Hello, welcome to the second chapter in this series. It delves more deeply into the circumstances that will lead the Atlantis team to assume the task of discovering the mysteries of Ganeth. Enjoy!

Chapter 2: Happenings on Atlantis

John Shepherd:

Damn it I swore to myself as I made my way rapidly through the halls of the Ancient city of Atlantis. I told Woolsey that sending another team to that godforsaken desert planet was a mistake, but no, we had to "establish trade and diplomatic connections throughout the Pegasus galaxy." I know, perhaps better than anyone else here in the city how difficult dealing with desert terrain could be, but that paled in comparison to how difficult the planet's natives were. I also know that while Lorne was a good guy to have in a fight, he wasn't exactly known for his diplomacy, and it was that lack of diplomacy that got him and his team run out of town by cloaked-and-veiled warriors. It was also the results of his failed diplomacy that had me hurrying to the conference room to see how Woolsey would handle this little incident.

On my way there, I radioed Teyla in order to apologize for missing yet another sparring session. I felt faint regret, because it had been more than two weeks since I have faced off against the petite Athosian, and I know that I was getting a bit soft. I swear, the next day off I get, I am spending it in the training room to catch up on the practices that I've missed. The thoughts about Teyla branched out to me thinking about how long I have been on Atlantis in general and all of the trials that my team and I have faced. We have done pretty well in gaining the trust of the many races of people that we have encountered, as well as in just keeping ourselves alive. I could feel the corners of my mouth turn upwards in a smug little smirk as I thought about how many times we have taken on the Wraith with bad odds and beat them. Hopefully, the luck we have had in the past with the Wraith, Replicators, and Genii won't run out in some other mission.

Despite Lorne's little encounter with the people on planet Ganeth, we still didn't have much information about them. Teyla and her Athosian contacts could only tell us that the Ganethans were territorial and lived on a desert planet. Apparently, they kept their off-planet trade to a bare minimum. Ronon had never even heard of the planet Ganeth, but that doesn't really surprise me since Chewie isn't exactly known for cracking open the books. McKay and Zalenka could find very little in the Ancient databases about the people, though I now know more than I ever wanted to about their ecosystem, thanks to Rodney. Hopefully Lorne's failed expedition could shed a little more light on the situation, and with those thoughts, I opened the door to Woolsey's office and stepped inside, mentally bracing myself for the typical bureaucratic jargon overload that accompanies anything that comes out of the man's mouth. I walked into the room and I was greeted with the sight of a shamefaced Lorne and a frustrated Woolsey. Lorne was trying to explain what had happened on Ganeth, but Woolsey interrupted him to direct an irate greeting at me.

"Well, Shepherd, you have managed to be ten minutes late to this meeting, despite me telling you how urgent the situation is," growled Woolsey.

All I could do was shrug. "You know how large this city is, and one of the transporters is down."

At the mentioning of one of the transporters being down, Woolsey sighed wearily. "You're here now, so take a seat and let's get on with this matter. Lorne was just reporting that he and his men made friendly conversation with the locals at what appeared to be some kind of cantina. Lorne, why don't you tell the Lieutenant Colonel what you told me."

Lorne began, "Because we suspected that the culture may be similar to the Middle Eastern peoples of Earth, we decided that it would be best to act as if we were dealing with Arabic culture. One of the ideals we would respect was to leave the veiled women alone; however, things got started to go downhill when one of my technicians flirted with a pretty young thing that happened to be without a veil and wearing some kind of robe with a yellow circle on it. The man in question said that she came up to him and initiated the conversation, though I don't quite believe him, as I have seen him flirting with the locals in the past. Either way, a couple of minutes later, four cloaked and veiled warriors with the same yellow circle design on their chests came into the cantina and that's when all hell broke loose. Two of them drew their curved swords and imposed themselves between Reed and the girl. One grabbed the girl and the other yelled something at the rest of the people in the cantina. Next thing I know, everyone is running out of the cantina and the warriors are coming after us. We fire some rounds to get them off our backs and then we high-tailed it back to the gate. Oddly enough, the fact that we used the gate seemed to piss them off even more, probably because the ruins that surrounded the gate may have some kind of significance to them."

I quirked my eyebrow and asked, "Do you know this for certain or are you just making an educated guess?"

