialing mechanism. He pressed the last chevron. Ahead of them, the stargate cycled, gate signs lighting one after the other, and the wormhole splashed open, brilliant blue and white.

John sent the jumper through it without pause. He'd done it so many times now that there was no instant of disorientation as the world literally become different on their exit. Teyla and Rodney were just as experienced, unlike the Genii who were still in the back, trying to pull themselves together in the wake of the mission and the skirmish with the Wraith. The Genii were used to stargate travel, but not flight. Lacos was riveted by the viewport vista of PXG-344's monument stones dyed purple and red by a setting sun gone crimson and so huge it filled half the horizon. John had his mind on guiding the jumper between the towering stone pillars, almost enjoying himself as he wove and dived between them.

A scuffle, followed by a choked shout and a gunshot wrecked whatever enjoyment John had experienced. Three more shots followed. Lacos started to turn, Rodney was twisting around and Teyla was moving, but Tyre moved faster, pistol-whipping Lacos before settling the muzzle of one of the Genii pistols to Rodney's temple.. The restraints the Genii had used on him were torn and blood dripped steadily from his wrists.

"Put down you weapon, Teyla Emmagan," he warned, "or I kill Dr. McKay."

John had his left hand on the jumper's stick. He dropped his right to his thigh and slowly, as silently as possible, pulled the snap on his holster open.

"Show me both of your hands, Colonel Sheppard," Tyre said.

John cursed silently. Damn the Genii and himself for assuming Tyre was secured. He was Satedan. John and Teyla at least knew how good Ronon was and Tyre had to be close to that level. He lifted his right hand into view, flicking his finger over the inertial dampeners' control, deactivating them.

He bared his teeth at Tyre. "If you ask me to let go of the controls, we'll all end up as bloody pancakes." A proximity alarm underlined his words as the side of stony mesa loomed close, filling the viewport. He had to look away from Tyre and guide the jumper into a curve away from it, slowing them as he did, braking so smoothly no one but Rodney and Teyla could feel the difference the lack of dampeners made.

Tyre grinned back at him, blood on his teeth and his chin. "Take us back to the ring. The queen will be pleased when I bring her an Ancients' ship and one of their favored blood. She'll probably even keep you."

"Not happening."

Tyre cocked his head, studying John, and then he laughed, sending a chill through John. "You'll bow to her the same way I did."

Rodney squeaked, half dismay and all fear, defying Tyre anyway, "You really don't know us."

John risked a glance his way. Tyre had the muzzle of the Genii gun shoved tight to Rodney's temple, dimpling the flesh, his other hand locked tight in Rodney's hair. He'd pulled Rodney's head so far back, Rodney's Adam's apple moved obviously as he tried to swallow against the pressure. Rodney looked scared, but holding it together, his wide gaze on John full of confidence John didn't feel.

"Tyre," Teyla said, "you know we will not bow to the Wraith. They are not gods."

"Doesn't matter," Tyre replied, "when they drain you down to nothing and then fill you with life again, better than before." He stared at John. "He knows. When the Gift rushes into you, it's better than anything, isn't it, Colonel?"

John kept his face blank, even while he flinched inside. How the hell did Tyre know? Was there a mark left somehow, a taint left in his soul, from what the Wraith had done? He couldn't see it in Tyre. All he saw was a familiar mania, reminding him of Aiden Ford, the last time they'd seen him, burning with enzyme.

"It's better than fucking, better than killing. Isn't it?" Tyre said. "Better than anything and you'd give up all the rest to have it again and again."

"No, I wouldn't. I'm not an addict," John said, "or a traitor."

That made Tyre flinch, just for an instant, but John thought it would be their only chance. The pistol muzzle came away from Rodney's head. He pushed the jumper to max power and flipped it on its side, then headed it straight up. It slammed John and Rodney back in their seats, sent Teyla flying back into the cargo area, and threw Tyre back. He knew it had probably hurt some of the Genii in the back with Ronon, but it couldn't be helped.

It didn't stop Tyre firing twice. Rodney cried out and blood spattered the viewport as the second shot cracked it into a crazed mesh of breaks. The jumper kept accelerating straight up, pulling six, seven, eight, then nine Gs. If it kept accelerating, they'd all black out soon. The viewport groaned and crackled, promising failure before they topped out of the atmosphere. John fought the hellish weight and turned to look, but Rodney was pinned to the co-pilot's seat, threads of blood pushed back over his forehead, his features too distorted by G force to show any expression or life. All John could do was close his eyes and turn his face away, tucking his chin into his shoulder, as the viewport groaned again, then blew in with a cannon shot crack. Thousands of pieces of the clear material the Ancients used — that wasn't glass or plastic as Earth knew it — tore through the cabin, followed by the rushing, roaring air, so strong it stole the breath from his lungs.

He had to struggle against the Gs and his vision was graying out at the edges before John reached the controls and slowed their climb, leveling the jumper out. He didn't re-engage the dampeners yet, but the release from the doubled and tripled and more weight made movement easy again.

Rodney's head lolled against the seat back. The blood was everywhere, sheeting down his face. John didn't let himself look long, didn't let himself think at all, because Tyre was still a threat. Someone was screaming in the back. He fumbled his sidearm out of the holster, then levered himself out of the seat, muscles quivering, sure that intel or not, he was going to put a bullet through Tyre's head, maybe every bullet in his clip, then reload and do it again, until Tyre's face was another mask of blood, until Tyre didn't have a face any longer.

Tyre was still trying to get to his feet, but he was tangled with Lacos, who had lay half beneath him. Lacos had locked both his hands around Tyre's wrist and wrested his arm and the hand still clutching the stolen gun away from aiming at John. The wind still whistled through the broken viewport and John spared a thought for how the jumper would eventually lose altitude and ground itself without a pilot if Tyre shot him too. There were probably enough supplies for Teyla and Ronon to make it back to the stargate on foot, the Genii would be more problematic, but not his problem if he was dead, he reflected grimly.

He tried to aim at Tyre, not wanting to shoot Lacos. The sight on the nine millimeter lurched though and he didn't know if it was the jumper or him that wasn't steady. John lined up again and began to squeeze the trigger.

Teyla crawled back into the cockpit, on her knees, supporting herself on one hand that was fisted tightly around the butt of Ronon's energy pistol. She clutched her other arm to her chest. She moved right between John and the two still fighting men, jammed the muzzle into Tyre's side and fired. Red energy crawled all over Tyre, flinging Lacos away with a pained cry.

Tyre's fingers went slack and the gun fell away.

"John," Teyla panted, "you must fly the jumper back to the stargate and dial Atlantis."

John swayed where he was, feeling the untended and much abused jumper lurch and shudder without the inertial dampeners to compensate for the radically altered aerodynamics, wind roiling into the cabin and tugging at all of them, high altitude thin and cold. He kept his pistol aimed at Tyre. The enzyme let Ford and the others shrug off a stun. Tyre had fooled them once already.

"John!" Teyla yelled. "There are wounded!"

He heard one of the men in the rear screaming and beneath that the wet gurgling cough of someone drowning in their own blood.

"Stun him again," he croaked.

Teyla did.

John dropped back into the pilot's seat. He felt a thousand cuts stinging over one side of his face. Pieces of the viewport tinkled and fell from his hair and shoulders and tac vest as he moved. The hot wetness on his cheeks was blood. Scarlet drops fell from his chin onto the backs of his hands as he re-engaged the dampeners and set a course for the stargate at a speed that wouldn't blind them without the viewport's protection.

He couldn't look at Rodney, still limp and silent in the other seat.

Teyla and Lacos both levered themselves to their feet. Teyla moved between John and Rodney. She placed Ronon's pistol on the co-pilot's console and bent over Rodney, moving with the care of someone in pain.

Lacos recovered the gun Tyre had taken off one of his men, shoved it in his belt and headed into the rear compartment.

"There's a medical kit in the second overhead bin," John forced himself to say. "White background, red cross."

He heard Lacos talking to his men, but couldn't make it out through the rush of air and the hollow bell tone that seemed to resonate through his own head. The screaming became sobbing. John didn't know if it was an improvement. The wind made his eyes water and burn.

He blinked his eyes clear and spotted the stargate, gleaming silver where it had been placed at the top of a great mesa of red and purple stone. Dim sunset light still lit the sky, but the mesa had succumbed to the night and everything was shadowed as John brought the jumper down and landed a few length's beyond the splash zone and enough to the side another jumper could come through. Stones scraped under them as the jumper settled into stillness. John shivered once, convulsively, and then touched Teyla's back.

"I've got to reach the dialing console," he said.

She shifted to the side and he noticed she still had her other arm held close, then spotted the broken bones trying to shove their way through her flesh.

"Hurry. Rodney's unconscious and several of the Genii are badly hurt," Teyla said.

John fumbled, his fingers sliding over the triangular buttons with the gate symbols, his gaze jerking to Rodney.

Rodney still looked...dead, unmoving. John had thought he was, all his brilliance, his pettiness and his bravery, all wiped away with a single gunshot. Something inside him still twisted at that. He stared, biting his lip, until he saw the movement of Rodney's chest, the flutter of a pulse at his throat.

Relief felt as nauseating as grief. John swallowed hard, looked away, and finished dialing Atlantis, opening the comm to call Atlantis as soon as the stargate opened.



Evan came through the stargate with two jumpers, more marines, combat medics, Keller and a portable surgical suite. Keller immediately triaged Rodney, Teyla, and three of the Genii back to Atlantis. Ronon was relocated to one of the other jumpers, left to sleep off the stun on one of the benches. The dead were zipped in four heavy black body bags. John held onto his gun and kept watch as Keller prepared Tyre for surgery. The cinnamon and ozone scent John remembered from the only time they'd visited this world before drifted into jumper, while fine as powder dust settled everywhere, much to Keller's dismay. She complained through all of the preparations at the unsanitary conditions in Jumper One and only shut up when John asked if she'd rather operate with the Wraith coming through the stargate.

Lacos propped himself against the cabin bulkhead and watched Tyre along with John.

One of the marine medics, José Miranda, squeezed inside with them and cleaned the cuts on John's face. The sting and reek of the disinfectant made John grit his teeth, but he never looked away from Tyre. "Get some stitches later, sir," Miranda told him and John nodded.

Two more marines secured Tyre to the operating table before taking up guard positions at the hatch.

Evan had brought two more items, courtesy of the science department and the brig: a shielded container to keep the tracker in and a set of restraints, the ones they'd made to Wraith specs. Even an enzyme-hyped human wouldn't bust those. Tyre went into them after Keller closed.

Lacos wanted to take Tyre straight to Genea for questioning.

Two of the marines carried Tyre to the stargate and turned him over to Lacos' remaining men. Lacos made his way to the DHD and braced one hand against it. John followed and Evan joined him. The temperature had begun to drop as night fell on the high desert. The marines had set up portable halogen lamps that cast razor-sharp shadows across the stony ground. A portable generator droned a steady note in the background, the scent of its combustion exhaust eerily reminiscent of Earth. The harsh light bled away color and obscured a night sky John remembered as glitter and indigo. Evan nodded to the body bags laid out in a row next to the DHD.

"Your men have IDCs?" John asked. All gate team members carried them, but the marines usually only had one or two per squad, carried by the squad leader and their commo guy. Atlantis kept requisitioning more IDCs and the SGC kept sending the minimum requirement. John meant to have engineering begin making their own. It would be easier.

"Yes."

John looked at Lacos. "Some of our men can carry your dead through and dial home from Genea."

Lacos nodded wearily. "Thank you."

"Major," John ordered.

Evan activated his radio and called for a detail.

"We'll have news on your wounded," John promised. "Soon." Atlantis' trauma teams were as experienced as the gate teams.

Ronon staggered out of Jumper Two and looked around blearily. He made his way to the DHD, taking in the busy marines, the jumpers, pausing silently at John's cut up face and the body bags. He spotted Tyre, bound and waiting with his Genii guards, and glared.

Lacos dialed the stargate. They waited through the gush of it opening until it settled into placidity, the fluttering blue light less comforting than usual, sending shadows scurrying, its reflections twisting everyone's features into warped expressions.

Lacos motioned his men to take Tyre through. The body bags squeaked, rubber on rubber, as the marines detailed to go with them lifted each. Lacos looked back before walking through the event horizon.

"What'd I miss?" Ronon asked.

The wormhole collapsed. The hum of power from the stargate, that John had not even noted, faded into the sounds of the marines, of the generator and the sizzle of heat from the halogen bulbs, all overlaying the more distant night sounds of the planet, the soft rustles and night cries of the hunters and the hunted.

