Colonel John Sheppard was getting antsy. Major Lorne and his team were long overdue for a check-in, and that was in addition to the lengthy period of silence that everyone had known would be a factor when they set out. It didn't help any that this was a mission John had wanted, but Elizabeth Weir had been firm in her stance that he had already been on too many taxing missions lately and needed to have a bit of a break. John interpreted that to mean that she needed a break.

When John and his team were otherwise occupied, complaints from the civilians about military imposed security protocols went straight to Elizabeth. Civilians viewed most of the military as a single, mindless and terrifying entity that was to be feared, avoided and opposed whenever possible.

But John was generally likable and smart enough to grasp more of the finer points of scientific research than most people, in or out of the military. Because he was generally amiable, relaxed and clearly intelligent, they felt comfortable in approaching him with their problems.

More important in a strange way, when John was here, so too was Rodney McKay. And Rodney was known throughout Atlantis as being the unofficial head complainer in charge of general whininess. If there was any bellyaching to be done, Rodney was the one who was going to do it and if he didn't think it was worth complaining about, he would savagely rebuke whoever came to him with the "issue". Rodney was physically the weakest member of John's team, but not one of them could invoke the fear of God in geeks like Rodney could when he went on a tirade.

Rodney's derisive tone was only a small part of it. Rodney was in charge of the scientific departments of Atlantis with the exception of the medical field. He was in charge of hiring and firing and assigning. He could not only bark with the best of them, his bite was nothing to sneeze at either. He could not only shred someone's self-confidence with a stunningly vicious commentary on their abilities, but he could also take away their research and give it to someone he felt was more competent, reassigning them to study sconces or something equally mundane and irrelevant. In the lab, Rodney had real power, and his staff knew to fear him. They also knew he had not obtained his position by accident and -even had he not brilliantly saved Atlantis and her people at the last second more than once- they knew he was a genius who deserved their respect. Fear and respect were potent when combined, and the complaints -aside from those delivered by Rodney- were all but silenced when he was in the office.

What few there were, John could redirect to the department heads. If there was a real issue among the scientists, Rodney would tell him. If something went amiss medically, that was Carson Beckett's issue to report. All minor complaints would be mercifully strangled into silence before they could bother Elizabeth, who had her own very real and very intense problems to deal with.

Right now though, she and John harbored the same worries. Major Lorne's mission was somewhat risky to begin with, just because of the distance his team would have to travel from the Stargate. Almost a day's travel out of radio range on purpose to begin with wasn't very desirable. The unexpected appearance of natives at the Stargate was a wrinkle that made John uneasy. And now Lorne's team was long overdue for a check-in to boot. John didn't like it.

If he'd had the luxury, he would have been pacing nervously. But he was a leader, and it was his job to maintain his cool. If he appeared nervous, fear would spread like wildfire through the ranks. Being calm and collected under all strains was in his job description. He was a colonel, head of security and leader of the A-team on Atlantis, second only to Elizabeth, who also could not afford to look flustered.

So the both of them were busying themselves with frivolous tasks, trying to pretend they weren't concerned. Right now, they were both in Elizabeth's office, pretending to be having their weekly base security update meeting while they were actually just trying to avoid showing each other or anybody outside the office that they were even slightly concerned.

Elizabeth sat at her desk, John had draped himself across a chair near the wall in an attempt to appear more relaxed than he really was. He wondered if they were fooling anyone. Rodney was also there, but he was a perpetual ball of nervous energy, so who could tell if he was more concerned than usual or not? But he was, and he was pacing almost frantically around the office while the three of them feigned interest in the defensive systems of Atlantis, which were unchanged from last week and therefore really not worth meeting or pacing about.

Rodney gave off the vibe that he hated people, and would be a great deal happier if more of them were dead, but John had seen enough to know that Rodney was actually very sensitive and caring in his unorthodox way, and unwilling that any should die when he could have done something about it. Rodney had wanted this mission just as much as John had, and clearly felt that it should have been him, John, Teyla and Ronon out there, not Lorne and his team. Not that he'd ever say as much.

No, if anyone had asked, Rodney would have vocally insisted that he liked being alive and unharmed, and that logically there was no way they could know what had waylaid Lorne's team. Not knowing what had gone wrong, there was no telling if John and his team would have fared any better. In fact, they didn't really know anything had actually gone wrong. They could be jumping to conclusions. Rodney would say all of that, and more, and most people would believe him.