"One of my men theorized that the ruins had some kind of religious significance because they kind of resembled a temple structure and there was Ancient writing on one of the walls."

"Question," interjected Woolsey. "Why was there were no report of Ancient writings in our first reconnaissance on Ganeth?"

"Maybe it's because this is the first reconnaissance team to go to this planet. It was just a routine exploration of an unknown planet, sir."

I could not help but wonder why it was that Woolsey was so concerned with this planet. We have faced hostile forces on many of the planets that we have been to, and our usual protocol is to just leave the locals alone if we have no other reason to be there. I voiced my thoughts and earned myself a nasty look from Woolsey.

"Shepherd, the reason why we needed to send a reconnaissance team to Ganeth in the first place is because we were asked to look into the situation there by the leaders of the Coalition of Planets."

"These the same people that tried to blame us for waking up the Wraith?" I asked, mystified as to why they would want to be dealing with us.

"Yes, John, they are," replied Woolsey, tartly. "They came to us for help in dealing with the Ganethans. Apparently they are having some problems with the people of that planet, disappearances, random massacres, and etcetera. The Coalition wants us to look into it. They say it is because we are the strongest military power in this galaxy, barring the Wraith, but I suspect it is because their resources are inadequate for handling problems like this. Normally, I would see no reason to involve the people of Atlantis with the Coalition's political issues; however, I think it may be in our best interests to take a look at the situation, in order to, shall we say, 'cooperate' with the Coalition and to ease our relations with the other political groups in the Pegasus galaxy that are watching to see how we handle this."

"Well isn't this just wonderful news. They want us to clean up their mess." All I could do was shake my head in disbelief.

"There is no mess to clean up, but there is a mystery to be looked into. We are not the first group to be interested in what is happening on Ganeth. Rumor has it that the Genii sent in six different reconnaissance teams and all of them got chased off the planet by the same type of warriors that Lorne and his men ran into. The Coalition is desperate because Ganeth has not one, but two Stargates and it is located in the middle of a system of planets that are in alliance with the Coalition. They fear that their inability to establish contact on Ganeth may be because the Ganethans are planning some sort of attack or invasion on planets under the protection of the Coalition."

"We have quite a mess to take care of then, don't we, Woolsey? Have you notified Stargate Command and gotten their feedback? If we are getting involved with what could be a war in the Pegasus galaxy, shouldn't they know?"

Woolsey shook his head in denial. "I do not feel that this matter is of enough consequence to warrant alerting Stargate Command. The NID would surely drag its feet as usual and then we would have to deal with a rush of paperwork that I frankly, do not want to deal with. Yes, the situation could escalate into a war, and if it does, only then shall I notify Stargate Command. As far as the situation goes right now, we need to find a way to gather as much information about Ganeth as we can, without starting a war ourselves." Woolsey then turned away from me and addressed Lorne. "Major, I need you to alert all recon teams on Atlantis that there are to be no further expeditions to Ganeth until further notice. Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir."

"You are dismissed." Lorne made his exit and Woolsey directed his gaze back to me. "Shepherd, I need you and your team to start asking around with our allies for information regarding Ganeth. You must be discreet so as not to alert anyone else interested in the Coalition's business."

"Understood. Teyla, Ronon, McKay, and I will start with anyone who may engage in contact with Ganeth through trade." I stood up and left Woolsey's office, using my communicator to hail my team and tell them to meet me in the Jumper bay. I had a feeling that we were going on a wild goose chase.

It was about two weeks later before we even found a lead as to who was trading with Ganeth, and even that was a chance encounter. My team and I were headed to a Spacegate we could use to transit back to Atlantis when McKay picked up a help beacon from a Traveler ship. We followed the signal to the vessel and helped them make the necessary repairs so that they could make it to their next stop in their trade route. It was from one of the hangar crewmen that Teyla got our first bit of useful information. She said that, according to the crewman, the only people that have any trade relations whatsoever with Ganeth happen to be the Travelers, and even then, it is only a select few ships that are allowed to dock on the planet. He didn't know which ones, but the fact the only the Travelers traded with the Ganethans narrowed our search down immensely.

Our next step is to contact and meet with someone high in the chain of command. The person in question would have to be a person with whom we have a good rapport and who was well-travelled enough to be able to answer our questions. I could not quell my rising sense of mirth. It will be quite nice to see Larrin again.