John gave a shrug that left him reminded him he hadn't pulled so many Gs in years as his muscles protested. He felt sore all over, deep down, and tired to the bone. Just the prospect of returning to Atlantis and debriefing added to his weariness. Ronon could hear the story when John told Woolsey.

"Sir, go back to Atlantis, get yourself stitched up, check on the Doc," Evan told him gently and John realized he'd zoned out, braced against the DHD the way Lacos had.

Keller joined them before John could say yes or no. She peered at his face. "Let's go. Cole and Abiki will be in surgery with the two critical patients; if that third man goes sour, I'll be needed. I want to check Rodney's scans, too."

Evan pushed John's hand slightly to the side and began dialing. "Respectfully, sir, you're ready to fall over."

"Okay," John acceded. He glanced back at Jumper One. The little ship had still been responding to him like a well trained polo pony, even if it had been lamed and hurting. The salvaged Wraith tech remained in the rear cargo area, pushed aside to make room for Keller's surgery. "Get my baby home and the tech in it back down to the labs — have Radek check it. We don't need any more surprises."

"No sir, we don't," Evan agreed.

The wormhole opened and Evan sent through his own IDC. Ronon wrapped a hand around John's elbow and pulled when John didn't get himself moving fast enough. He started walking because otherwise Ronon would probably pick him up and carry him. He'd been dawdling, delaying, he realized. He didn't want to go back Atlantis and find out Rodney had been alive, but wasn't now, or wasn't...wouldn't ever be himself again.

Woolsey was waiting on the gateroom floor as they came through. He started forward, but Keller waved him off. "Not now. I want both of them in the infirmary and scanned. Anything else can wait." John didn't know if he loved or hated Keller just then, but Woolsey folded, and he went along to the infirmary, finally letting Jens Laughingwater, the day shift trauma specialist, work on his face after examining him.

Teyla slipped past the privacy curtain while Laughingwater was sewing up the second worst cut, her arm in a cast and sling, looking freshly showered though and free of her mission gear. John relaxed minutely. If Rodney had been in serious shape, Teyla would have stayed by his side.

"You're lucky I studied plastic surgery as a specialty before going into emergency medicine," Laughingwater said. The needle and thread tugged strangely at John's skin, despite the anesthetic Laughingwater had administered. "You aren't even going to have any scars. The cuts are all nice and straight and clean."

John made a muffled sound, half agreement, half gratitude. He knew he had a good face and didn't really want it messed up, really didn't want the way some people would look at him if it were.

"Not like Dr. McKay," Laughingwater went on. John jerked and turned his head. Laughingwater grabbed his jaw. "Hold still or I'll leave you with a big red zigzag."

Teyla set her good hand on John's shoulder and squeezed gently. "Rodney will be well," she assured him.

"Of course, he will," Laughingwater said. "He's got a mild concussion, some temporary hearing loss on one side, a face full of cuts just like these, and he's going to have scar over his forehead where the bullet tore open the skin on its way across."

John squeezed his eyes closed. There had been so much blood, like a red shroud over Rodney's features. Head wounds bled a lot, he knew that, no matter whether they were serious or not. But Tyre had had the gun to Rodney's head...John's stomach churned, bile rising up his throat to lie on the back of tongue, the bitter taste of fear and failure. Rodney was alive, he repeated to himself; Rodney would be all right.

He let his eyes stayed closed as Laughingwater went on working, the intense light of the spot being used to light the work shining warm and orange through his lids.

"Lucky, lucky man," Laughingwater declared. "Both of you. The scar won't be bad, I'm a damn fine hand at this sort of thing. Interesting conversational piece eventually. Must have scared the hell out of him at the time, though."

"Thank you," Teyla said when John said nothing.

He felt another distant tug and a bit of pull along his cheek.

"There, you're all done, Colonel."

John opened his eyes. Laughingwater was stripping off his gloves, already on his way out of the cubicle.

"Rodney is in one of the private rooms where it is quieter," Teyla said. "I left Ronon with him."

Laughingwater stopped him long enough to hand over a blister pack of muscle relaxants, then John followed her to the back of the infirmary.

He stopped in the doorway and leaned there once he caught sight of Rodney. His friend was dressed in pale yellow scrubs. All the blood had been washed away, but many of the cuts on his face were still unbandaged, lines of red under the glisten of antibiotic ointments. A wide white bandage wrapped around Rodney's head like a headband. He had an IV in one arm, nothing else. John watched Rodney's chest rise and fall until his own breathing matched the same rhythm, feeling lightheaded, the last hollow ringing settling into the silence in his head. Rodney looked paler than usual and he needed a shave, his beard coming in like a gunmetal shadow where his jawline softened into his neck. John wished he could touch, to just feel skin and the steady jump of Rodney's pulse there. Rodney's lashes looked longer and thicker than a man had a right to with his eyes closed, the color hidden under thin, blue-veined lids. He seemed incredibly fragile, more than he had even in the jumper.

John's legs decided they'd had enough and he just slid down the wall until his ass reached the chilly floor. He sat, knees bent, hands empty, dazed by the gratitude he felt, just watching Rodney breathe, with Ronon sprawled in a uncomfortable chair next to his bed and Teyla standing in the doorway next to him. Today he might have lost any one of them, all of them, and they were everything. They were everything to him.

Teyla sank down to the floor with him and took John hand in hers, lacing their fingers together. Her hands were tiny. Calluses from the bantos sticks made her palms tough. She squeezed his hand.

"I would never have forgiven myself if Rodney had died." Because I am a warrior and meant to protect him John heard, unspoken, echoing his own feelings.

"Wouldn't have been your fault," Ronon said. "I should have — "

John tightened his hand on Teyla's and found his voice. "Mine. It would have been mine. Christ, if the acceleration hadn't forced Rodney's head back just that much, Tyre would have blown his brains out instead of just grazing his forehead."

"It wasn't anyone's fault, so you should all shut up," Rodney croaked. He didn't open his eyes and his mouth pinched into a thin, pained line. "I'm not dead, though, oh, God, my head hurts enough I almost wish I were. Especially if it meant I never had to listen to you three start your latest 'I'm the Guiltiest' deathmatch."

Teyla laughed and even Ronon chuckled, while Rodney began a whispered diatribe that included all their respective parents, their parents' parents, Dr. Abiki's Caribbean diploma mill medical degree, and plans to create new and especially vile methods of torture to be tested out on all of them before he used them on Tyre. John let his head fall back against the wall and closed his eyes. He still had a report to write after debriefing with Woolsey and he thought he'd have to ask Ronon to help him back to his feet if he stayed on the floor much longer, but he didn't mind at all.



He managed to fit a shower in before spending three hours debriefing with Woolsey, Evan sitting two seats down the table, facing the camera that was the latest IOA innovation. Transcripts weren't enough any longer, they wanted to have video, so that they could sic their analysts on every blink and twitch and yawn. In consequence, debriefings had become stiff, blank-faced recitations, all the nuances they once discussed but left out of the reports unspoken entirely.

The dial-in from Genea offered a welcome escape, as Woolsey ended the debriefing and waved John to join him in night-time dim control room. Ladon was on the other end of the live, two-way video feed, neatly-bearded face up on the main screen. Ladon had reverted back into full Marshal Paramount uniform and John felt relieved he had changed after his shower, even if his face was covered in plasters. Woolsey, at least, looked as immaculately dressed and poised as ever, aiming a diplomatically pinch-mouthed smile at the screen as though a late night call from the Genii was just what he needed to complete his day. John settled for a head nod.

Ladon wanted news of the three Genii wounded.

Keller, surgical cap still covering her hair and looking as tired as John had seen her, came up to control from medical. She reported, addressing a spot somewhere between Woolsey and the image of Ladon on the big screen. All three men were stable.

"Abiki had to remove one man's spleen, but we're fairly sure he'll recover. The other man we're monitoring to make sure his lung doesn't collapse again," she explained. "Number three is going to have a spectacular scar, but he's stitched up and you can have him back tomorrow if you want."

Ladon nodded. His gaze shifted, maybe looking from Keller to John. "And Dr. McKay? Teyla Emmagan?"

"They're both going to be okay," John said. Lacos must have reported they were wounded, too.

"That's a relief," Ladon replied. He seemed sincere. His expression hardened. "We have begun questioning the Wraith worshipper."

"This Tyre person," Woolsey corrected him.

"Who he was does not matter."

John agreed but kept silent.

"Has he said anything useful?" Woolsey asked.

"He is resisting," Ladon answered. "Breaking him will take time."

"Breaking," Woolsey repeated. "What exactly are you doing to him?"

Ladon caught on to Woolsey's disapproval. "What is necessary. Unless you have anything that could soften his will better than our methods?" His voice turned hard. "Or you, Dr. Keller? Perhaps you know of a drug to make a prisoner talk?"

Woolsey stiffened beside John. Before he could say anything however, Keller whipped off her surgical cap and snapped, "I'm a doctor, not an interrogator. No one in my department will help torture anyone." She glared at Woolsey and then John, who hadn't said anything, then stalked away.

"I'm afraid we can't help you," Woolsey told Ladon. He smiled tightly. "We'll dial in tomorrow to send your man home and update you."

"Yes, of course," Ladon replied. "Mr. Woolsey. Colonel Sheppard. Until then."

"Good night, Chancellor," Woolsey said.

"Talk to you tomorrow," John added.

Woolsey gestured to the comm tech and the connection cut, then the wormhole collapsed, followed by opalescent sheen of the shield. John looked at the empty ring for a moment. The window beyond was darkened, filled with shadowed reflections, though the stained glass lost the last time the gate room was half destroyed had been replaced. He'd lost track of the time and would have had to check his watch to know exactly, but they were somewhere halfway through Atlantis' night. A rough calculation told him it was morning on Genea. It would be an unending day for Tyre.

"What about those Goa'uld memory device things?" John asked.

"No," Woolsey said.

He considered arguing, but figured it for useless. He wasn't sure he wanted Woolsey to tell him yes, they had something better and would let the Genii use it, anyway. The thing was, though, he'd seen it before, seen it over and over and he wanted to tell him they were long past the line, had been for years before the US Air Force or the SGC sent them through the stargate; that complicity while someone else did the dirty work didn't leave your hands any cleaner. Ronon walking into a room with Kavanagh and a knife at least owned his own sins, didn't pretend to clean hands afterward. They were going to accept whatever the Genii learned from Tyre and use it.

"Report in my email by noon tomorrow," Woolsey ordered. He sighed. "We should all get some sleep."

"Good idea," John agreed.

"Remind Specialist Dex and Miss Emmagan, please."

"Sure. McKay?"

"Dr. McKay may take an extra day since he has been wounded. A concussion, I understand; though I observed a disturbing amount of blood when he was brought through the stargate.And, of course, Ms. Emmagan will be off the mission roster until her arm heals. I've supplied her with a voice recorder so that she can dictate her report."

"I'm sure she'll appreciate it."

"Well then. I'll bid you good night, Colonel."

John lingered after Woolsey left, soaking in the quiet sounds of the night shift, the rhythms of the city between emergencies, before taking a transporter to the residential quarters. He got his boots off and stripped down to boxers and a tee shirt before collapsing into sleep. He woke once from a dream of wind whistling through broken glass, frost coating his fingers, reaching for something. He couldn't see it or remember what it had been while lying on his back, blinking blearily at the coppery ceiling, waiting for his stiff muscles to unseize enough he could stumble into the washroom and find the muscles relaxants Laughingwater had pressed on him. Something important, he thought, before falling back into sleep, this time dreamless as death.



Keller released Rodney in the morning. Despite his complaints of possible aneurysms, brain damage and disfigurement, Rodney popped several Tylenol and went to the labs instead of his quarters. No one, including Keller, felt any surprise. Radek had begun preliminary analysis of the Wraith equipment after evaluating it for any immediate danger. Rodney couldn't stay away from that without physical restraints.

Thirteen hours later, Rodney barged into John's office, unshaven, shoulders rounded in exhaustion, his eyes bloodshot red and ringed with bags. The wide bandage over his forehead had gone a sort of grimy gray, adorned with smears, a coffee stain and a gooey patch of something that looked like it belonged in an outtake of The Blob.

"Hey," John said and quickly waved Evan out of the only other chair.

Rodney dropped into with a grunt that signaled gratitude. He completely missed Evan's amused expression, which disappeared as soon as he noticed John had seen. John suppressed a smile of his own.

