Out of Legends

by Soledad

Author's Notes:

For disclaimer, rating and other details see the Introduction.

Please, remember that this is still an AU, and will get even more AU as we go on. It's established in this universe that Zelenka is married to Marta (the girl from "Hide and Seek"), Beckett is engaged with Anika, one of the Athosian healers (a blonde extra), and that Markham and Stackhouse had married the same Athosian woman (another extra, this time a brunette) and lived in an Athosian-style clan marriage till Markham's death.

Beta read by erinnyes, thanks! All remaining mistakes are mine.

Chapter 10 – Chance Encounter on M85-393

Lieutenant Aiden Ford was an early riser. Not only because one didn't really have any other choice in the Marine Corps – he'd always liked to get up early, when everyone else was still asleep, and he could have the whole place for himself. The latter would be impossible in Atlantis, of course, there was always the night watch on duty, but he found the ocean particularly peaceful right after sunrise.

On this morning, however, he didn't have the time to stand on his balcony and admire the sun rising above the waves. He had to leave in what Dr. Beckett called 'the wee hours of the morning', to revisit M85-393. The planet with the twin suns that Major Sheppard considered too hot to settle on, even temporarily. The planet that Aiden himself had secretly nicknamed Gemini IV, in good old Star Trek tradition, because it was the fourth one orbiting its binary constellation.

Of course, he'd never mentioned that to Major Sheppard, who seemed to dislike it if anyone gave anything a name that could be remembered by people without a PhD in maths or astrophysics. Sometimes the major could be worse than the professional geeks, and since he'd got busted down from his former position as the military leader of Atlantis, he reacted even worse to things that he didn't like. But Bates and the rest of the team thought that Gemini IV was a fine name for the planet, and so they stuck to it when no geeks were around.

Aiden was eager to see the planet. The team had first visited it when Bates had still been their team leader and Aiden himself a mere member of Sheppard's team. He'd seen dozens of planets in his time with the SGC, but never one with twin suns. He couldn't wait to see what it was like.

"Lieutenant…?" someone said behind him.

Aiden turned around. The senior member of his team, Staff Sergeant Zeke McKinney, was standing behind him: a stocky, powerfully built man in his mid-forties, with short-cropped black air and a broad, deeply lined face. One of his eyes seemed slightly smaller than the other, as a result of an injury that – together with an eye-patch that he'd had to wear for moths after said injury – had earned him the nickname 'the one-eyed sheriff'. That and his uncanny resemblance to John Wayne, that is.

"Mission briefing in ten, sir," he reminded his CO.

Aiden nodded. "I'll be there in five, Staff Sergeant. Give me a moment here."

"Yes, sir!" McKinney saluted smartly, turned on his heals and left. Aiden watched the play of sunlight on the waves for another couple of minutes, and then followed him.

When he entered the briefing room, Aiden couldn't suppress a sudden wave of pride and respect. These people who were now his team, were the best and toughest in Atlantis. Veterans, every single one of them. Bates and McKinney had both been in Afghanistan and Iraq before being chosen for one of the SGC's Marine teams. Toussaint had been Black Ops and survived as the only one some mission in Belize that had been so secret that even its existence was denied afterwards. Bosco "Boss" Teague, the team's tech wizard, who looked like an ebony Buddha, had worked for Area 51 for decades and knew thirteen ways to kill a man with his bare hands. Rickman, with his thin face and thinning hair, could have been mistaken for a geek, but he could fire a grenade launcher (and hit his target unerringly) while running for his life. And Yamato, only a couple of years older than Aiden himself, while slender and smooth-faced like a girl, was absolutely deadly in unarmed combat.

Come to think, he was absolutely deadly in armed combat, too.

The team's resident geeks, Doctors Simpson and Corrigan, were also present. No piece of Ancient technology had been found during the first surveillance visit to M85-393, but this time a longer search was planned, and one could never know. And in the unlikely case that they would find anything, they needed Dr. Corrigan's help. Like most engineers, Simpson could read Ancient reasonably well, due to her previous years with the SGC, but with unknown pieces of tech, one could never be careful enough.

