OFF-WORLD ACTIVATION!

The all too familiar warning rang throughout the gate room. Richard Woolsey walked quickly to the controls, unease settling in as he wondered just which one of the off-world teams ran into trouble. That always seemed to be the circumstances for unscheduled activations these days.

"Any I.D.C.?" He glanced away from the screen to the man at the controls.

"Negative. The gate is drawing an usual amount of power, but we have such begun receiving an audio transmission." Out of the corner of his eye Woolsey saw Colonel Sheppard step up next to him.

"Play it." Richard Woolsey thought he had seen just about everything since taking over command of the Atlantis expedition, there were still surprises but few things managed to rock him. This transmission however was unlike anything else, and had John Sheppard known the older man's thoughts, he'd have voiced his agreement.

A nervous female voice rang out clearly, worry coloring her words. "Hank, what is that?"

"It seems to be a stable wormhole but that's not possible, no machine in here is designed to create something like that." The voice that responded to the girl was definitely male, and full of the same frustration tinged excitement the Atlantis crew was used to hearing from their own Rodney McKay.

"Get away from it, Pryde." This voice was different, gruff and deep, full of anger but also almost sounded wary.

"It's like we're listening in on a conversation, not a transmission." Sheppard started but paused when it sounded like the female in the transmission was letting out a screech of fear.

"Something is travelling through the wormhole, sir." The man at the controls glanced up at Sheppard and Woolsey, waiting for his order.

"Keep the shield raised, we don't know who they are or what is coming through." Woolsey's voice was firm. Sheppard hesitated but nodded in agreement. For all they knew this was a trap and lowering the shield would put everyone at risk. Ronon and Teyla stood near the gate, looking at it warily, as did several marines with their guns trained on it as was the protocol. They expected the familiar smash noise as whatever was barreling through the wormhole made contact with the Ancient shield. When a small brown haired woman in a black and yellow uniform came through the shield around the gate like it wasn't even there it took everyone a minute to recover from the shock before the gate room echoed with sound of guns cocking.

Kitty Pryde glanced around the unfamiliar room in surprise. It wasn't just the small army of men with weapons trained on her that had her confused, it was the location itself. A moment ago she had been in Hank's lab in the school basement. That portal had fallen on her, and now she was here. No warning, no explanation, just a slight uncomfortable feeling between the two moments. She had majored in Astrophysics, she knew how wormholes worked, but this was outside the realm of anything other than theoretical work. Not to mention she had phased when the portal fell on her, she shouldn't have gone through it at all. But now was not the time to focus on that. She allowed herself another glance around the room.

"Uh, hi? Anyone want to tell me where I am and how exactly I got here?" She kept herself ready to phase, just in case any of the marines in front of her decided to fire. Hank was so going to get an earful when she got back.

"We were hoping you could tell us that." Sheppard stepped forward carefully, lowering his gun but not giving the order for his men to follow suit. "I'm Colonel John Sheppard." Both Kitty and Sheppard noticed Ronon step quietly, blocking the only open exit.

"Katherine Pryde, but I prefer Kitty." She smiled in an attempt at diffusing the tension.

"Alright, Kitty, where did you dial from and how did you get this address?" Sheppard took another step toward her and she circumspectly took one back.

"Dial? Look all I know is one minute I was in Hank's lab going over new programs and then suddenly this metal circle appeared out of nowhere, powered up and created what our readings determined to be a stable wormhole, then it fell on me and I popped out here. Which is incredible, everything we know about wormholes is purely theoretical, whatever just happened will rock the scientific community. I don't understand why I didn't go right through it." Kitty babbled slightly, her voice dropping to nearly a whisper on the last sentence, but Sheppard still caught it. Kitty was so focused on how she got here that she missed Ronon quietly circling around behind her, getting ready to grab her.

"That's the problem, you went right through our shield. You're telling me you don't know how?" Sheppard's eyes narrowed. Something about her story wasn't adding up and they hadn't yet determined her not to be a threat.

"Look I'm telling you all I know, promise." She started to put her hands up to reinforce the fact that she was being honest and was not a threat when she felt Ronon lunge at her from behind. She spun, grabbing his arm and flipping him onto his back effortlessly. "Rude much? I wouldn't attack you if your back was turned."

She smiled at him, but he growled in response, jumping to his feat. He moved towards her again. He was fast but avoiding hits was always her best skill, those years of martial arts training letting her sidestep his movements easily. Ronon paused, trying to gauge the small girl in front of him. When she started talking about the gate the way Rodney usually did Ronon had figured her for a scientist, a civilian. He hadn't expected those kinds of movements. He pulled out his gun, meaning to stun her and she took a step back, raising both hands in surrender.

"Both of you stop." Sheppard's voice cut into their dance. "Kitty we're going to have to detain you, figure out how you got through our defenses. This is a civilian and military operation and the safety of this base comes first."

"Look I get that and I appreciate it, really I do. But I'd just like to get back, I've got a school full of students that I'm supposed to be running. You don't want to keep me around here anyhow. Mister tall, dark, and grumpy over there can't wait to get rid of me I bet." She gestured in Ronon's direction and gave a nervous smile. Right now she had no idea who these people were and what their intentions and motivations happened to be. Her safest course of action was to keep her little ability under wraps, she might need the element of surprise that it gave her.

"Yes, yes, yes, I'm sure your life is very important but right now the focus is how something like you could best the Ancients' defenses." The voice of Rodney McKay rang out as he hurried down the steps of the gate room towards the girl. Her eyes narrowed at his tone and she crossed her arms.

"Excuse me? I have been nothing but polite, with the exception of flipping the hunky one onto his back, so I definitely do not appreciate the condescending tone." Ronon grumbled slightly, still sore about not getting the jump on her and Sheppard glanced between Kitty and Rodney, who seemed to have balked at her words.

"Look, Ms. Pryde, we're just gonna bring you someplace we can talk. One of our scientists will run a diagnostic on the stuff up here to make sure it wasn't a glitch on our end while I talk to a little more about what happened before you went through the gate." Sheppard smiled at her and she nodded with a sigh.

"Yeah if I was in your position I guess I'd be pretty freaked out thinking that there was a glaring error in the defenses. Alright colonel, I'm game." Much to John's surprise, she links her arm through his. "Lead the way."