"So, what brings you to my neck of the woods?" John asked. "Need some marines? Maybe a pilot? Someone with a real gene? Or did you just miss me?"

"Ha. Ha. Ahhhhhh." Rodney slumped down until he could rest his head against the seat back with that pathetic little groan. He even closed his eyes. "Miss you? Are you sure you aren't the one with a concussion?"

Evan made walking motions with his fingers and John nodded to him. They could discuss the growing discipline problem with LaRue the next day. John had already decided the best choice would be to send LaRue back to Earth the next time one of the SGC ships made a supply run. He really didn't want to end up with LaRue in the brig. It just made more work for the rest of their people. The Daedalus was due in the next two weeks; let Earth deal with this problem child. Evan slipped out quietly.

John waited for the door to close before opening his desk drawer and bringing out his giant bottle of Excedrin. "Headache still bad?" he asked sympathetically. He'd had enough concussions to know it was. The little pained frown that squinched Rodney's brows together even with his eyes closed gave it away.

"Hideous."

Without opening his eyes, Rodney held out his open hand and John dropped two pills into his palm. He winced as Rodney dry swallowed them.

"Life saver," Rodney croaked afterward. His Adam's apple worked. "Jesus, John. We ended up working with biology, figuring out what that crap was."

John perched on his desk corner.

Rodney gestured blindly. "I mean, first we went with chemistry, but those damn Wraith bio-organics had them more confused than an elephant in a tutu, so we had to get Neumann and Gritty, Grisky..." Rodney frowned then snapped his fingers. "Gretsky — "

"You only remember that because of the hockey player," John pointed out.

"Yes, so? As I was saying, biologists of all things, and they wouldn't have figured it out without the brilliance of yours truly, along with Radek, too busy oohing and ahing over the horrible goo..."

John let Rodney's words wash over him, soothing and familiar, by turns irritated and excited and punctuated with hand waves and finger snaps, emotions flipping fast as the fanned pages of book, all of it comforting the raw place inside thinking Tyre had killed Rodney had left.

"...invisible tattoos."

"What?"

Rodney had his eyes open now, studying John shrewdly. "I'd begun to think you weren't listening to me."

John shifted uncomfortably. "I was listening." Maybe not hearing, but he'd definitely been listening.

"Hmph."

"Invisible tattoos?" John prompted. "Also, why are you here, telling me? Wouldn't, I don't know, Keller, be more interested?"

"Because I don't need to shower and change and write up a report to talk to you. I can forward the data to Keller and tell Woolley-Bully at morning staff. It's not like its anything, oh, say, useful, anyway."

John wrinkled his nose, though he couldn't actually smell much from Rodney except a whiff of coffee. Teasing might perk Rodney up, though. "You should reconsider the shower option."

"This from Colonel Spars With Sweaty Apes." Rodney drew in a deep breath. "We think we've figured out what Tyre was doing from the salvaged tech."

"Yeah?"

"He was tagging people with a biological marker. Nothing they could see, but either the Wraith can or they have some kind of sensor to read it. That's not relevant, the Wraith seeing part, I mean."

"Why?" John asked. "And can we trace the marker?"

"No idea," Rodney answered. "And no. It's not a signal and from what we can tell, it will degrade in about six months. Shed with the skin cells. From what Neumann and Radek came up with, Tyre would just have to coat his hand with this stuff, it wouldn't show up to anyone, and then just touch them. Shake hands, whatever. It soaked right through clothing when we tested, so it could seem like a pretty innocent contact. It does smell a lot like vinegar, but I don't think it would be noticeable outside a closed room."

"So, we're still left hoping the Genii get something from Tyre."

Rodney sighed. "Yes. Don't think I like it any more than you do."

John reached over and patted Rodney's arm, not thinking about it for once. "No one expected we'd get the answer from that stuff, you know."

"I'd hoped."

They always hoped they were going to find the one thing they needed to stop the Wraith. It hadn't happened yet.

"I know."

John pulled his hand back as he realized Rodney was looking at it. He looked down at his boots, wishing he could just be natural with Rodney at least. There were so many things they understood without needing to explain to each other, he hoped Rodney knew some of what he might never be able to say.



Morning staff again, this time with Woolsey prodding Keller into admitting the Genii were ready to go back home and Evan lobbying to delay a mission scheduled for the next week instead of assigning it to different team, something about Parrish and some plant, fara, fana, he wasn't clear about it. Either it was an appetite suppressant or a stimulant. Rodney presented what Radek and Neumann's team had on the salved Wraith tech. Which wasn't much. They were left hoping the Genii succeeded in extracting something from Tyre.

The bandage over Rodney's forehead had been changed and looked smaller, leaving his hairline visible.

They scheduled a jumper run to Genea to return the wounded. Dr. Cole would accompany them to brief the Genii doctors on their status and what had been done and what care they would need. Woolsey suggested just sending the medical records only to have Radek dryly point out that while everyone who went through the Pegasus stargates received a version of Trade, it didn't even have an alphabet and the Genii wouldn't be able to make any sense of paper reports in English or any Terran language. The closest thing to universal written language in Pegasus was Ancient and only a tiny proportion of the population were literate at all. Having your civilization knocked back to the stone age every hundred years or so had that effect.

"Make sure Dr. Cole understands she's to brief the Genii doctors and return with Colonel Sheppard," Woolsey told Keller.

They managed to cover a project overview for the biology and botany departments, none of it exactly fascinating John. He expected a request that he assign marines to a mission to acquire sufficient soil from PXF-D43 in the coming weeks if he'd understood the part about rare elements and enhanced crop yields.

"I think that's it for today," Woolsey declared, pushing his chair back from the conference table.

Rodney was already on his feet, gathering up his laptop and tablet and the yellow coffee cup lifted from the mess hall contrary to regs. John kicked back and rose too. He scooped the coffee cup out of Rodney's grip. "I'll get this back to the mess. If Sgt. Harris runs inventory on the kitchen and comes up short again, he's going to run a commando raid on the physics labs."

"He'd have to get past the disintegrator rays and robot attack dogs."

"Yeah, but think, if he didn't, who'd cook up Monday Mystery Meatloaf?"

John fell into step beside Rodney, swinging the empty cup by a finger through the handle as they went.

"Yes, well, the only mystery about the meatloaf is that the Ancients didn't discover it and use it as a building material."

John laughed as they reached the transporters. "You mean they didn't?"

Rodney thumped the wall with his elbow. "Who knows what's behind some of these panels?"

"Okay. I've got paperwork. See you at lunch?"

Rodney stepped into the transporter. "Sorry. I'm going to eat in the lab and work through lunch."

"Then I'll see you in the gear room at fifteen-hundred," John replied and stepped back enough to let the transporter doors close. When the opened again, he stepped inside and headed for his office, stopping in Evan's office to leave Rodney's cup on his desk next to several others John had absconded with himself. Evan would get them back to the mess.



Lacos waved the jumper down into a grassy meadow just beyond the stargate, boarded and directed John past the nearest fake village to a barn built into a hillside. Ronon exchanged a nod with Lacos, then stood back while Lacos spoke quietly with his men. He radioed a password when they reached the barn and two 'farmers' cranked open the doors to the hayloft. John flew the jumper in and through a second set of concealed doors that led into the first level of the Genii bunker complex. Ladon was waiting when they landed, along with his body guards.

Rodney whipped out his Ancient PDA as soon as they walked down the jumper's ramp to the concrete floor. "Checking for radiation," he muttered. The bunker was dim enough the PDA's screen reflected light from his features.

"And?"

"Low level, about like living next to the Mt. Diablo power plant or Lawrence Livermore."

John filed that away and greeted Ladon, introducing Cole and explaining she had come along to tell their doctors exactly how their wounded had been treated.

"Strike Leader, please accompany the doctor and your men," Ladon told Lacos.

John caught Cole's gaze and tapped his headset. "Check in every hour."

"Gotcha," she said and followed Lacos and the gurneys with the wounded away.

John closed the jumper up, initiated the shield and pocketed the remote. He smiled at Ladon. "Lead on."

Ladon studied the faint heat shimmer that the shield produced. "Is it the same as the shield over your stargate?" he asked, reminding John that before he'd removed Cowen and ousted Kolya, Ladon had been one of their top scientists.

"Somewhat," Rodney said.

Ronon followed them as Ladon took them deeper into the bunker. An elevator took them three more level below the surface. The lights spaced along the corridor ceiling were five sided, cubes with the sixth side comprising a plug. Each of them had a heavy wire grill protecting it. The yellowish light threw the team's ahead of them, fluid and black. A vibration ran through the concrete under their feet and the walls when John ran his hand along one.

"Turbines," Rodney muttered.

Ladon slowed his pace and nodded. "Yes. This facility is powered by an underground river we've harnessed."

Rodney perked up, interested as always by any sort of engineering involving energy. "I don't suppose you'd let me see the actual plant? Are you using a dam to increase pressure or gravity?"

"Perhaps later," Ladon said. He gestured to a door. "In here."

Here proved to be an office, not unlike the offices at the SGC, though smaller. There were seats for all of them and a young Genii officer who scurried out when Ladon waved at him. He returned with cups and a pot of aromatic tea, pouring for Ladon first, then John, Rodney, and Ronon, before retreating again.

Settled and sipping the blue tea, Ladon asked about Teyla.

"Just a broken arm," John said. He tried the tea. Not bad. A little flowery, but definitely superior to the muddy, bitter stout tea the Athosians liked so well. He wondered if the Genii grew it or traded to get it. "She's off active status until the cast comes off, but it's nothing to worry about."

Ladon's gaze rested on the bandage still around Rodney's forehead and John's cuts. "I see. Lacos' report indicated Dr. McKay was hurt badly." He glanced at Rodney again, who was sniffing his tea warily, and added wryly, "But I can see he is all right."

Rodney sniffed again. "Barely. You'd think someone who was shot in the head would get a little more sympathy, but no."

"You were grazed," John said.

"My head!" Rodney pointed at the bandage. "Shot. I don't have a giant pimple under this, you know."

John ducked his head, grinning. Pimple? Sometimes Rodney made it so easy he didn't have the heart to take advantage.

"Quit whining," Ronon said.

"Have you made any progress with Tyre?" John asked to forestall a shouting match between his team mates. Ronon had been edgy since the mission, upset he'd been stunned and helpless while Tyre almost killed Rodney, guilty over Teyla's arm, furious at Tyre and the Wraith, and probably, somewhere down where he didn't have to admit it to anyone, worried and grieving for Tyre, at least as he'd known him once. It made for a volatile mix, one Rodney's complaints might set off.

Ladon rubbed his hands over his face, then set them flat on his desk. He studied John. "I do not know if your doctors might have helped, the deterioration was sickeningly fast..."

"He's dead?" Ronon asked, his voice gone rough.

Ladon confirmed it. "At first, he seemed almost inhumanly strong, defiant, and then he appeared to go into withdrawal. Our doctors were monitoring him; it shouldn't have been a problem: he was strong and healthy and we've detoxed people before."

"The enzyme," Rodney said. He set his cup down and rubbed his arms. "If he'd been getting it since Sateda fell..."

"Seven years," Ronon said. "It would have been bad, but Tyre was strong. What happened?"

Ladon looked grim. He took a key to a cabinet against the back wall, opened it and revealed a primitive cathode ray tube screen. A second drawer beneath the monitor cabinet was opened with another key. It was filled with cylinders, perhaps two centimeters in diameter, nine in length. He handled only the tops, pulled the second one from the first row and slotted into a circular receptacle below the screen, then flicked a switch.

The screen stayed dark, then flared from a single point into grainy but colored image.

"See for yourself," Ladon said. His lips tightened and he looked at John again.

The screen showed an interrogation room, with Tyre strapped to a table. A blindfold covered his eyes and he'd been stripped naked. The picture quality didn't obscure the details of the room. The table was metal, bolted to the floor, the restraints were built into it. The floor appeared to be plain concrete and had a small square drain in the center. The lights were too bright for the camera and washed out some detail on pale surfaces, while the shadows were brutal black and sharp edged. A second table sat against on wall, with a variety of 'tools' carefully set out for use. Five Genii were in the room with Tyre; besides two guards, there was an officer in uniform, a slight and balding man in a pale gree smock, and a stubby, heavily-muscled man wearng a rubber apron, pants and boots: interrogator, doctor, torturer.

The doctor examined Tyre cursorily then nodded and stepped back.

"Braga, Dr. Ordis, and Gebbis."

Gebbis laid a broad board over Tyre's chest, then hefted a square weight onto the board. Next he took the blindfold off. Tyre squeezed his eyes shut against the glare of the overhead light.