"Good morning," Aiden said. "I'll make this brief, as you've all been to M85-393 already… unlike me or the doctors here." The men grinned, because it was very true, of course. Aiden continued. "This time, we're gonna go by puddle jumper, and search the surroundings of the Gate in a radius of fifty miles. Should we find anything of interest, we'll extend that radius to a hundred miles. The main goal is to figure out whether the Ancients have left any morsel of useful tech there. We'll also map that area for habitable caves that cold give shelter for three hundred or so persons."

"We're taking the Athosians with us to the Alpha site?" Bates asked with a frown.

Aiden rolled his eyes. "Of course we are, Sergeant, or should we leave them behind to become Wraith food?"

"I'm not suggesting to leave them behind, Lieutenant," Bates replied. "I'm suggesting we should evacuate them somewhere else where they can't compromise the safety of our own people."

"And just whom do you consider our people?" Aiden asked sharply. "Would you include Dr. Z or Doc Beckett or even Stackhouse, who're all married to Athosian women? Or would you send them to a different planet, too?"

"Of course not," Bates snorted. "They'd understand why they have to be temporarily separated. At least Stackhouse certainly would."

"If that's what you think, you should perhaps make your suggestions to Dr. Weir or Major Vogel," Aiden said.

Bates snorted again. "Yeah, because they'd be willing to listen!"

"Neither am I," Aiden replied with a shrug. "All right, people, let's go. You've got the sketchy map from the first survey trip. Doctors Simpson and Corrigan have their tools I assume?" the two scientists nodded. They were SGC-veterans. They knew their stuff. "Maintenance has provided MREs for three days and sleeping bags for anyone. Any questions before we disembark?"

"I've got one," Rickman said. "Who's gonna fly us? I hope it won't be Doc Beckett."

Aiden shifted positions uncomfortably. He'd long regretted having ranted about Dr. Beckett's incompetence as a pilot during the great storm. The doc was a great guy, and he didn't need his authority being undermined. But the damage was already done, and Aiden knew it would take time for his men to trust the good doctor anywhere else than his Infirmary.

"No," he said. "Stackhouse has lent us Lieutenant Lindstrom, and before you start panicking about women behind the wheel, I've been on a mission with her before. She's really good."

The team let out a collective sigh of relief. They all knew Lieutenant Annalisa Lindstrom – just Lisa to her friends, among which Aiden called himself lucky to be counted – a former chopper pilot and the only remaining contribution of Denmark to the expedition since the tragic death of poor Dr. Petersen a couple of months earlier. She was a slim, blonde, easy-going woman with short-cropped hair and a well-functioning artificial ATA gene who took to flying puddle jumpers with a passion, as soon as her gene had made it possible. She'd already proved to be remarkable level-headed in a crisis and had a steady hand on the controls. Everyone liked to fly with her, because she always concentrated on getting the job safely done, instead of showing off her considerable flying skills, as many of the male pilots would do.

She was also Aiden's best friend in Atlantis. Their friendship based on their shared love for basketball, both watching and playing it, and for old-fashioned jazz. Sometimes Aiden thought that she might not be adverse to become more than just a friend for him, had Aiden not been 'completely besotted with someone else', as she liked to put it. Amazingly enough, her one-sided feelings didn't put an undue strain on their friendship.

She was awaiting them in the hangar, leaning against Jumper 3 casually, smiling that reserved, just a little wistful smile of hers. She seemed impossibly young, despite the fact that she was about to hit twenty-nine in two weeks' time, almost like a boy. She tried to compensate her looks with a lipstick that, in Aiden's opinion, was several shades too dark. But again, Aiden knew from first-hand experience how hard it was to be taken seriously when one looked younger than one's true age. He'd suffered from the babyface syndrome all his life, too.

He was genuinely surprised to see Dr. Beckett standing with Lisa, and gave his men a warning look, lest someone would make a bad joke about the doc's flying skills. Besides, it didn't seem likely that Beckett would have his eyes on the controls, this time. He was in full offworld gear, which in his case meant a backpack of the size of a walk-in closed, full of equipment.

"What are you doing here, doc?" Aiden asked. "I wasn't told you were coming with us."

"It was a last-minute decision," Beckett replied tiredly. "Someone needs to check for viruses and bacteria in the air and the water, to see if there's anything that could turn be harmful in the long run. And since I needed to get out for a while anyway, I volunteered. Hope it's all right with you, Lieutenant."

