Going to by weird! And I'm all for surprises.

Rate at T, just in case I get carried away like I usually do.

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Chapter 1

The thought of yet another mission made him want to hurl. It was bad enough that McKay constantly wanted to check out the settlements of the gate addresses they had found on a small Ancient tablet. The worse part was that he was always dragged along, unless he could find some excuse to send Major Lorne's team instead of his. Dr.Weir had noticed this, and wasted no time in telling him how important this was. 'Ha!' He would say when they hadn't found anything, that he had been right all along. Vengeance was sweet.

Now he contemplated his problems while being dragged into the gate by a muttered Rodney, followed by the rest of the team. The planet, he soon found out, was about as populated as Antarctica, if not less if you counted the outpost there. All he saw was nothing and more nothing, until an excited shout from McKay made him turn his head. The building he saw wasn't all that remarkable, even though he could tell it was Ancient. Following McKay, he openly mused.

"I wonder what it's for."

McKay came back at him snappily. "I wouldn't have known."

The Colonel shrugged. "Just thinking out loud." The door came into to view as they neared it, and he confidently went forward, and then backed up slightly as the door opened by itself, probably due to his ATA gene. The door opened to the inside, which was pitch black. Taking his P-90 and switching on the light, he disappeared into the darkness. The team followed suit, and by the time they were all inside the panels were glowing softly, letting them see all of what was around them. It was a large room, filled with all kinds of Ancient devices, many of which could be seen on Atlantis.

One of the devices caught his eye. It was a small panel, with hand engravings, and some words written in Ancient in the middle of the two handprints.

"Hey McKay…"

Muttering something unhearable, he trudged over from the other side of the room and looked at the text, not realizing that he was muttering the translation as he read it.

"Hmmm….Those who seek eternal peace….There is but one path that might release such a place before one's eyes…."

There was more below it, but it was scratched out beyond reading. The scientist shrugged, then walked away, turning once to tell John to leave it alone, but finding to his horror that the Colonel had placed his hands in the engravings. There was a low whirring sound as he tried to pull his hands away, and when it reached a high pitched whistle, he collapsed on the floor and everything was silent.

Dr. McKay watched this numbly, and then quickly told Ronon and Teyla to run back to the gate and dial in for Dr. Beckett.

TBC. Will try to update regularly.