The picture didn't have any sound or Ladon hadn't turned it on, but John could imagine the wheezing gasp Tyre let out, his mouth open. He fought against the restraints, but finally collapsed back, gasping for breath.

"Braga tells him they'll begin where they stopped the day before," Ladon narrated. "There's an audio recording and a transcript. I don't think either are compatible with your technology."

"Play it and I can record it," Rodney said.

"That would work."

On the screen, Tyre turned his head and spat at Braga. Braga glanced down at the wet stain on his uniform but did nothing. Gebbis stepped forward and placed his hand over Tyre's nose and mouth. He held it there, muscles rippling in his shoulders and biceps while Tyre bucked and writhed, until Tyre went still, the weight on his chest crushing down. Watching, John winced, though it was already done. When Gebbis let him breath again, Tyre had to fight for the air he desperately needed, half-smothered and pinned.

Braga turned Tyre's face and spoke to the doctor, who checked Tyre's pulse and nodded. Braga spoke again.

"Braga now says that they will begin. He asks how long Tyre has betrayed humans for the Wraith," Ladon relayed in a flat tone. He watched the screen now. Gebbis had retreated to his table of implements. "Tyre does not answer. He asks if Tyre would like something to take the edge off the withdrawal."

"Nothing really does," Rodney said. He'd turned away and crossed his arms over his chest. Sweat glistened at his temple. "How could he even talk like that?"

John didn't blame him. Given another circumstance, he would have walked out of the office himself. He didn't want to look, but he had to.

Ronon grunted and John looked back at the picture.

"This is where it begins," Ladon said.

John felt his stomach start to crawl up his throat.

Tyre seized: body thrashing, teeth snapping together repeatedly, eyes rolled back in his head. As his body collapsed down, it aged. Lines scored his face, muscle collapsed, skin went loose. His hair didn't go gray, but some of it fell out on the table under his head.

"What – ?" Ronon exclaimed.

The doctor bustled between the camera and Tyre. Braga and Gebbis both tripped back from the table, looking horrified. Then the doctor gestured and Gebbis removed the weight and the board. Tyre gasped and rolled his head to the side to stare at Braga. He spoke, words spilling fast and desperate, terror clear on his face.

"Here he begs to be sent back to the Wraith."

"God, why?" Rodney asked, risking a glance at the screen and looking horrified.

John wished he hadn't had any of the tea.

"The Gift of Life, the thing the Wraith do," he choked out.

Rodney looked at him, concern writ so clearly on his face John had to look away. He stared at the screen instead as Tyre seized again, aging another ten years before their eyes. Whatever the Wraith had done to or for Tyre, it wore off. John swallowed hard. Why hadn't it worn off with him? Or maybe it would. He couldn't think about it now, so he shook his head at Rodney.

Ladon had been watching them and John remembered that he'd been in Atlantis and seen Kolya's live broadcast of him being fed on. He probably had some clue to what had happened afterward and what John was thinking now. He had the grace to say nothing.

The recording showed Tyre screaming, then choking as he aged steadily. He talked between sobs and curses and smaller, more frequent seizures that left him crepe-faced and hairless, joints swollen, hands twisted into arthritic claws and his eyes cataract white.

"He offers to tell everything," Ladon narrated, and added, "I don't know if he thought we could give him back to the Wraith again or wanted revenge."

"Revenge," Ronon stated and from what John had observed of Satedans, he thought that had to be it.

John made himself watch stone-faced as the image of Tyre on the screen finally shuddered and collapsed into drooling decrepitude. "Did he tell you anything useful?" he forced out.

"A Ring destination where he said the Wraith had taken many people he and other worshippers had marked for them," Ladon said.

"Have your tried it?" Rodney asked. "Did you recognize it? Did he say what they wanted from the people they took?"

"One of our people used the symbols Tyre provided. It wasn't a world any Genii knew."

Ronon frowned at Ladon. "So you didn't send anyone through?"

"It might be a lie, it might be pure chance that the destination is a real place," Ladon pointed out. "If Tyre didn't lie, it is still a trap. He also admitted there was no way to use the Ancestor's ring on the other side. The Wraith intend their captives to stay and populate the planet. Tyre's mission was to locate villages with mostly young, fit adults who could 'breed'."

The jumpers had their own DHDs. John wondered if Ladon wasn't angling to get access to the jumpers again, but the story made sense. Without a working stargate and DHD, any people the Wraith put on that world would be marooned.

"Just like a roach motel," Rodney muttered, echoing John's thoughts. "It's kind of surprising they didn't try this before, with the extended lifespans they can long term plan without relying on succeeding generations to finish any work..."

"McKay, shut up," Ronon interrupted him. Tension rolled off him. The muscles in his shoulders shifted and twisted, hinting at the turmoil seeing Tyre die had to have stirred through him, and the anger he always felt toward the Wraith. "We're going to get them?" He glared at John. "Right?"

Rodney looked at John, then Ronon, then John again and his face twisted into unhappy recognition. "Oh, come on. You can't really mean to – Look, we should go back to Atlantis, pick up a couple of brigades of marines, and Teyla, before heading off into the wild blue wormhole. Sheppard, tell me you aren't serious – "

Aside from the fact Atlantis didn't have even one entire brigade of marines, John didn't think Woolsey would authorize another Genii-Lantean jumper mission. Jumper One was still out of commission and Radek had threatened John's life over breakfast after seeing it the first time. Teyla was still out of commission. She'd never want them to delay the mission until her broken arm healed. He figured it was go now or not at all.

Anger bled into Ladon's next words. "It isn't enough they hunt us for food and sport, now they will keep us as domestic animals."

"We can send Cole back with a report and the gate address," John said. "If anything happens, the Daedalus can pull us out."

Rodney shot a glance at Ladon then hissed in what he might have thought was a low tone, "The Daedalus isn't here now." He pointed at his bandaged forehead. "You know how fast things can go bad, Sheppard."

John winced.

"Go back with Cole then," Ronon said, proving he'd heard.

As had Ladon. "You don't trust me yet," he said, "but I'll come with you."

"Chancellor, no," his bodyguard spoke up, abruptly reminding them all of his up until then silent presence. Rodney jumped, John and Ronon swiveled to stare at him and Ladon frowned. "Sir," the bodyguard added, "you have no way of knowing how dangerous it would be to go with the Lanteans. Even if they are...trustworthy."

Rodney gaped at him. "Us? You think we're – that's – you're the ones who – "

"Rodney," John said.

"Well, it takes a lot of nerve, is all I have to say about the matter," Rodney replied with a sniff of sheer disdain.

"Look, Ladon, thanks but no thanks, okay?" John said before Ladon could dress down the bodyguard. He tapped on his headset and radioed, "Cole. This is Sheppard. Finish up what you're doing. We're going to brief you and send you back to Atlantis with a report."

"Strike Leader Lacos and I are already on our way, sir. Cole out."

"Woolsey is going to file another report to the IOA," Rodney told him.

John shrugged. It wasn't technically disobeying orders if you hadn't received any to the contrary. He'd learned that lesson. If it got the Athosians back for Teyla, he'd live with the consequences.

"God, you're crazy. Why do I have to have a crazy team leader?"

John ignored him. "Could you get us copies of what Tyre told you and something to play them on? I'd like to send that back with Dr. Cole."

Ladon called in his assistant and made it happen. A carrying case of recording cylinders and a small player the size of a briefcase arrived shortly thereafter, followed by Cole and Lacos. Radio calls were made to several other Genii, presumably other members of Ladon's government, as he made arrangements to leave Genea for the day.

"I think I should accompany Dr. Cole to Atlantis and inform your Mr. Woolsey of what we learned myself," Ladon explained as their group made its way back through the bunker corridors to the hangar housing the jumper. Two bodyguards trailed behind them, along with the assistant with the case.

Cole's face had closed down as John explained what he wanted her to do. She clearly didn't relish the prospect of relaying that the rest of AR-1 had hared off on secondary, off-the-cuff mission. She gave Ladon a quick, grateful glance when he spoke and John could guess why: Ladon's presence would tie Woolsey up and keep him to busy to bother with Cole once she'd reported. John felt a little grateful himself, though he expected to get a lecture and maybe even another black mark out of this.

Lacos matched strides with Ronon and listened with interest. As they reached the jumper, he spoke. "I'd like to accompany you to this planet."

"Why?" Rodney asked.

"To see this through to the end," Lacos replied.

John considered it. Lacos had lost men to capturing Tyre. Finding something from what they'd got from Tyre would make their deaths a little less meaningless. He glanced at Ronon and Rodney to get their feelings on the subject. Rodney looked mulish but gave a reluctant little nod. Ronon said, "He's good."

"You follow my orders, while we're in the jumper or wherever we end up," John told Lacos.

"Agreed, if Chancellor Radim has no objections."

Ladon seemed to consider it before giving his agreement. John knew he wanted a first hand report on whatever they found and Lacos would provide it.

"We'll drop you off at the DHD, you can dial Atlantis, and then we'll take the jumper through to this planet" John said as they boarded the jumper. "Cole, you've got your IDC?"

"Yes," she said.

He considered patting her shoulder as he went by her to the cockpit, but it would have just felt too weird. Instead, he settled for saying, "Good. Remember the confirmation code?"

"Yes," she repeated, a little annoyed.

John waved Ladon into the seat Teyla usually used, while the bodyguards, Lacos and the assistant took seats in the rear. He waved at the men in the hangar and pointed at the doors, then took them through, up, and out of the false-face barn and back toward the gate. Ladon looked out at the rolling fields of ripening tava. "All the aircraft my people have designed have depended on lift surfaces to achieve flight," he said.

"Wings, yeah," John said. "It's...different than the jumpers." Winged aircraft, even jets he loved and the screaming fast 302s, flew according the laws that John's own body recognized. "And then there's the rotary craft." The throbbing power of a helicopter was different too, fighting gravity every second, forcing themselves into the air in defiance of it, always on the edge of tearing apart. The jumpers just seemed oblivious to most physical laws, above gravity and inertia. "They're a different story."

"You're familiar with the theory?"

Rodney snorted. "He's obsessed."

"I'm in the Air Force, it kind of goes with the territory, Rodney," John replied. He flew them to the clearing in front of the stargate and set down, lowering the rear hatch.

Ladon handed John a piece of paper with the gate symbols for their destination hand drawn on it. Rodney snatched it from John's hand before he'd had more than a chance to glance at it and began entering them on his laptop. While he did, John waved Cole forward. "I know this is moving fast, but we don't know what the Wraith may have done in the wake of losing Tyre. We need to find these people before they're moved again." He glanced at Ladon, who had stepped into the rear compartment to speak with Lacos. "You'll have Chancellor Radim in Atlantis, so if this is a trick of some kind, Woolsey can hold onto him to leverage the Genii." Ladon knew how it would work; his volunteering to go back to Atlantis with Cole was a demonstration of good faith. He'd be acting as a hostage, which would hopefully assuage some of Woolsey's inevitable worry.

"Okay, okay, Cole, listen, I've translated the destination to our notation," Rodney said. "It's PY5-GX5. They'll need to check it on the data base, but it's likely somewhere on the fringe of the galaxy, out of the normal Wraith culling patterns if they're really trying to set up a breeding reserve. Have you got that?" He looked up from his laptop.

Cole blinked and repeated, "PY5, uh, – "

"GX5," Rodney prompted. "PY5-GX5."

"I'm sure they can translate it on Atlantis," John reassured Rodney.

"Oh, well, of course, but it doesn't hurt. Just tell them that's where we're going."

Rodney didn't actually look all that enthusiastic, more like he was off to the dentist, but that was his usual pre-mission face, so John didn't worry.

Ladon and Cole exited and Lacos came forward to occupy the fourth chair. "One of my cousins was on Brelgothdir, trading for spice, when the trading station was taken," Lacos said quietly.

Ronon kept his eyes on Lacos, but Lacos' involvement suddenly made more sense.

John watched Ladon dial Atlantis and Cole activate her IDC, before the group went through the ring. He had his radio switched off, so if Woolsey tried to contact him he'd miss it. The wormhole collapsed behind Ladon's assistant. John closed the rear hatch, checked the jumper was sealed in case the stargate took them into space instead of atmosphere, and lifted to hover before the gate.

"Rodney?"

Rodney pressed the symbols on the center console and activated it. John waited while the gate dialed, the new wormhole swooshed open and then stabilized.

"Okay," he said mostly to himself and sent the jumper forward.