Aiden nodded without a comment. He knew that the good doctor was still agonizing about the nanovirus disaster and the loss of several expedition members due to said artificial viruses, which was something he could certainly relate to. He'd had the virus in his system, after all, and could hope for less than an hour till a sudden and horrifying death. Battle was something he'd been trained to deal with, but being killed by microscopic machines that would torture him with terrible visions before rupturing an artery in his brain… he shuddered from the memory.

"Sure, doc, be our guest," he said. Perhaps a change of scenery would really do Beckett good. Besides, he was a great guy to have on a mission… as long as he didn't have to fly the jumper or touch any piece of Ancient tech, that is. With a natural gene as strong as Beckett's, it was frustrating sometimes how reluctant he could be to actually use it.

And it wasn't just technophobia, either. Aiden had finally realized that. Beckett had no problems whatsoever to use highly-developed medical equipment, be it Earth-originated, Ancient, or any other alien stuff. He felt competent enough around those, and rightly so. He only began to panic when something outside from his area of expertise was demanded from him. In such cases one had to be a bit… persuasive with him.

"Get in, doc," Aiden ordered. "We have to go."

He joined Lisa in the cockpit, which was fairly small, allowing just enough room for pilot and co-pilot, while the team plus the three doctors took their seats in the passenger compartment. Not that he'd be any help in the co-pilot's chair, as the gene therapy hadn't worked for him, but ever since he'd set foot in a jumper for the first time, Aiden just had to sit there and watch. Especially when they were travelling through space… that was something even better, even more mythical than Gate travel. Going through the Gate was a great rush, he wouldn't deny that, but one didn't really get the feeling that one had left Earth… or whatever planet one had started from.

He regretted a little that they'd go through the Gate this time, but at least they were going to see a planet with two suns! As much as the dire state of the expedition was clear for him, he couldn't suppress his almost childish joy. Extraterrestrial life had always been a great interest of him. He'd enrolled a few courses of palaeontology and related subjects in college, but his time in the SGC had taught him that theory was nothing compared with reality.

He smiled at Lisa who returned his smile with one of her own while sliding into the pilot's chair with practiced ease. As if she'd flown these sleek little spaceships all her life. As if she'd been born to fly them, instead of the heavy military choppers she'd flown back on Earth. She laid her palms upon the instrumental board, and the controls responded immediately. The lights flickered on, and, with a low hum, the whole ship came to life.

Lisa turned to Aiden, grinning. "Do you want to do the honours?" she asked.

Aiden grinned back at her. He loved dialling up the Gate, especially if he got to use the small DHD device mounted in the cockpit, between the pilot's chair and his. As he pushed the keys, the ship lifted into the air, hovering as the turntable beneath it twirled open, like the iris back at the SGC. Slowly, steadily, the puddle jumper sank through the opening and into the Gate Room, floating before the open wormhole.

"Jumper 3, you're free to depart," came Peter Grodin's voice through the radio.

"Understood, Flight Control," Lisa replied crisply and hit the controls. The engines roared, and the ship accelerated through the wormhole. As usual, the transition was so fast that they barely registered the icy cold of the trip before they shot out from the corresponding Gate on M85-393.

The intensity of the sunlight nearly blinded them. Luckily, Lisa had the ship polarize the front window with a mental order.

"That was… shocking, to say the least," Aiden commented. "Doc, can you tell me what time of the day is it?"

"I wouldnae risk a wild guess, son," Beckett replied, checking the atmospheric scanners back in the passenger compartment. "Eric, me lad, could ya make hands and feet of these readings?"

Dr. Corrigan peeked over Beckett's shoulder. "Well, it seems that we've arrived just after the second sunrise," he said. "The first sun is halfway to its zenith already, and the second one has just got up above the horizon. It won't be too hot for another couple of hours; this world has a twenty-nine-hour day… roughly calculated, that is. Our timing was good enough."

"I'd suggest sunglasses, though," Beckett added.

"Noted," Aiden replied, turning back to them. "Any energy readings?"

"Scanning," Dr. Simpson was already at it. "Nothing so far… no, wait, I've got something here… some kind of energy spike… no, it's gone again."

"How come that it wasn't discovered during the first survey?" Aiden frowned.

"Because it wasn't there at the first time," Bates replied with a scowl. "Sir," he added with an emphasis that wasn't particularly friendly. Sergeant Michael Eugene Bates didn't like his competence being questioned. Not even by his baby-faced commanding officer.