But John knew better, and so did Elizabeth. Rodney wanted to be out there just as badly as John did. But Elizabeth would not authorize that. Not right now anyway. They would have to wait. Neither Rodney nor John was good at waiting.

Though they had wildly different definitions of the word -one of them being a soldier and the other a scientist- both Rodney and John were men of action, and they hated doing nothing.

Not really listening to Rodney babble inanely about something they already knew, John was suddenly shocked out of his daze by the sound of the Stargate beginning to activate. The effect couldn't have been more electrifying than if someone had splashed ice water on him.

John was on his feet immediately while Rodney broke off mid-sentence. Elizabeth was only a beat behind them as they left her office to go and see what was happening in the control room.

"What's happening?" Elizabeth asked the 'Gate technician on duty.

"I'm not sure yet," the tech said, then -as more symbols entered into the system- he amended that with, "I think it's one of the secure addresses."

The secure addresses were planets with Stargates on the ground where the human population had either left or died. In either case, there were no people there, and that's what made those sites secure. If a team was using one of those addresses, you could bet something had gone wrong on their mission.

While Elizabeth divided her attention between the Stargate and the tech, John fixed his full attention on the 'Gate itself. Rodney opted to look over the tech's shoulder and get information directly from the control panel and screen the tech was reading from, bypassing the middle man entirely.

The Stargate activated in a rush, the raised shield blocking any hope of matter transmission unless and until a security code came through, identifying the would-be visitor.

"IDC incoming now," the 'Gate tech announced, "It's Lt. Reed."

At the SGC on Earth, entire teams had a single code to identify them. But Elizabeth and John agreed that individual IDCs would be helpful -and also feasible- for their much smaller operation. Therefore, every member of every team had his own unique IDC. Of course, considering that IDC stood for Iris Deactivation Code, it was really more of an SDC, but nobody chose to call it that. Sometimes they would refer to it merely as an ID code, for identification code, but IDC was shorter and -for those who had been part of the Stargate program prior to the Atlantis expedition- more familiar.

"Lower the shield," Elizabeth commanded.

Elizabeth's command was somewhat superfluous. As long as Atlantis wasn't under an emergency protocol prohibiting 'Gate travel, the techs all had authorization to lower the shield for any IDC they recognized. Because of the way Atlantis was run, it wasn't practical to have command personnel available at all hours of the day to tell techs to raise and lower shields. Besides which, it was an extra layer of security that neither Elizabeth nor John saw the point in. However, whenever she was present, Elizabeth would give the order anyway, likely for the sake of the military personnel, who immediately deferred to a higher ranking individual in their command chain. Or maybe it just made her feel better.

The shield lowered, and a moment later, three men came through. John had been suspicious and uneasy the moment he heard that it was Reed's ID code. This was because every team leader had a habit when it came to dialing and sending the code.

John tended to leave that to Rodney, partially because Rodney could keep addresses in his head, but mostly because he was the least capable fighter among them. John's logic was that any defense of the area that needed to happen was best left to himself, Ronon and Teyla while Rodney did the tech work.

But with Lorne, his entire team was composed of capable fighters. He tended to enter the address and code himself. He'd never said why, but John suspected that it was because doing that was the most exposed position, usually requiring the person entering the address to have their back to anything or anyone that might be stalking or chasing them. He took the most dangerous job for himself, trusting his team to have his back. John could understand that and respect it.

The fact that Reed was entering the code instead of Lorne had told John immediately that Lorne was injured, dead, missing or somehow delayed. The fact that three men came through and then the Stargate deactivated behind them told him that it was one of the worse options.

"Where's Lorne?" Rodney wondered quietly, but of course nobody knew so they didn't answer him.

Reed and the rest of Lorne's team looked up at Elizabeth and John, looking rather unhappy, but not exactly grief-stricken. That suggested Lorne was still alive... or had been the last time he was seen.


N'we.

That was the word the Ntsevu used to describe someone with the ATA gene.

Apparently, much of the historical records of the Ntsevu had been obliterated, but what remained told the story of those with the ATA gene living among the people as one of them, except for some duties they performed at the temple which could not be done by others. That is, until a queen, an ancestor of Jahnavi, decided she wanted their power for herself, and the science experiments began. At first, it was done on a volunteer basis, but as more and more of the N'we were killed, it eventually became compulsory... until there were no more N'we left. The last had died shortly before Jahnavi's grandmother became queen, and the temple had remained dark and silent ever since.