The area surrounding the stargate had been cleared down to bare, blowing dirt. The jumper's passage stirred it into the air, a haze of gray-brown. A winter pale sky faded invisibly into the sere bunch-grass that stretched to the horizon in one direction. Taking the jumper higher only showed them desolate plains and the eroded line of weather worn mountains, faded blue-mauve with distance.

"Empty," Ronon said and it certainly looked it, but someone had scraped away at the ground around the stargate. Holes pocked the earth, edges crumbling in, piles of dirt slowly sifting back down.

Lacos leaned forward, studying the area as the jumper circled the area. "Dry," he commented, pointing at the dust that lifted listlessly from the excavations. "Rain would have tamped that down."

Ronon grunted his agreement.

"What were they digging for – ?" John cut himself off as he spotted the dulled gleam of a metal plinth exactly where the DHD pedestal normally stood in relation to the stargate. "They thought the Wraith buried it?"

"Hoped, maybe," Lacos said.

"Where'd they go?" Rodney stared out and his hands were still for once. He'd managed to smudge his bandage again, a smear at his temple from absently pushing up at it there. His hand rose to rub at it again and John realized that he probably had a headache as a lingering effect of the concussion. The pinched line between his brows and his drawn thin mouth gave away that the pain was bad.

"Mountains," Ronon said. "They'd need water, some kind of shelter."

John brought the jumper around. "Lot of mountains here, buddy." They were low and old, like the Appalachians, but still mountains.

Ronon leaned over his shoulder and pointed. "Follow the trail."

Once he looked for it, John could see the path of tramped down grasses. It meandered, avoiding obstacles invisible from the air, but kept a steady heading toward the mountains, southwest by the sun. Given another month, a storm or the advent of spring, signs of that passage would have been impossible to pick out except by an experienced tracker. Which they had in Ronon, but they'd move a lot faster if they could stay in the air.

Ronon kept him on course, though John overshot a turn in the trail twice and had to circle back to spot it again, much to Rodney's amusement. Lacos observed quietly, though John saw his mouth quirk up in a swiftly hidden grin at one of Rodney's more creative insults towards John's sense of direction. The trail led them to a natural cut in the rounded hills that rose up from the end of the plain, the shaggy, ashen grass giving way at last to ragged trees twisted by the wind, and a wide river meandering north. The sky reflected off the polished platinum mirror of the river, cloudless and cold. Here gravel and dark sand flats edged the water, hemmed in by time-smoothed boulders. Everything was softened, blurred and blunted by time and the old leaves caught in drifts among the gnarled roots of the trees were the color of old pennies and tarnished brass.

The trail disappeared in the sand and gravel, but Rodney made a crowing sound. "Follow the river gorge," he directed. "I've got life signs."

John took the jumper deeper into the hills, following the winding silver rope of the water, passing into chilled shadows and startling a flock of birds from the thicker stands of trees and brush along its banks. Rodney jumped though they couldn't hear the sudden, panicked drum of wings; the flickering shadows of their flight slid across the front console of the jumper, onto his keyboard and his hands. John followed them with his eyes and found the first ripple of heated air, a faint smoke mark against the near white sky. He guided the jumper toward it, while Rodney hummed over his clutch of lifesigns.

"How many?" Ronon asked.

Rodney lifted his laptop so that Ronon could see the screen over his shoulder. It showed a blotch of white with dots outlying. Too many too close together to get a reliable count until they were closer.

They still might have missed the camp if it hadn't been for the fires that dotted a wide gravel bar, smoldering under rickety drying racks covered in fish. The huts were set back, above the gravel bar and out of flood danger, half hidden in the lee of the trees. Little more than lean-tos constructed from branches woven and bent together, chinked with river mud and the verdigris velvet moss that grew in thick blankets on the trees, the camp was nearly invisible.

John swung the jumper round as figures looked up and several ran into the open, jumping and waving their arms.

Rodney leaned forward. "Anyone we know?"

One of the people waving to them had a shock of black hair and towered over the rest, but John didn't recognize him. He picked out an open area on the gravel bar and set the jumper down.



It turned out that it had been a trader from Manaria caught up on another world during a culling. He'd recognized the Atlantean jumper. The other displaced people hung back, staring in a combination of exhausted wariness and hope. Nallan's wide grin and the more cautious smiles of the others who had heard of Atlantis were all that distinguished them from the rest of the stick-thin and ragged people, but it was a major difference. They looked like something out of a prison camp, aged years by the Wraith even if they hadn't been fed from; all the hope sucked out of them and everything else used up just staying alive.

Even just the people visible were too many to load in one jumper. John nodded to Ronon. "Check things out while we talk," he murmured. "Radio if you find anything...off." He didn't know what Ronon might find, but the Wraith had planted these people here. It occurred to him that there might be worshippers among them, though if Tyre had been any example they wouldn't have lasted long. Then again, he didn't know whether the worshippers got the same treatment Tyre had; maybe they kept him on a shorter leash than the people who came to them voluntarily. Maybe they just got a jolt of enzyme, while Tyre had been fed on and restored over and over. His own experience with Todd had been different than Ford's addiction to the wraith enzyme.

Ronon gave him a nod and casually sloped off. His ability to go unseen despite his size impressed John as always.

"Lacos," John said, "stick with me and Rodney, okay?"

"Agreed," Lacos murmured, casually placing himself on guard on Rodney's other side. His hand didn't rest on the butt of the pistol holstered at his waist, but it didn't stray far either. John suddenly liked him for recognizing that Rodney should be looked after and doing it without saying anything.

"We won't have to feed them too, will we?" someone said, bitter and angry, and John caught the glares being aimed at them, hostility he hadn't anticipated and he found his hand resting on his P90 without thinking about it. An unreasonable anger welled up inside him, at himself and everything they didn't do fast enough to find these people, and he wanted to turn it on the speaker but he knew better, knew what he was doing – redirecting – and forced his hand away from the weapon.

All John could do was snap, "No," and, "We're here – "

"We can get you home," Rodney said from beside him.

Another voice dismissed them. "There's no way to use the Ancestor's ring."

"The jumper has a DHD," Rodney explained. "We can open the stargate."

That news ran through the crowd, voices rising finally in excitement.

Nallan looked at them apologetically. "Everyone here has started from scratch and just when we think we can sustain ourselves, the Wraith bring more people. Many died over the winter."

Lacos breathed out something angry and obscene, drawing Nallan's attention. His eyes widened nearly comically as he saw Lacos' Genii uniform. "Who are you?" He drew back a half-step, suddenly wary. A shift in the breeze that had been slowly chilling John through his tac vest, uniform shirt and t-shirt beneath fanned hot, fish-smelling smoke from the nearest fire in his face. He suppressed a cough and prepared to move between them if Nallan did anything crazy. From what the Pegasus grapevine whispered, Manaria and Genea hadn't been on good terms since Kolya blackmailed them into double crossing Atlantis.

"Madar Lacos."

"The Genii have been helping, trying to find the people the Wraith took, once we realized they hadn't been culled, exactly," John explained.

"I hoped there would be a woman here," Lacos said. "Laisha Tragan."

Nallan shook his head. "She was here."

"What happened?"

"Wound fever. She fell onto a broken limb while hunting last autumn. Raila tried everything..."

Lacos drew in a harsh breath, then turned away. He walked back to the jumper and leaned against it. Rodney turned to watch him, commenting, "Crap."

"Colonel Sheppard?" Nallan asked. "Why is a Genii soldier with you?"

John realized how it might look and winced. "Hey, he's okay, besides Atlantis and the Genii are getting along all right these days. They're the ones who figured out how to find this planet."

Nallan eyed Rodney's bandaged head. "Is that how Dr. McKay was hurt, too?"

"It was, so you had better appreciate how hard everyone has been working to find you people," Rodney told him.

"Is everyone here in this camp or are there others?" John asked.

"Everyone is here," Nallan confirmed. "Though there are hunting parties out, trying to find any game besides birds. They'll be back before dark, though. Can you really take us home?"

"Why don't we take you straight to Atlantis and let the docs fix up everyone?" John suggested. "Then they can decide where they want to go."

Woolsey was going to have an infarction, but he just couldn't see dumping these people. They needed medical care, food and shelter. Taking in the rags and badly tanned – and stinking – skins they were wearing, he added clothes to that list. He saw bare feet and others wrapped in bark and moss. Jesus.

"We can load about twenty in the back of the jumper, ferry them to the gate, dial-up and send each group through," he said, thinking out loud.

"If you want to turn it into a sardine can," Rodney muttered, looking sour, "and smell like one too." He flicked a finger toward the drying fish. He was right. The smell permeated the camp and likely everything anyone was wearing.

John ignored him.

"Some will not believe it," Nallan warned.

"Well, they will when they see it," Rodney said. "Or are they an extra special variety of dumb?

Nallan laughed.

"So," John rubbed his cold hands together. "Let's get some folks together and do this."



"Put them in the residential wing of Tower Three with the Athosians, it's got that big central room and a transporter right there," Rodney said. "We'll get Teyla down there to tell them what's going on."

Probably not the brightest idea of any John had ever had, but Atlantis had the room; it was a city and the few hundred people stationed there rattled around even in the tiny area they occupied. Atlantis could house the entire population of more than one Pegasus world; space was no reason not to send the displaced victims of the Wraith through the gate. The city wouldn't sink under their weight.

Of course, according to Rodney, it might blow up if the wrong person activated the wrong thing, but they had a handle on how to keep people in the cleared as safe areas like Tower Three.

Maybe he should have sent them to the beta site rather than Atlantis. Not one of their allied worlds, because large numbers of ill-looking people coming through the stargate tended to scare the local populations, especially in the wake of the Hoffan chemical Michael had spread among so many worlds. Shoot first and apologize at the funeral seemed to be the operating procedure throughout the galaxy. John couldn't bring himself to send the displaced people anywhere but straight to Teyla's care.

His report would say he hadn't broached the possibility because of logistical difficulties and the need to maintain good relations with the Genii.

Good thing they had the jumper, aside from the built-in DHD. He doubted Woolsey would have okayed this plan if he hadn't been able to see that John and Rodney weren't under any obvious compulsion (like, say, a Genii gun to the head). Rodney had taken over convincing Woolsey too, brainstorming a quick and dirty fix in just a few minutes and browbeating him into agreeing.

The video feed from Atlantis showed Woolsey frowning, but he finally nodded and made a gesture.

"Lower the shield," he ordered.

John tapped his radio. "Ronon, send the first group through."

The twenty people that had been chosen to go first started forward into the ripple of the wormhole. After the last disappeared, John said, "We're heading back to pick up another group. Another couple of jumpers could make this move a hell of a lot faster."

Woolsey bit his lip. "Do you have a specific concern?"

"Yeah, it would suck if the Wraith showed up right about now," he replied.

"I'll have Major Lorne and one of the other pilots join you."

Ronon and Lacos reboarded the jumper and seated themselves.

"Thank you, sir," John told Woolsey. "Gotta go." He cut the transmission and headed back to the camp.

The long shadows of the mountains at dusk were sliding into true dark as he set a high, fast course to their destination. Nallan wasn't in charge of anyone and it had taken hours to convince everyone in camp that not only could they make the stargate work without a control pedestal, but their intentions were good. Then, when people started to believe them, it had been another fight to explain they had to leave what little they'd managed to make and sort themselves into groups.

There had been one brutal quarrel involving a flaked stone knife. Ronon had broken it up and confiscated the knife.

John felt a little hysterical bubble of laughter at the memory, despite the blood that had flowed. It was just the juxtaposition of the stone – literally – age weapon and the space-capable jumper.

One minute half of them had been scared to get in the damn jumper, the next they were ready to kill each other over who went first; scared it wouldn't be back, he supposed.

He sighted the fires and brought the jumper in, putting it down in the same place as before. Faster than last time because he didn't think anyone would run under it this time. Maybe they would manage to get their next twenty inside in less than an hour this time, he hoped.

He switched on the jumper's exterior lights and didn't bother getting out of the pilot's seat. Ronon and Lacos exited to bring in the next group. Someone had put together a hell of a bonfire. John watched the flames lick at the piled wood, orange and red shifting, sparks bursting as a pocket of sap ignited. The sparks snuffed out as they landed on the damp gravel.

The people here were using a good portion of all the firewood they'd gathered to light up the night, half celebration and half navigation beacon.

There hadn't been much time to explain what would happen once they were in Atlantis. Nallan was probably the best source of reassurance for the rest, even if comfort seemed to be that 'well, we did them dirt and they didn't blow us up in revenge.' It looked like the others had gotten the idea they wouldn't need the firewood, anyway.