Especially not by his baby-faced commanding officer who was now commanding his former team.

"There's no need to snap at me, Sergeant," Aiden said evenly. "Fact is, you've not reported any energy readings from the first surveillance trip. Fact is, we have missed an unknown energy spike just now. All I wanna know is why it's there now when it wasn't there then."

"We didn't specifically scan for Ancient energy sources, Lieutenant," Teague intervened. "We've made a basic survey as usual: atmospheric conditions, radiation, possible biohazards… that sort of stuff."

Aiden considered that for a moment, then he nodded. "All right, I see your point. But since it's there now, and we're here too, we need to investigate, I guess. Lisa, do you have the coordinates?"

"Yes, but I won't be able to park right there," Lieutenant Lindstrom warned. "The HUD-map," she nodded at the holographic screen that had just popped up in front of her, "shows a suitable landing place, but we'll have to hike at least two klicks till we reach the point."

"Had we gone through the Gate on foot, we could have taken a shortcut across the hills and spare us two third of the hiking," Corrigan added, studying the map.

"Well, that can't be helped now," Aiden replied with a shrug. "I'd say, once you've let us out, you should continue the surveillance, Lieutenant. I'll leave two of the men behind with you, just in case, and we'll maintain radio contact all the time."

Lisa nodded. "Understood, sir." They might have the same rank and Lisa even a couple more duty years under her belt, but Aiden was the team leader. He was responsible for the mission, and so he gave the orders."

"Should you find anything of interest – anything else, I mean – contact us," Aiden continued. "And be careful with possible pieces of Ancient tech; with you having the gene and all, it could become… risky to touch anything."

"Don't worry, sir," Lisa replied. "I've got a master's degree in aerodynamical engineering; I know how to behave around scary technology."

"How on Earth did you end up studying something like that?" Aiden asked in surprise. "Did you want to become an astronaut?"

"Actually, I wanted to become a car mechanic, just like my father," Lisa grinned at him. "But he had strange ideas about his little girl doing a nice, comfy desk job, so he sent me to college, where I was then recruited in my sophomore year. The best decision I've ever made," she added. "I mean, I get to fly. And I got to come to Atlantis." She glanced at Aiden briefly. "By the way, what did you study?"

"You're just dying to find out, aren't you?" Aiden grinned back at her.

She nodded. "Of course. It could turn out to be excellent blackmail material. Especially if I could tell Dr. McKay that your studies haven't included any maths."

"You are evil," Aiden declared, shuddering from the thought what McKay would say if he knew that Aiden had actually studied history. Granted, military history, but it was one of the so-called soft sciences that McKay repeatedly – and very vocally – declared useless mumbo-jumbo. As if sucking at prime/not prime wouldn't be bad enough.

Lisa laughed, seeing the expression on his face.

"I've got three brothers and two sisters," she said, "and I'm the youngest. You can't imagine what I had to do not to get smothered as a child."

Which was a joke, and Aiden knew it. Her family had always been very supportive, her older sibs never begrudging her the chance they hadn't had themselves: to go to college and to live her dream of flying. Dr. Beckett, who came from a similar background, gave her a smile full of understanding. She smiled back, then she turned to the controls again, and a few minutes later landed the jumper on a small lighting.

"This is as close to the coordinates as I can get," she said, handing Aiden one of those portable lifesign detectors. "Take this, just in case."

"What for?" Aiden shrugged. "The planet is uninhibited, and besides, Dr. Corrigan already has one of these."

"Humour me, would you?" Lisa replied. "I thought you've learned at the SGC that things are seldom as simple as they seem."

That was certainly true, and so Aiden gave in. The majority of the team left the jumper and made themselves ready for the hiking that lay before them, while the little ship, with Teague and McKinney still aboard, lifted off again to continue the survey in an extended radius, scanning for caves and industrially refined metal, mostly.

Aiden watched them leave with mixed feelings. It wasn't so that he didn't trust Lisa's skills, and Boss and Zeke were 'as reliable as antigravs', as Dr. McKay liked to say in his Trekkie moments. But Lisa had been very right when she said that things were seldom as simple as they seemed. Especially in the Pegasus galaxy.

"Lieutenant," Bates' voice said behind his back, "we're ready to go."

He nodded. The sooner they got this mission accomplished, the better. "All right," he said, "let's do this, people. Move it!"

