Author's Note: Recently I rewatched "Last Man", and wondered what would have happened if for some reason Sheppard hadn't woken from stasis for one reason or another. Please let me know what you think!
Nothing Urgent
"Why are we doing this again?" Kan asked over the comm. She hated wearing the space suit, but since this planet no longer had an atmosphere it was necessary.
"Because," Teg responded, "how many times do we find planets with the remnants of civilization?"
"About every other trip."
"Okay, bad question. How often do we find an intact city?"
"Good point," Kan acknowledged. Her fingers itched for her weapon, even though she knew that the chances of anything surviving in vacuum were slim to none. "Let's hurry it up Teg. These suits can't survive these temperatures for too long."
"Uh huh," the scientist responded, studying another one of the door panels that lined the endless corridors.
Kan had to admit, Teg had a point. They had been exploring other planets through the Ring of the Ancestors for over five years now, and they had never found anything like this place before. If there was a civilization on a new planet, they usually weren't much beyond the bow-and-arrow stage of technology, and if they were they were very wary of even talking, much less trading. If the planet was, as far as they could determine, uninhabited, they sometimes found remnants of a long-dead society: parts of houses, dishes, some clothing, and the like. But nothing like this.
When the probe had sent back its initial survey, Kan and her superiors had been puzzled over the combination of advanced architecture and lack of atmosphere. It was only after Kan had led her team through that Teg had determined that the star the planet orbited around was a red giant that had burned off the planet's atmosphere millennia ago. The fact that any structure had survived at all was a miracle.
And what a structure it was! Teg maintained that it was Ancestral, and Kan believed him. "Hey look at this," Teg's voice broke into her musings.
"What?" Kan looked over to where Teg was still inspecting the door panel and was startled to discover that he'd managed to crack it open. "How'd you manage that?"
"I don't know. Help me get it all the way open." Teg grabbed one door, leaving Kan to grab the other. After several moments of heaving, the managed to widen the gap enough to squeeze into the room beyond. "Whoa," Teg stated as he explored the new space.
"Wow," Kan agreed as she joined him. They were in some sort of lab; that much was evident from the consoles on either side. But her attention was drawn to the wall directly across from the door, where her suit lamp revealed… "Is that a man?"
"I think the word 'was' is more appropriate." Teg was already in front of the alcove, studying what looked to be a perfectly preserved man of approximately three or four decades of age. "It looks like this box was a stasis chamber."
"Which obviously malfunctioned."
"Probably happened when this place lost power," Teg commented, moving off to the side of the alcove and opening a panel to reveal a tray of crystals.
"Which was when?" Kan asked, moving forward to examine the man more closely. Carefully, she picked at the unfamiliar clothing, examining it to try and find any clues as to who this man was and how long he'd been there. Something under the vest glinted. "Hey look at this," Kan told Teg. She pulled out two metal discs on a chain. Adjusting her suit lamp, she squinted to read the tiny writing embossed on them. "I think I found his name: 'Sheppard, John'."
"What kind of a name is that?" Teg asked, looking up from the tray.
"Search me." Kan was silent for a moment, running her fingers over the discs.
"Why do you think he was put in there?" Teg asked as he pushed the tray back into the wall.
"No idea. Hopefully it wasn't anything urgent."
"I doubt they'd have put him in stasis if it was something urgent."
Kan laughed. "You're right. C'mon, let's take him back to base camp." Turning from Teg as he picked up the body, she activated her comm. "Rory? Kan here. Round up all of the teams; it's time to head home."