The smell of smoke and fish and cold night air flooded into the jumper, along with voices and the rustle of movement. Ronon squeezed into the cabin.

"Let's go."

"Where's Lacos?" Rodney asked.

"Staying. Leaves enough room to breathe back there," Ronon replied.

John closed the rear hatch and took them up. Along the way, he spotted the moonlit gleam of another jumper. The comm system crackled and Evan's voice, calm as ever, sounded. "Lt. McCready's got Jumper Five coming through the gate, sir. Took a bit longer, we pulled everything we could to make more room inside."

Good thinking, that, but it didn't surprise him; Evan was the most sensible officer John had ever served with and he only wished that any of the ones he'd answered to over the years had been half as good.

"Don't try to overcrowd," he radioed back. "We spent the afternoon organizing everyone into groups. Breaking them up is a good way to leave someone behind."

The two jumpers passed each other without pause.

"Gotcha," Evan acknowledged. "I'm on the course you transmitted. Anything I should look out for?"

"Land on the north end of the gravel bar. The sand's pretty wet on the south," John advised. "Strike Leader Lacos stayed behind to reassure everyone we're coming back. They've got a hell of bonfire going, you should see it no problem."

"Yes sir. Lorne out."

John goosed the jumper a little faster. They passed McCready's jumper a few moments later and John instructed him to hover and wait to land until Evan had his jumper loaded and took off again.

The night passed that way, marked by the steady disintegration of the bonfire, hysterics in one case on the part of a man who didn't want to leave the graves of his wife and three children, and the familiar rhythm of take off and land, like helicopter operations back on Earth.

Second to last trip, Woolsey informed him that the Daedalus had arrived in orbit ahead of schedule. Something was up.

John grimaced at him. The marines were usually detailed to handle offload and inventory of the supplies any ships from Earth delivered, but they'd have their hands full with the refugees. That was going to be fun. "Sorry about that," he said.

Woolsey pursed his lips before shrugging it off. "That's the way it goes."

"Get Zelenka to put together an inventory team out of Engineering," Rodney said. "We have to go over all the equipment in every shipment and verify it arrived in working order before signing off. They can handle counting canned goods and ammo, too."

"Thanks, Rodney," John said.

Rodney pursed his lips. "It's better than dealing with snot-nosed kids and their shellshocked parents."

"That's a good idea, Dr. McKay," Woolsey said. "You can take over once you're back."

"I've been up all night," Rodney whined.

"So have we all."

"How's Teyla doing?" John asked. He watched through the viewport as Ronon chivvied the last of the latest group into the wormhole and started back to the jumper. "That's it. Major Lorne should be on his way with the next to last bunch. You can expect us to dial back in a couple hours. We'll do a sweep to make sure no is left behind."

"Ms. Emmagan's in Tower Three, helping settle the DPs," Woolsey replied. He glanced away, probably toward the gateroom floor. "We'll expect a check-in in four hours or before. I'll have Major Lorne wait at the gate. Just in case." He nodded at someone else and held up his hand. "Atlantis out."



Only a black and ashen pile remained of the bonfire as the jumper set down the last time, crumpling shapes collapsing into soot and white flakes that drifted like confetti. Sand had been used to smother it and all the smoke fires. The racks were kicked apart but left piled in the lee of the river bank. The huts were abandoned too, crude tools left inside, though someone had sacrificed clothing to make bags they filled with the cured fish and hung from the trees.

John stared at them in the thin light of pre-dawn, nothing but a line of rose on the horizon yet, after stepping out of the jumper to stretch his legs and take a piss in the brush, tucking and buttoning up again. The bags were black silhouettes, dangling from the highest limbs possible.

Part of him wondered why anyone had bothered and yet another, schooled in the harshest days of their first year in Pegasus, thought they should salvage every speck of food they could and take it back to Atlantis. Feeding the DPs would put a strain on the city and fish was good protein.

Not enough there to feed these people through the rest of the week, he realized and winced, wondering how many more would have starved here before spring if they hadn't found them.

Morning cold made him shiver and he headed back to where maybe fifteen people waited, picking his way over the rocks and gravel carefully, listening with half an ear to Ronon's low rumble and Nallan's high, voluble ramble, picking out Lacos' figure standing at the edge of the water, staring out, and Rodney waiting at the jumper's hatch. Just the set of his shoulders and the way he leaned against the jumper told John that Rodney had his eyes closed, though the light showed him little more than the shape of him, silhouetted by the interior lights.

The air tasted of river: wet and green, chilled and mud heavy. John bypassed the jumper and walked down to where Lacos stood. The gravel had given away to a shoal of stones, fist-sized and round as ostrich eggs, charcoal black and striated white.

John crouched and picked one up, rough to the fingertips, turning it and frowning. Wet where had been nested in the sand, not perfectly oblate; thinking, nothing in nature was so unrelenting and unforgiving as perfection. No room for adaptation, no flexibility, no place for fortuitous error in perfection. The stone weighed in his hand, dense and enduring. It seemed like something he should bring back to Atlantis, not to be labeled with a soulless numerical designation, but for the people to pick up and remember the ones who would never fly away from this place.

"Wraith-touched fucking bleak," Lacos said, startling John out of his thoughts.

He almost fumbled the stone, turned it in his hand and suddenly the white resolved itself into bones, birds' wings, and he could trace where they were crumpled and broken. John looked again and the dawn light glittered over the wet stones, but he could see the fossils caught in the dark matrix by it, all of them piled together in the in the river's curve, time's midden.

All the worlds are graveyards and there's no place where bones haven't been buried.

Every world, John acknowledged. He set the stone back down and got to his feet, knees creaking, back aching. Old bones. "Yeah," he said.

"Sheppard!" Rodney shouted. "You want to move your dumb ass so we can get back to Atlantis before Woolsey sends out a goddamned search party!? I'd like to get a shower and breakfast before morning staff, thank you very much."

"Coming?" John asked Lacos.

"Sure as the Ancestors not staying here," Lacos replied and walked back with him.

John looked around. The tops of the trees were turning gold with dawn. The camp was still and cold, hollowed out, everyone loaded in the jumper, only Rodney waiting at the hatch.

"We'll have to check back here regularly and pull out anyone else the Wraith maroon," he said. How often would be often enough, though? Every week would be pushing it and they would have to use the jumpers each time, but with no real shelter or food, even two weeks could see people die just from lack.

Rodney's hand brushed over his forearm as they reached the jumper, before he and John pushed through the crowd inside to where Ronon guarded the cockpit, keeping anyone from passing the bulkhead there, leaving Lacos with the DPs. Just a touch, fingers grazing over cloth, not even time enough to feel the warmth of flesh through his shirt, but John had to curl his hand into a fist to keep from reaching back and catching Rodney's hand in his. Not the time, not the time. Never going to be the time, he thought when he let himself think. Or they'd already squandered it, let it run away from them while they were busy just getting by.

He dropped into the pilot's seat a moment later and put such reflections away, to be brought out more properly in dim hours of the morning, those times he woke in his quarters, when things felt twisted in his chest and he ached to touch someone and let himself be comforted. A long day and night, otherwise it wouldn't be so hard suddenly; his walls were weakened lately with weariness and the afterimage of terror, the way he still saw Rodney's head, lolling and bloody, seared behind his closed eyes.

Dawn didn't make the camp any prettier. He took the jumper up and let Rodney run a final lifesign scan, spiraling out from the camp, just to make sure no one had been forgotten. Nothing bigger than another flock of birds, wings flashing, registered. If anyone was left here, they were there by choice, having hoofed it all night long to get far enough from the camp to avoid detection.

At the gate, he set the jumper down long enough to let Lacos out, then dialed Genea and waited for him to walk through.

Rodney watched the wormhole ripple for a breath then sent the signal that told the stargate to disengage. "He'll tell Ladon we found them."

John nodded.

Evan had Jumper Three hovering, ready to leave this planet behind.

"He wasn't bad, for a Genii."

Ronon chuckled behind them. "Shoots straight."

"The funny thing is you mean that literally," Rodney said. Then, "Home?"

"Yeah, Rodney, let's go home," John said.

He watched Rodney's hands move over the console, then activated the comm, sending their confirmation code through first. "Atlantis, this is Jumper Two and Three, we're ready when you are."

"This is Atlantis. IDC accepted. Come on back."



They went straight from the gateroom to the jumper bay, then had to escort Nallan and the fourteen others to Tower Three, hoping Atlantis wouldn't throw a quarantine fit, but Rodney's last adjustments seemed to have stuck. They'd only find out the quarantine strictures were too loose about the time a plague swept through the city, John figured.

They hadn't spent much time explaining what Atlantis would be like or what would happen once they arrived. The last group stared at the halls in shock and began panicking about the time John led them to one of the freight transporters. (Finding those had been a relief. Shuttling large groups of marines around in the tiny two person transporters had been damn inconvenient. Moving large pallets of supplies and major equipment had been a nightmare and simply impossible in many cases without resorting to using Asgard beaming tech when the Daedalus was in orbit. Which had translated into major, important repairs often going undone for months.)

He did his best to calm them down, wincing at the way their rising voices bounced off the transporter's walls, and Nallan reassured them as best he could. Rodney dodged away from one flailing man, yelling at him, "What the hell's wrong with you? Quit hitting me, you cretin!", and yelling at Ronon, "Why don't you stun him or something?"

"Because they're scared, Jesus, McKay," John snapped and then glared at Ronon, silently ordering him to keep his hands off his pistol. "No one's getting stunned." He let Rodney sidle behind him, though. His head wound didn't need to be exacerbated.

He turned back to the crowd in the transporter with them and said through gritted teeth, "Just everybody try to calm down." The transporter flashed and the doors opened behind. "And, hey, look, we're here."

The freight transporter took them to the subfloor of Tower Three and opened into storage area that lit up obligingly for John. Someone with the ATA gene had already been by and initialized everything the Athosians needed to use. One less thing for these refugees to fuss about. John doubted any of them had the gene. None of the Athosians did, they knew that, and outside of the Lord Protector's world and the royal line that produced Queen Harmony (John shuddered), they hadn't run into anyone else in Pegasus expressing enough of the ATA sequence to actually work the Ancient technology that keyed to it.

They took the stairs upward to the ground floor and the main hall where the rest of the refugees had been funneled. It looked like the entire population of the camp, hundreds of people, were all still there. They huddled together in bunches, staring around wide-eyed, or sat on the floor, too tired to move again.

John shooed his group in and scanned the room, spotting Teyla near the personal transporter, consulting with Lt. Halvorsen and one of Keller's nurses. She was pointing to something on a tablet with her good hand and had her casted arm in a sling again. Satisfaction seemed to radiate from her even from a distance. Saving people always pleased Teyla.

"Let's see what Teyla needs us to do," John suggested. Rodney and Ronon followed him, shrugging off the attempts of any of the refugees to talk with them.

Teyla looked up as they approached and smiled.

"John!" she called. She caught his shoulder with one hand, but he'd grown as used to the Athosian greeting as shaking hands and dipped his head to rest his forehead against hers automatically. Her hair smelled of flowers and soap, a relief after a long night spent in the jumper and the trapped stink of ill-cured leather, smoke and fish. Though he could smell it on his own clothes now, too.

He couldn't help smiling back at her though as he stepped back and Ronon bowed in his place.

Rodney offered an awkward, one-sided hug after pointing at his bandage.

As she released Rodney, Teyla stiffened, her gaze locking beyond Ronon. John looked back and realized several Athosians had arrived. He hadn't caught their names, but they'd been among those rescued from Michael. He figured they were looking for some clue to what to do with the new influx of people. It took him a second to process that Kanaan was with them. The last time John has seen him, Kanaan had been pasty and wrong looking.

"Kanaan," she breathed, hope and uncertainty in her voice.

Just hearing her made John worry and he glanced back again, wanting to see the why she sounded like that. But the look on Teyla's face tempered from shock into her negotiator's mask.

John looked back to the group, picking out Kanaan and seeing what Teyla had; he had his hands holding those of a dark-haired young woman who had been among those most upset in the transporter. He wanted to think Kanaan was just keeping her calm, but the way he stood with her, in close contact, conveyed more than comfort. John knew interest and chemistry when he saw it. So did Teyla, he realized.

Kanaan didn't look afraid, not even when his gaze reached John and Teyla. He looked interested, excited, and pleased. He pulled the woman a little closer and said something John couldn't hear, that seemed to calm her.

"Teyla," Kanaan called out. "Teyla, this is Irza of the Ish'pan'denali."