The hiking across the steep, densely wooded hills was an unpleasant exercise, with both suns climbing higher and higher all the time. The trees and bushes seemed to have a weird life of their own, rolling up their leaves as the brightness of the suns became steadily stronger, or closing them like a falter.

"A clever evolutionary trick," Dr. Corrigan commented. "That way they can minimize the evaporation and so the water loss." He was an anthropologist with considerable linguist skills, but if one had worked for the SGC, one picked up a great deal of useful knowledge from other disciplines as well.

"They also minimize the shadow they'd give otherwise," Dr. Simpson sighed unhappily. With her fair complexion, she suffered from the harsh sunlight the most, despite her Athosian-style straw hat and her sunglasses. Her many freckles became almost red and seemed to glow in her pare, sweating face.

Bates, who liked her more than all the other geeks together – she was an Army brat and therefore almost one of them – gave her a worried look. "Can you go on, Dr. Simpson?"

Julia Simpson laughed. "Oh, I'm not that easy to kill, Sergeant. Remind me to tell you about the time my Dad took me to a trip in the Llano Estacado. I just really, really hate such places."

"Ye're not the only one, lass," Carson Beckett, too, was profoundly sweating under the weight of his equipment, his face alarmingly red. Toussaint stepped up to him and wordlessly removed his large backpack. Then he took off his cap and pushed it onto the doctor's head. He was a veteran of Belize, after all, he could bear heat better than anyone else from his team.

Carson glanced at him in relief. "Thank ye, son."

The others grinned, since Toussaint was actually older than Beckett, if only a year or two. But they'd all gotten used to the friendly Scotsman calling every single man 'son' or 'lad', regardless of their age.

"We're almost there, doc," Aiden said encouragingly. "Dr. Simpson, can you get any more readings of that energy spike of yours?"

She shook her head. "No, it's gone. But I've got the coordinates fixed. Whatever it is, it's a couple of hundred metres that way," she gestured to their left.

Aiden looked around. They were currently on a very small lighting amidst those strange thorn-trees, with barely enough room to sit down properly. But at least there was a minimum of shadow; and besides, they had to prevent getting dehydrated.

"All right," he said, "since we don't know what awaits us there, let's make a break right here. We have to drink a lot, rest a little, and we can collect samples from the soil and the plants and whatever else is needed here. Toussaint and Yamato will stay here with the stuff, so that it's safe and that we won't need to drag all of it along with us. You'll be close enough to come to our help, should it be necessary."

Everyone was more than happy with the arrangement, and thy began with the collecting of samples. To general surprise, when Rickman tried to dig out some sort of weed with his knife for Dr. Parish, he accidentally pierced something that looked like a bladder and was firmly interwoven with the plant's roots. Clear, sweet water ran through his helpless fingers, about the amount that would fill a small cup.

"These plants are living water-tanks!" Beckett exclaimed. "Can ye imagine what it would mean for Earth if we could send a few wee samples back? They could make the deserts all green again."

"It's by no means sure that they'd survive under so vastly different circumstances," Corrigan reminded him. "Or what they would do to the indigenous flora. But we should bring back a few of them to our botanists to play with them. Or else Dr. Parrish would try to sneak through the Gate to get here." He pulled out his Army-issue knife and began to dig, very carefully.

That made Rickman a bit miffed. "I'd have done that for you, doc," he said.

Corrigan grinned. "I'm also an archaeologist, you know; have spent half my college time on various diggings. I'm used to lay… delicate things free." With a few careful moves, he freed the weed with its roots intact and held it high. It was a truly bizarre sight, as if it had a small balloon fastened among its roots.

"The peculiar evolution of this planet's flora is remarkable," he commented. "The botanists will twist themselves into knots to get there."

"Not before we can confirm that it's safe," Aiden replied. "Doc, how far ahead are you? We need to move on, soon."

"I'm almost done, lad," Beckett replied, a bit distractedly, and stoppered the vials with the soil, water and plant life samples. He stored them in a box – a specific container, in fact, made for this very purpose – then he sealed the box and looked up. "All right, I am done. What's next?"

"Scanning for possible lifesigns," Corrigan replied in Aiden's stead. "The planet may be uninhibited, but it has a Stargate. We might run into other visitors… and not necessarily friendly ones."

"It won't be the first time," Aiden agreed grimly.