"That was also when the Wraith returned," Jahnavi had said, "And they have recently increased the frequency of their raids, and have taken many more at a time than they used to."

Lorne knew why that was, of course. He also now understood what the Ancient building had been used for. When it was operational, it had protected the Ntsevu from attack.

"The Wraith would come, but they would fly out of the valley," Jahnavi said, "Now when they come, they never leave the valley."

That told Lorne that there must be people outside of the valley, people on the planet besides the Ntsevu, who could no more get in than the Ntsevu could get out. That suggested to Lorne that there was some form of beam transporter within the temple, since -aside from flying- that seemed the only practical means of leaving the valley. Somehow, the Ntsevu had transported themselves to the valley, for some reason leaving everyone else behind, people who now likely had little to no inkling that the Stargate even existed. Jahnavi seemed not to have considered why the Wraith used to fly outside the valley.

After his talk with Jahnavi, Lorne had been removed to a dungeon-like basement. On one side of the largish room was a row of prison cells. On the other side, equipment Lorne didn't know the nature of and didn't particularly want a closer look at. He could guess these were the tools of the Ntsevu scientists, which had eventually killed not only the N'we, but every Ntsevu they had attempted to infuse with "the power" that the N'we naturally possessed as part of their genetic code.

"Do not worry," Jahnavi had told him, "As the only living N'we seen for over a hundred years, we will take special care to ensure your continued survival."

Lorne was not in any way reassured by this. He'd tried it before, and come to the conclusion that he didn't much care to be someone's lab experiment, particularly not where the ATA gene was involved. Far as he was concerned, that gene made him a puddle jumper pilot, and that was as far as it went. Now and then one of McKay's science geeks would nab him as the nearest available person with the ATA gene to activate a piece of technology for them, but generally he steered well clear of any lab or research area because he didn't want to become involved in any experiment.

He was willing to die in the line of duty if he had to, but -if he had to go- he'd rather die fighting, not being injected with a strange substance or by being blown up after activating some mystery device, or being eaten by some kind of weird living smoke, or some other more awful end he couldn't even begin to imagine. No, he'd much rather be shot by the enemy. Though, given his druthers, he'd actually prefer to just be alive and unscathed.

Lorne had warned Jahnavi that this was a mistake, and that she did not want to make an enemy of his people, but she had brushed him off. It wasn't surprising that she didn't take him seriously. After all, she had only seen four people, each of them trying his best to appear friendly. She had never seen the people of Atlantis when they were pissed off, and Lorne couldn't risk a security breach by describing anything in detail. He dared not give her any information about technology she had not already seen, and certainly could not give her any idea as to the number of soldiers that Atlantis could bring against her if necessary. All he could say was that making them an enemy was the worst mistake she could ever make, and then had to leave it to her imagination, which was apparently limited.

So far, Jahnavi's scientists had only drawn blood and then left Lorne alone, evidently going to work in a lab somewhere on a level above where he was imprisoned. Perhaps this equipment down here was obsolete. Lorne certainly hoped so, because it looked more like medieval torture tools from a bad movie than medical equipment, and he would just as soon never find out what it was for.

Still, for the moment Lorne remained not unduly worried. Though not reassured by Jahnavi's assertion that he would not be harmed more than necessary, Lorne did know she was telling the truth. He was the only one of his kind here, and Jahnavi's people had already killed all the N'we once; they would be more cautious now, especially seeing as they had taken a huge risk in "acquiring" Lorne, and Jahnavi clearly knew it, even if she refused to admit it. There was fear in her eyes when Lorne had warned her not to make an enemy of his people, even though she had been verbally dismissive.

For the moment at least, the Ntsevu wanted him alive. In the meantime, Reed and the others would be returning to Atlantis with their report. It would not be long before Dr. Weir and Col. Sheppard had prepared their response to the offense of one of their own being held captive. Lorne might be uncomfortable and getting tired of having his blood drawn, but for now he was relatively safe.

There might come a time when he should worry, but the time wasn't now. For now, the only thing he really had to contend with was boredom. That was something they never told you about being held prisoner. There was a lot of waiting around in a small box with nothing to do. Having exhausted the entertainment potential of pacing fairly rapidly, Lorne had decided to sleep, or at least try to.

This wasn't the first time he'd been locked up, he knew how it worked. There was nothing he could do just now except for wait, so he might as well just relax and settle in for the long haul.