Teyla walked forward and John followed, along with Ronon and Rodney. She greeted the woman and introduced herself and the rest of the team formally, then began working with Kanaan to organize the other rescuees.

Irza never once let go of Kanaan's hand.



Teyla's gaze did not stray to Irza and Kanaan's clasped hands.

That was why Teyla belonged on the command staff, no matter what the IOA thought. John had seen her among the Athosians and known, while afterward Elizabeth had come to trust her quickly, that Teyla had a fundamental steadiness that made her someone they could rely on. She had spoken for all her people. Even now, when others led the Athosians and the man she searched for turned away, when someone else would have been bitter, she didn't let whatever betrayal she felt interfere. They organized the hundreds of refugees into new groups, made sure any families were together, trying to include an Athosian among each, as they at least had had contact with the various members of the Atlantis expedition and weren't uncomfortable interacting with the marines assigned to keep them from wandering where they shouldn't.

Kanaan didn't waste time on excuses, either. Whether he didn't recognize them as warranted or wanted to speak with Teyla in some privacy, it didn't matter. He and Teyla worked well together, and the main hall began to clear in a surprisingly orderly fashion. The nurse from medical agreed it would be better to settle everyone into quarters and then run them through the infirmary in small, manageable numbers for all but emergency care.

John couldn't help disliking Kanaan. The truth, though, was that he didn't know what understanding had been between Teyla and Kanaan. He figured Kanaan hadn't known about Torren until Michael captured Teyla, which absolved him of metaphorically abandoning mother and child. John knew Kanaan hadn't chosen to be taken by Michael, but he hadn't helped Teyla's escape until facing the team's guns, either.

He'd wanted to sock the sonovabitch since finding out Teyla was pregnant. Kanaan was lucky he had been snatched by Michael at that point, because the phrase 'shotgun wedding' would have come up otherwise.

Or, hell, John was the lucky one, because he knew trying to push Teyla into anything she didn't consider right would have resulted in her handing him his ass.

If Kanaan hurt her deliberately, though? Then all bets were off.

"Have any of you been chosen as leader?" Teyla asked.

John looked around, realizing he hadn't seen Nallan's lanky form among the crowd or among the camp's leaders. An ugly feeling of impending bad news hit him.

The radio earpiece fed Chuck's calm voice into John's headset. "Director Woolsey requests you report to the Control Tower conference room at your earliest convenience."

"Roger that, Sergeant," John responded. "We're still settling people in. Expect me in thirty minutes." He'd get Evan down here to take over.

He stepped forward to flank Teyla, Rodney at his side and Ronon just beyond her. Kanaan picked up the message. He was quick, but then Teyla wouldn't have wanted anyone stupid. "We can poll the people as they visit the infirmary."

Another group departed the hall, clearing a space to see where several people were gathered around others who had been lowered to the floor. John didn't see Nallan, but he recognized a short, dark-haired woman who had bossed everyone about back at the camp.

John nodded toward the group and Teyla followed his sight line.

She started across the hall. The rest of the team went with her, along with Kanaan and and his new shadow, Irza.

"Hello, I am Teyla Emmagan," Teyla said, and then, "Who is this?" of the gray-haired man on the floor. "Can you tell me what is wrong?"

The tiny woman with pixie-cut black hair knelt beside him. Her clothes looked Athosian to John. She looked up and smiled as she saw Teyla.

"Teyla!"

"Raila," Teyla answered, smiling as widely. "I did not know you had been taken."

Raila snorted. "I delayed three days with the monks on Daloose. Just long enough to be taken along with the rest of their people." She nodded at Kanaan, but visibly dismissed him in the next instant, studying John, Rodney and Ronon instead. "Your Atlanteans are responsible for finding us. Good allies, Tey."

John twitched. He'd never heard anyone shorten Teyla's name before.

"And our allies, the Genii," Teyla said.

Mention of the Genii made Raila screw up her face as if tasting something sour. "I heard about them as well, though not that they were allies," she commented.

"We are on better terms since Ladon Radim came to power there," Teyla said.

"You mean nuked Cowen and his cronies," Rodney muttered.

"What's wrong here?" John asked, finally spotting Nallan approaching their group.

"Bram has been ill," Nallan answered.

"Ill?" Rodney's voice squeaked. "You know, I should really be in Engineering, or finding Novak, since the Daedalus is here. Bright as she is, without Hermiod, she's surrounded by incompetents and morons. Someone has to make sure the hyperdrives don't go boom and scatter the ship across half the galaxy."

He took a step back, but John caught hold of his jacket collar before he could flee.

"Hey!"

"It is only buiko stomach," Irza said, speaking for the first time.

"Wow, bad enough to put him flat on his back?" Rodney asked. He peered around John's shoulder, his intention to flee any infectious plague forgotten.

Everyone in Atlantis knew about buiko stomach after the first few months eating native Pegasus foods. Buiko stomach was named for a tuber, but numerous foodstuffs in Pegasus included the same troublesome enzyme. Around a quarter of the Pegasans became ill from it and a full three quarters of the Earthborn suffered unpleasant reactions to the buiko enzyme. The symptoms were easily alleviated by either eating buki berries along with anything that had the enzyme or taking the supplements Medical had developed.

It was the Athosians who had taught them about the buki berries, which grew on worlds all over Pegasus and were high in several vitamins as well as the complimentary enzyme that let people lacking it tolerate buiko. Hearing anyone had gone and done so without it seemed strange.

"The Wraith didn't leave us any supplies," Raila snapped. "There's buiko there, but no buki we could find."

"Medical will have the supplement we use," John said. "Is everyone here suffering from it?"

"Temil has a broken leg," Nallan replied.

"Okay." He tapped his radio on. "This is Colonel Sheppard. I need a gurney and a medical team to Tower Three, main hall, ground floor ASAP. We have several people in need of immediate medical attention."

"Is this a quarantine situation?" came the voice of Abiki in Medical, patched in via the bridge communications center.

"No. We have one broken leg and several people suffering from a form of food poisoning, probably buiko stomach."

Abiki didn't waste time on chitchat. "Roger that. On our way. Out."

"We'll get everyone to the infirmary and taken care of," John said to Raila. He noticed Bram's eyes were open a slit and knelt beside him. "Hey, Bram, right? You're going to get taken care of real quick."

"You are Sheppard?" Bram rasped. "It is good."

John grinned at him. "You've heard of me?"

Bram seemed to search his face. "The Ancestor's Chosen."

John patted his shoulder, because he had nothing he could to say to that. It cut damn close. He and Elizabeth had debated selling themselves as the rightful descendants of the Ancestors based on his genes and given it a pass. The idea had taken hold on some planets anyway.

Bram nodded. "I never dreamed to see the Ancestor's city or to live when the Wraith came. I believe now," he said in a hoarse voice. "We will follow you."

Well, wasn't that going to be special.

John glanced away and found himself staring at Kanaan. Who was still locked tight to Irza. Ronon and Rodney were both glaring at them, while Teyla very deliberately didn't look at them at all, bent close and talking to Raila instead.

Yeah, this was going to be great.

Sometimes Rodney had the right idea. Emotional scenes were not John's thing. If you couldn't solve the problem by shooting it, then running away and pretending it didn't exist generally worked for him. He just plain didn't want to be around when Teyla told Kanaan's new girlfriend he was a daddy. Depending on how Irza reacted, John very well might dump her and Kanaan back on PY5-GX5 to play Pegasus Blue Lagoon.

He tapped his radio. "Major Lorne, I need you to report to Tower Three and take over here."

"Acknowledged."

"Rodney, we better get out of here and see what Woolsey and Caldwell have on the agenda."

Rodney gifted him with a look of absolute gratitude. "Yes, yes, as I said, I need to consult with Novak, too, so, yes – Teyla and Lorne can handle everything here, I'm sure."

The medical team arrived, followed by Evan and two more marine officers.

John retreated after sharing one last look with Ronon, knowing he'd stick with Teyla while they dealt with whatever troubles the Daedalus had brought. Maybe it would be something which would derail Woolsey from chewing him out for taking off on an unauthorized rescue mission.

A man could hope.



Of course, hoping might be a mistake, because anything big enough distract Richard Woolsey from a perceived slight would very likely impact all of Atlantis.

"Colonel Caldwell has brought special orders and news from Earth," Woolsey said as soon as John reached the conference room and he suddenly got Chuck's silent eye roll as he'd gone by. Woolsey was in full snit mode.

John kept himself moving, kept his expression mild and interested, while his brain scrambled for a response that didn't begin with 'What the hell?' Special orders? Why hadn't the SGC used the Stargate? He nodded to Woolsey and came to attention for Caldwell, who looked – just possibly – sympathetic.

"Sir," he greeted Caldwell cautiously.

Caldwell nodded back to him and said, "SG-1 has been retasked to investigate the breakdown in the Milky Way gate network. The Daedalus was dispatched with orders not to dial Earth or anywhere else in the Milky Way. If this is some kind of network virus, we don't want it spreading to the Pegasus network."

"The what?!" Rodney screeched as he stomped in behind John.

"Dr. McKay," Woolsey said. "Good of you to come. If you'll sit down, we'll begin the briefing."



The SGC had Carter on the problem in the Milky Way. Apparently the IOA suddenly appreciated her talents now that they needed her again. Someday they were going to treat someone like shit, turn around and demand they give their all again and get told to shove it. John hoped he was alive to see that and still alive afterward.

The IOA had sent more orders beyond the SGC no-dialing edict. Caldwell sat in on the staff meeting as they went over the newest efforts at oversight from a galaxy away.

The IOA wanted equipment and technology. Every bit they could strip and transport in the Daedalus holds, especially the things too sizable to take through the stargate. Nothing that had been sent from Earth. The armory, medical and the labs were safe; John had checked through the list currently on display on his laptop. The IOA wanted Ancient artifacts. The items seemed overwhelming in number and senseless, as though the IOA was clutching at grabbing anything they might reverse engineer into a weapon, but there was an underlying pattern.

Of course, Rodney spotted it immediately.

"Are they insane?" he finally asked, looking up from his laptop.

John suppressed a smile at the way Woolsey twitched. Woolsey should be used to it. Rodney didn't waste his tiny supply of tact in Atlantis. Caldwell settled deeper into his chair.

"Dr. McKay," Caldwell started, probably aiming for quelling but sounding more than a little weary instead.

"No, really," Rodney rolled right over Caldwell's effort. "Were they collectively exposed to an alien lobotomy ray?" Rodney turned Woolsey. "You have no idea how critical some of this is to keeping Atlantis functioning. It's ridiculous. Why not just invite the Wraith for tea and offer us up as the cakes?"

Woolsey tried this time, but he didn't even manage an entire word, "Dr. Mc—"

Rodney's hand swept through the air between them. "No, no, I'm not even talking to you." He stabbed at the screen of his laptop with one finger then reversed field to glare directly at Woolsey. "Except to say that as our director," there his air quotes achieved new heights in nonverbal sarcasm, "you should be a little more concerned in the survival of Atlantis. It's your skin too."

Rodney paused for breath, a rare moment that stunned everyone in the room except John.

"The truly remarkable, even astounding, aspect of this list is that they could think we wouldn't see that fifty percent of it is critical to operating our stardrive," Rodney declared. His mouth set in a hard line and his chin came up as he stared straight at Woolsey.

John checked out Caldwell's reaction. Not to double check Rodney. As soon as Rodney had said it, John had seen the pattern too. He'd never be the expert Rodney was, but years in Atlantis had taught him a lot about Ancient tech and Atlantis' systems in particular. Caldwell wouldn't know any of that, but he might know what he was supposed to take away with the Daedalus, and why. Word got out unofficially, especially to ship captains; the truth in Woolsey's sealed orders might have been whispered in Caldwell's ear.

Did he know?

Caldwell met his gaze and nodded. He'd been informed. John didn't read any apology from him, but thought he detected a certain amount of understanding. He knew whatever Woolsey had been told. John held still in his usual slouch, curling his toes in his boots rather than give away the spike of anger and betrayal he felt. Not at Caldwell, but someone should have warned them.

"They don't want us to pick up and relocate while the stargate is our only contact point, do they?" John remarked. He'd bet his pension that the rest of that list was ballast, meant to camouflage the IOA's effort to hobble Atlantis in place.