"It isn't," Corrigan said, consulting his lifesign detector. "It seems that we're indeed not alone here."

"Dammit!" Aiden switched on his own instrument, checked the readings and suppressed the urge to swear a blue streak; not that Dr. Simpson would be shocked, but Grandma Ford had serious objections against swearing in the earshot of ladies. "You're right, doc. And they're heading the same way as us… or perhaps are already there."

"Which definitely means that there has to be something of value," Simpson said. "What kind of lifesigns are those? Human or Wraith?"

Aiden shrugged and passed the detector to Beckett, who was the expert, after all.

"No Wraith," Carson said after a moment, "and some of them seem to be human, at least. But there are readings that I cannae interpret."

"Could it be animals?" Bates asked.

Beckett shook his head. "I don't think the instrument would react to non-sentient lifeforms," he said. "We cannae be sure, though. And this place doesn't seem suited for animal husbandry anyway. Nay, I think it must be species we havnae met yet."

"Which is strange," Corrigan said, "since practically everyone we've met so far was human. Well, save from the Wraith and those bugs that almost killed Major Sheppard, that is."

"Could it be the bugs?" Aiden asked, shivering despite the midday heat. He'd had the questionable pleasure to meet those things close up and still suffered from nightmares occasionally. Nightmares in which those things were crawling all over him, attaching themselves to his neck, sucking the very life out of him. Sometimes he thought that SGC missions had been Sunday trips compared with the continuing horror that was life in the Pegasus galaxy.

"Nay," Beckett said. "Those wee beasties were not sentient. Besides, I know how they read on the instruments. This here is something new."

"And we must find out what it is," Bates added.

"Afraid so," Aiden said. "Sergeant, call the jumper back to the landing place. We can't afford to have it up, well, visible, till we don't know what we're dealing with. Tell Lieutenant Lindstrom to activate the cloak. Toussaint, Yamato, you take the samples and as much of the equipment as you can carry and start back to the landing place at once. We need to get them back to Atlantis, no matter what happens to us."

"Shouldn't the docs come with us, too?" Yamato asked.

Aiden shook his head. "No, I might need them to pick their brains. Don't worry, we'll protect them."

Toussaint and Yamato reluctantly left, leaving their extra weapons behind. Aiden weighed a P90 in his hands.

"I assume that Dr. Simpson can handle one of these," he said. "But what about you, Dr. Corrigan?"

Corrigan laughed. "Do you think Major Pierce would have tolerated me on SG-15 if I couldn't fire a weapon?"

"Good," Aiden handed him the P90. He didn't even bother to ask Beckett; everyone in Atlantis knew what the good doctor thought about guns. "Dr. Corrigan, you have a digital camera with you, right?"

"Not just any digital camera," Corrigan declared proudly. "I can zoom in the inscriptions of a football-sized item from a hundred metres with it."

"Cool," Aiden said. "We'll need to document every oh-so-small detail for further analysis. Let's go, people, and remember: we're supposed to avoid any direct contact, if possible. All we have to do is to watch."

The Gate Room of Atlantis was particularly peaceful on this evening, Dr. Teresa Weir found, as she looked up from her work. She had been studying the history files in the Ancient database for weeks by now, in the hope that they might save as much knowledge as humanly possible before the inevitable day, on which they'd have to destroy everything, would come. Granted, hand-written notes were less than effective, but they still meant that more computer storage capacity would be left to save other data. Even if that place could only be counted in kilobytes. She had to be very selective, of course, looking for data of immediate importance for them, like facts concerning the rise and fall of the Genii Confederation. She couldn't waste any time with mourning about all the things that would be irreparably lost, all too soon. Including Atlantis itself.

She let her look glide over the Gate Room with regret, though. It was large and light and airy, very obviously designed with both aesthetics and practicality in mind – which was all the more amazing if one remembered that it was also the command deck of a huge starship. It was hard to remember that, considering that the ship truly had the size of a city. She rarely thought of Atlantis as a ship; understandably enough, as it wasn't able to fly anymore. And the soft copper-coloured walls, inset with elaborate geometric patterns of stained glass, the open balconies, the graceful spires… it was simply easier to think of it as a city.

But whatever else Atlantis might be, it – she, as the engineers preferred to talk about it – was beautiful. A marvel, both in its proportions and its functionality. It was bitter that they'd have to destroy it and all the knowledge it harboured. Even if they had no other choice, it was a criminal waste.