"Since they were so interested in learning how the Stargate works before all this started, it seemed like the thing to do was wait for them to go before activating it, and then gating to some other planet before we came back here," Reed said, having spent the last several minutes filling in Elizabeth on what had happened.

John was also there, along with his entire team.

Though neither Ronon nor Teyla were part of the official command structure, John considered them not only part of his team, but also his security force on Atlantis, as well as his advisers. Not that he ever said as much. He just treated them that way, and they responded, right along with everybody else. He'd had to battle to secure his stance that he didn't want to be part of any meeting purposely excluding a member of his team but -once he'd won- the victory was final.

"Sounds like everything changed the second they found out Lorne has the ATA gene," John said, purposely stating the obvious just to be sure everyone was on the same page.

"That's odd," Rodney observed, "Usually when people see the ATA gene at work, they declare somebody royalty or even a god. They don't usually arrest them for it."

"Some people are afraid of things which are beyond their understanding," Teyla ventured, "Perhaps they were alarmed by the sight of such power and responded out of fear."

"They understood enough to realize Major Lorne was telling the truth when he said the lights came on automatically," Rodney said, glancing at Reed for confirmation, even though the man had already said as much.

"They tested each of us," Reed confirmed, "And then they just seemed to lose interest, other than making sure we left the planet unarmed. But I think that was to insure we couldn't come back for the Major. At least, not for a little while."

"Sounds like there's more at work here than fear," Rodney concluded.

"It sounds less like an arrest and more like a capture," Ronon grunted, speaking for the first time.

"You mean like instead of arresting him because he did something dangerous or offensive, they captured him because he had something they wanted?" John inquired.

"Exactly," Ronon said.

"The power to operate Ancient technology," Rodney stated the obvious, but it was clear from his expression that his mind was working on the less obvious, "It's that Ancient building. Whatever it's for, whatever it does, those people know about it, and it's worth potentially going to war over."

"How do you figure?" John asked.

"They saw the weapons Lorne's team were carrying, the technology. They had to know there were more than four men, and that the three they let go would immediately come back and report to their superiors. Lorne would have tried to warn them that was a mistake."

"He wouldn't have given them any idea of our numbers of firepower," John said.

"No," Rodney agreed, "But what he would do was make it very clear that we don't appreciate having our people kidnapped. They could figure out the rest for themselves, enough to realize they were taking a massive risk by holding Lorne against his will."

"This Ancient structure," Teyla said slowly, "Is it possible it could be a... shield or perhaps a weapon to be used against the Wraith? Access to such a weapon would be well worth the risk of war."

"It probably is... or was," Rodney nodded, "There's no telling how much power it has left. For all we know, turning on the lights may be the most it can do."

"Or maybe," Elizabeth said evenly, "It has a ZPM to power it. This could turn out to be a huge opportunity."

Rodney frowned unhappily, "I seem to recall being trapped in a collapsing basement last time we had such an opportunity."

"I think you're both forgetting something important," John interjected.

"Oh? What?" Elizabeth asked.

"Major Lorne," John reminded them gently.

"We're not... forgetting him," Rodney said, not quite able to meet John's eyes.

Elizabeth was silent for a moment before she said, "Of course the priority is getting the Major back, but there are other angles which need to be considered. It may yet be possible to come to a peaceful solution, if you're willing to take the time to consider it."

"Negotiating is not my strong suit," John replied, "You know that."

"Yes, I do know that," Elizabeth said, "But I suggest that you try it."

"Their first response when they saw we had something they wanted was to take our people prisoner," John protested, "I think negotiating was off the table the second they decided to do that."

"We don't need more enemies, Colonel," Elizabeth said, in a tone that suggested this was final, "If that is what it takes to get Major Lorne back, so be it, but don't make a war where there doesn't have to be one. They are probably frightened. Perhaps not of us, but of the Wraith. Perhaps they view Major Lorne as their last hope for survival. If he were allowed to leave, they had no guarantee he would ever return."

"And what about the Genii?" John challenged, "They were just trying to survive too. I don't seem to recall that ending with us being friends."

Elizabeth sighed, "I see your point, John. Do you see mine?"

"Yes, ma'am," John said evenly, "I do."

"Good," Elizabeth said, then looked at him straight on, "Do whatever you have to, but bring Major Lorne home. I want him back, Colonel."

A small smile tugged at John's face, a combination of amusement and deadly serious intent in his eyes as he responded, "Yes, ma'am."