Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate Atlantis or Stargate SG-1; I do not own any of the original series' characters who appear/are mentioned in this story (Lorne, Weir, Sheppard, Teyla, Ronon, McKay, Landry, Carter, Jackson, Vala, Walter, Reed, generic SGC personnel); all rights belong to the original creators of this fantastic series which I adore; I write only for fun and derive no remuneration from this.
PROLOGUE
Sheppard has gone missing (again), but given his propensity for doing so, it isn't really considered a serious emergency any more. Lorne is around and handling Sheppard's job just fine. He's had a lot of practice, much to his dismay. Since data bursts from Atlantis to Earth are only once every 2 weeks, they have 9 days left to find Sheppard before they have to tell the SGC and the IOA that they've lost him (again). If Weir decides to enact the emergency dialling protocol, they would shorten it to every week. Fortunately, Weir has decided to hold off on that, since Sheppard's disappearance is, for once, not kidnapping or Wraith-related. Sheppard had accidentally activated an Ancient interstellar science module during a recent investigation of previously unexplored sections of the city; it had auto-launched itself and vanished into hyperspace almost immediately. The lab computer had revealed that its last programmed mission before the Ancients had left was to investigate a very unique cosmic phenomenon: Strange Quark Stars.
McKay had attempted to explain, but all Lorne had caught was words like 'pressure' and 'quantum' and that neutrons were much much smaller than atoms. There had been something about soup and empirical evidence, too. Weir had interrupted him and asked him how this information could help them to find Sheppard. McKay had babbled something about a map based on galactic star surveys, rapid temperature variations, and being 'too small' for standard neutron star formation models before switching to belittling the Ancients for their 'apparent inability to understand the physics that governs the behavior of neutron-degenerate matter or quark-degenerate matter' as well as their 'utterly moronic programming practices' before he vanished off into his lab. It was left to Teyla to explain that the automated probe had not been programmed to detect the presence of unwilling passengers in the module before departing on its way to a series of self-determined unreported targets, and that Rodney believed he could duplicate the probe's logic to ascertain where it may be going.
Two hours later McKay had returned looking smugly triumphant. He had, using his greatly superior intellect, come up with some potential trajectories for the module based on modern astronomical surveys of Pegasus. Weir hadn't bothered to wait for the full explanation; she'd simply nodded at the team and said "Go. Regular check-ins." Teyla and Ronon had loaded up a jumper, McKay had identified the nearest Gates to the module's likely targets, and they had immediately set off on a series of recon missions in the hope of catching up to the probe and retrieving Sheppard. That had been two days ago. The team had returned briefly several times to resupply, recalculate, and to rest, but with McKay guiding their search path there's no doubt in anyone's minds that they'll find Sheppard soon. Until then, life on Atlantis has to continue as normal, so Lorne finishes his paperwork and gears up for his next mission. Normal. Life-sucking aliens, aggrieved killer robots, psychic whales.. What was 'Normal'?
After Weir had briefed him and Zelenka to proceed as normal in their new, official, temporary (please!) capacities as heads of Military and Science, Zelenka had muttered to him that 'Normal was completely broken'.
Ain't that the truth.
A/N: My second SGA fic, and my first one that spans multiple chapters. Beta was done by the indomitable Redtail53. The original spark for this story also came from her. I am but your humble fanfiction minion, m'lady.
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