Unexpectedly, the Stargate started to dial up, and the alarm klaxons shook her awake from her brooding.

"Unscheduled off-world activation!" Gate technician Eddie Wong shouted, while Peter Grodin, who actually lived in tiny, single-room quarters adjoining the Gate Room, was already running to his duty station, wearing sweatpants and a black T-shirt with white letters announcing across his chest: My girlfriend went to London and all I got was this lousy T-shirt. Theresa wondered briefly if the man ever slept. Sometimes Peter was almost as bad as Rodney.

"Raise shield," Grodin ordered, while the security team on second shift, a group of German Bundeswehr soldiers, marched in and took defensive positions. "Do we have an IDC?"

Eddie Wong nodded. "It's Lieutenant Ford's team returning, sir."

"Are they coming in hot?" Grodin asked.

Eddie shook his head. "Doesn't seem so, sir. At least they're not sending any alarm signals. But they weren't supposed to return before the day after tomorrow, so something must have gone wrong."

Grodin looked up to Theresa. She nodded. Whatever had happened, they needed to get their people back. She just hoped they hadn't run into the Wraith. Or the Genii. Or any other unfriendly locals. Those seemed to be present in a depressingly high number in the Pegasus galaxy.

"Very well," Grodin said, "lower the shield.

The shimmering energy shield collapsed into itself, revealing the silvery-blue surface of the activated Gate. It was a sight Theresa could never tire of. In the next moment, the familiar shape of Jumper 3 glided through the event horizon – the mere fact that it came in slowly proving that there was no immediate danger – and the Gate shut down on its own. Both Lieutenant Lindstrom and Lieutenant Ford, who sat in the cockpit, seemed unharmed, albeit worried, through the front window.

Teresa activated her headset. "Lieutenant Ford, report. What happened?"

"It's a long story, ma'am," Ford's tiny voice answered through her earpiece. "I think you need to call the leading staff and possibly the science department heads too, to the conference room. They all need to hear this – and see the evidence we've brought back."

God, that sounded serious. Theresa felt a heavy weight in her stomach. But she needed to keep up a good front, so she ruthlessly stomped on her rising panic and gave extra care to speak in a calm, even voice.

"Very well," she said. "Debriefing in thirty minutes. That should be enough for you to grab a shower and for everyone else to get there."

Half an hour later, everyone who in any way counted in Atlantis was gathered in the conference room. As usual, Sheppard brought his entire team (with the notable exception of Gunnery Sergeant Galindez) and McKay brought Zelenka. But Halling was also present, and Dr. Simpson had requested that they included Dr. Kavanagh, who'd been on countless off-world missions with SG-13 and might, in her opinion, be of assistance in this case. The heads of the various science departments and the leaders of the off-world teams made up the rest.

Aiden gave a brief summary of the first part of their mission, mentioning briefly the water-harbouring plants (which had lead botanist David Parrish in ecstatics) and how they had detected that they weren't alone on M85-393.

"I called the jumper back, secured the collected samples, and went with the rest of the team to check out the strangers," he then said. "When we reached the coordinates where the energy spike had come from, we found this."

Projected onto one of the large overhead screens, this was a mushroom-shaped device, fastened onto something cylindrical with four metallic 'legs'. The cylindrical pedestal was decorated with inlaid patterns that might actually be keys or buttons.

"Seems familiar to anyone?" Ford asked. "I know I've seen something like that before, but…"

"Wait a minute!" Kavanagh interrupted. "I'm not sure, but isn't this very much like that device on P2B-675?"

"Jamala's planet," Bates, a walking lexicon of early Stargate missions, supplied helpfully. "SG-1 visited it in the very first year of the whole project."

McKay snapped with his fingers. "Wasn't that the place where whatshisname from SG-9 went mad and declared himself God?"

"And killed half of his own team," Theresa nodded. "Now I remember. It was a Goa'uld-dominated world where the slaves were protected by some sort of sun-shield technology to block the harmful rays."

"And when the Goa'uld disappeared, supposedly as the result of the constant internal fighting for more power, the sun-shield was disabled because nobody know how to operate the generator," Corrigan nodded. "The local population retreated into the caves of the valley they'd originally lived in, to protect themselves."

"What became of the device?" Grodin asked.