"No, they don't, Colonel Sheppard," Woolsey replied. He might be tolerable if he could be straight with them. John hadn't liked him when they'd met, but he hadn't liked Rodney in Antarctica, either. Either Rodney had grown or he'd just grown on John. So far Woolsey hadn't improved on closer acquaintance. Though he hadn't got anyone killed during the Replicator invasion, when they'd had to take the city back and rescue O'Neill and him, he hadn't displayed any previously hidden qualities.

Richard Woolsey was no Rodney McKay.

"Morons," Rodney muttered. "I'm not gutting and crippling Atlantis because of a bunch of paranoids too deficient to program a VCR."

"Tivo, surely," John murmured in response, despite himself. Rodney glared at him, so that John slumped down further with a waggle of his eyebrows.

"Don't distract me," Rodney told him.

"Dr. McKay, our orders are clear and non-negotiable," Woolsey said.

Rodney glared at him, cheeks reddened with furious frustration, the sort of anger that choked his words right off. Rodney's anger was usually loud, fast and forgotten once it passed. This was something different and watching it smooth away disturbed John. He preferred Rodney as an open book. His emotional backwardness and candor were the only things that let anyone keep even with him.

When Rodney shut down and shut up, that was the time to start worrying, but even as smart as she was, Carter had never got that about him, and Woolsey didn't have a clue. No one in the conference room except John knew. John narrowed his eyes at Rodney, but all he got for it was a stubborn chin tilt and then Rodney turning away from him.

"Perhaps it would be better if you returned to Earth," Woolsey suggested. "I'm sure the SGC could use your expertise."

Nothing in his tone reflected a threat, but it was there, and John decided that Woolsey was intolerable. He had to be taken down a hole or preferably driven out. Unfortunately, Atlantis' situation was always too precarious to indulge in a little white mutiny. They have to scare the weasel out.

"Or there's always Area 51."

Rodney didn't answer. He closed his laptop with precise, controlled motions, then addressed Caldwell. "I suppose you want everything packaged for transport as soon as possible?"

"We've finished offloading the holds and they're scheduled for clean up and inspection later today. After that, yes, my orders are to proceed with all speed," Caldwell replied.

Rodney nodded to him.

"I'll put a team together to begin. Removing some of these components without crashing Atlantis' system will be a delicate job."

"How long?" Caldwell asked.

"Six days minimum."

Woolsey looked at John, who shrugged and nodded. "Not my area, but I'd estimate ten days. Rodney does know the city better, though."

Rodney jerked, a motion no one but John saw, then managed a thin, cynical smile for John before leaving.

"Six days," Woolsey repeated. "And like God, he shall rest on the seventh?"

John gritted his teeth.

He said, "McKay knows this city and Ancient technology better than anyone. You might consider the odds, long or short term, on your survival here without him." He got to her feet. "I have paperwork to finish before the Daedalus leaves if we can't report with a databurst, so if you'll excuse me? Colonel. Mr. Woolsey."

Caldwell stood. "Sheppard. I have some orders for you too."

"Yes sir."

Caldwell followed him out.

It wasn't far from the conference room to control room. John nodded at Chuck as he passed. He waited until the transporter doors shut before commenting, "I'm surprised the IOA didn't just demand our ZPM." Bitterness sank under his skin like ink, leaving a mark that might spread and fade, but would stay.

"I suspect they couldn't justify that without recalling the expedition entirely," Caldwell told him. "And they may have had some not entirely unwarranted doubts that such an order would be followed." He gave John a knowing look.

"Sir!"

"Just reading between the lines, Sheppard."

John didn't reply. If it had come to that, refusing an order from Earth or giving up Atlantis' ZPM, when they'd lost Elizabeth to steal it, when they'd already turned over two ZPMs that would have made all the difference when they fled the Replicator attack on Lantea, he didn't know what decision he would have made.

Caldwell accepted his silence and said instead, "I'm surprised McKay folded so easily."

John looked away, pretending to look at something in the control room. That hadn't been Rodney folding. "He's learned to pick his fights."

"And he doesn't want to go back to Earth. Neither do you," Caldwell concluded. "Don't look so surprised. I'm not blind."

John felt no need to comment.

Caldwell chuckled.

John rocked back on his heels, feeling uncomfortable. "I need to go over the inventory on the supplies the Daedalus brought. It looks like a lot more than our usual requisitions."

Caldwell nodded and handed John a packet of papers with the SGC seal over them. "Your orders."

"Do you know what they are?" John asked, weighing the packet in his hand.

"I have some idea, but not the exact terms," Caldwell admitted. "I know you and McKay will do your best for Atlantis and everyone here."

John didn't know if he meant more than just Atlantis, but he thought Caldwell did.

John managed a creditable salute, then exited the transporter.



He cornered Rodney outside an access corridor one level above the stardrive. Rodney had a team of six engineers along with Simpson with him. He was pointing from the screen of his tablet to something down the corridor, then back, and speaking quietly until Simpson nodded her understanding. His hair stood up in fluffy tufts and the side of the hand he gestured with had been scraped red enough to dot with blood.

John's presence was noticed but ignored, so John leaned against a wall and just watched him work.

"Got it?" Rodney asked Simpson.

"Yes.

"Good, then just get on with it. I've got important work to do besides dismantling precious resources to allay the paranoia of a bunch of bureaucrats back on Earth."

Rodney spun and inspected John with a down to his boots, up to his face glance. His mouth turned down. "What do you want?"

"Just checking on how you're doing," John said easily.

"I'm doing," Rodney snapped.

John nodded toward Simpson and the engineers. "So I see. You know what's strange? I don't think there's anything here that's on that list. I'd swear you were the one who told me after the preliminary city survey that this section held nothing but storage for obsolete junk."

Rodney went wide-eyed. "You remember that?"

John tucked his hands in his pockets.

"Yeah."

"Hmmm."

"So, Rodney...something I should know?" he asked.

"No, no. I think we should go get some lunch," Rodney said. "I mean, best if you don't know, you know? At least until something goes horribly, horribly wrong."

John pushed away from the wall and gestured back toward the transporter that would take them to lunch. "Okay, then," he said, "next Thursday."

"Friday if we stretch it," Rodney agreed.

More like next month, when the Daedalus arrived in Earth orbit and the IOA discovered Rodney hadn't sent them the crucial equipment. He wondered if they'd be outraged enough to dial in despite the cut off on Pegasus-Milky Way stargate contact.

He sighed though and just replied, "I'll pencil it into my calendar."



Simpson snapped at a marine to be a little more careful. John winced but stayed out of it and hoped Caldwell would, too. The scientists were all angry, the marines were uneasy and he'd spent all his spare time working with Teyla and Ronon and Shohreh to settle the refugees in and find something for them to do besides drain the city's limited resources. He hadn't seen Rodney or Woolsey in more than passing for days. Woolsey had been closeted in his office, while Rodney had been juggling regular science department function with the extra work of pulling everything the IOA had demanded they turn over.

Or pretending to. John was carefully not asking.

His own orders were to take over control of Atlantis if anything happened to Woolsey and to hold the city for the SGC and not engage in any conflicts outside it other than in the pursuit of possibly useful weapons or other technologies. Reading between the lines, John saw the end of the beautiful scientific expedition in favor of armed looting. He'd locked the orders in his personal safe and planned to ignore them unless forced otherwise by circumstance. Interestingly, Woolsey hadn't asked about John's orders. Of course, Rodney hadn't either, but Rodney had an excuse.

Something was being loaded aboard the Daedalus. John hoped it wasn't a bomb. Moreover, he hoped that Rodney's defiance didn't end up blowing up in his and all their faces.

Beside him, Caldwell said nothing. Caldwell had commed him and asked John to join him, but so far hadn't broached any subjects.

The marine apologized and bent to work again, packing another specially built carton onto a pallet and securing it. A dozen others littered the cargo loading dock, waiting their turn to be checked off and beamed into the Daedalus' holds.

Simpson stalked around pointing and yelling with Rodney-like flair. Finally, she tugged at the crate and nodded, waving Corporal Wendell over. Wendell had the tank and blower that would cover the entire pallet with a coating that would constrict and bind everything in place, seal it even against vacuum, and neatly dissolve into harmless dust when exposed to its specific catalyst.

The green fluid smelled like chlorophyll and vinegar before it dried. Caldwell wrinkled his nose as Wendell began spraying.

"It takes about five minutes to set," John told him.

"I noticed you were sending some people back," Caldwell said.

"Yeah. A couple of people who never quite fit and one trouble maker."

"A marine. You might want to hold onto as many of them as you can."

John glanced at him curiously. "Something else I need to know, sir?" He kept replaying Caldwell's words about him and Rodney not going back to Earth.

The supplies the Daedalus had offloaded had been double the usual shipment, triple their regular requisitions of ammunition, replacement weapons, gear and equipment. They'd had to open a second armory and a new supply warehouse for the dry goods, including a six month supply of MREs. John had been nervous since he'd seen the first inventory. It had pushed the ship's normal capacity to the limit.

On top of that, the Daedalus had cleared its 302 bays and used them for cargo space.

Everything in those bays had been on a separate inventory than the regular supply run, an inventory that Lindsay Novak had handed him personally.

If he'd read the bill of lading right, someone had put together a shipment of everything a colony would need: the tools to build the infrastructure of a civilization. Seeds, plows, looms, needles, sewing machines. An entire machine shop. Toothpaste and soap. Recipes for making toothpaste and soap from scratch. Five Asgard manufactured stasis containers with fertilized chicken eggs, piglets, goat kids, dogs, cats, horses and camels, more seed stock for everything from barley and rice to apples, olives and lemons. Not just one item, but all the things necessary to support or manufacture it. Libraries full of books on compressed media. More materials than John would have ever thought of in his life, but when he saw each one listed, he realized Atlantis would need every bit of them...If they were cut off again.

Woolsey didn't strike him as the kind of guy who wanted to leave Earth if there wouldn't be a way back, but the message in those inventory lists told a different story.

It scared the hell out of him.

"If the stargate system in the Milky Way keeps failing, every ship is going to be needed there," Caldwell answered. "Maybe it's something Colonel Carter can fix, but if not...something out there is destroying stargates."

That first part didn't really come as a surprise.

Without the stargate though, Atlantis' only contact with Earth would continue to be through ships like the Daedalus. Caldwell was saying that that might disappear too.

"Nothing has been announced officially, but I've been told the Daedalus will be retasked to the Earth Defense Fleet within the next six months."

The Daedalus was the slow boat of Earth's hyperdrive capable ships, the oldest name that hadn't been destroyed and rebuilt. The SGC wouldn't be sending faster, better ships like the Apollo to deliver MREs to an outpost. Christ, they were being set afloat on their own.

All unofficially, of course.

Those wraithfucking sons of whores.

Caldwell was warning him and the extra cargo had been someone's effort to see they weren't totally screwed over and left hanging. Off the books and John would bet his goddamn useless trust fund on a three-legged dog to win the Kentucky Derby before he believed the IOA knew what had been in those 302 bays.

"I'll be taking over command of the Icarus."

John didn't say it, but he thought that was a hideously ill-omened name for a ship, worse than anything the Ancients had inflicted on their ships.

Wendell shut down the sprayer and stepped back. Simpson gave him a thumbs up and he grinned. The green binder coating began curing, fading into translucence as it set up.

"May I offer my congratulations, sir?"

Caldwell studied him, but John meant it. Caldwell was by the book, but he'd never hesitated to put himself or his ship in the way of danger when duty called for it. The crew of the Daedalus were dead loyal to him.

"It's not official yet."

"Any other rumors?" John asked.

Caldwell turned away from him. "I'd get used to Woolsey."

"Is he aware of that?"

"No one's told me exactly what Mr. Woolsey has been made privy to by the IOA," came the dry answer.

John hesitated but had to ask.

"And the material from the...second bill of lading?"

"The Daedalus' 302 contingent were reassigned to Homeworld Security Force. General O'Neill informed me the extra space they left might as well serve some purpose when Hermiod began beaming the cargo into my bays."

Homeworld Security remained classified. Its entire budget was in the black. O'Neill had probably buried everything in the shipment deeper than deep, blacker than black, completely off the books.

"Well, if you see him, let him know McKay's going to be pissed no one sent him his cat." John studied the pallet. In other words, 'Thanks for looking out for us'. "Looks like that's ready."

Simpson was using her radio. A moment later white light engulfed the pallet as it was beamed up to the Daedalus. She motioned the marines forward and they began packing another pallet full of equipment.

They watched until the last pallet disappeared.

"Good luck, Colonel," Caldwell said, offering his hand.

John took it.

"Safe trip," he said. He stepped back and watched as Caldwell gave the order to be transported to his command.

John thought it would be long time until he saw him again.