"After SG-1 dealt with Captain Hansen, Major Carter and Teal'c managed to activate and engage the sun-shield, so that the people could leave a normal life again… at least within the valley," Corrigan replied.

"And you really think this might be the same thing?" Sheppard, who hadn't been with the SGC previous to the Atlantis expedition, asked doubtfully. "Seems a bit too much of a coincidence to me."

"Not really," Zelenka said. "We know that Goa'uld hardly ever created anything of their own. They usually work with stolen technology or what they found somewhere on abandoned or unprotected planets. Like Gate system itself or entire crystal-based technology. They modified things for their own purposes, yes, like turning healing device into sarcophagus, but discovering new things isn't their forte."

"Has anyone ever managed to reverse engineer these sun shield generators?" Major Vogel, also a Stargate project newbie, asked.

McKay shook his head. "The people of P2B-675, grateful though they were to Major Carter and her team, didn't want anything to do with Earth humans again."

"I guess it's understandable, from their point of view," Sevarion Kirkitadze, the head lawyer of Atlantis and Dr. Weir's aide, said thoughtfully. "Could we possibly turn this generator on M85-393 on? We've got a small population; perhaps we could create a shielded area large enough for us."

"It's not that simple," McKay said. "For starters, you need two devices for the whole thing to work. According to the SGC's technical database, when both are activated and engaged, some sort of orange beam is released. The two beams meet somewhere in the middle of the distance – and do I need to point out what level of technical development it requires to actually bend light? – creating thus a protective dome of pure energy. Solid objects can penetrate this shield, and it's harmless for humans, but it filters the sunlight of all harmful sorts of radiation."

"Seems handy to me," Major Vogel said. "So, can you turn the thing on? Possibly even reverse-engineer it?"

McKay exchanged a doubtful look with Zelenka, his secret weapon in all practical things. The scruffy little Czech nodded, albeit a little uncertainly.

"We can try," McKay answered reluctantly. "Given enough time, we might even manage it."

"I'm afraid it won't be possible, Dr. McKay," Ford said. "Firstly, we only found one device. And what's worse, we weren't the first ones to find it."

He forwarded the record, widening the focus, so that they could now all see the dozen or so people around the device. If they could be called people at all. Some of them were doubtlessly human, but one of the others was some furry animal, with beady eyes, tusks emerging from its ugly face, and long curved, vicious claws. Strangely enough, it walked around erect on its hind legs and wore a wide-cut orange robe and even a medal on a chain around its neck.

There was also a peculiar, grey-skinned humanoid in a coverall of the same hue as its skin, with a long, ridged chin that looked ridiculously like the ceremonial fake beards on the sarcophagus of almost every pharaoh. The rest were, well, it couldn't be put any other way, bugs. They looked vaguely like ants with only four limbs, but they were man-sized (if that man was rather short and long-torsoed, that is) and… well, colourful. Three of them had bright emerald green carapaces, while the fourth one was deep blood red. They all carried weapons and wore tool belts (although not much else), so there could be no doubt whatsoever that they were, in fact, sentient beings.

Atlantis' best and brightest were understandably shocked by the sight.

"So much about M85-393 being uninhibited and void of Ancient gizmos," Sheppard commented, shooting Bates a baleful look.

"Actually, I don't think these are native inhabitants," Dr. Corrigan said hastily, before things could get ugly and Bates court-martialled for hitting an officer. "The humans most certainly aren't. If you give their highly impractical uniform a closer look…"

"Hoffan militia," Theresa Weir realized with a sinking feeling.

Corrigan nodded. "All of them, save from that really big guy in black; the one with the longish hair. We have no idea who – or what – he might be."

"Genii, based on that uniform," Sheppard said. "It seems the Hoffans were quick to find allies that are every bit as ruthless as they are."

"I wouldnae say that, Major," Beckett corrected. "The Hoffans never harmed anyone but themselves. And they probably needed help to rebuild, after all those deaths."

"Well, it's their own damn fault," Sheppard snapped. "We certainly did our best to hold them back."

"True," Beckett agreed, "and I'm not defending them. I'm just saying that since we've broken contact with them, they would need to seek out new, strong allies."

"But not the Genii," Halling spoke for the first time. "That man there is not a Genii. The uniform may look similar, but it is not the same."

"I agree," Teyla said. "Neither have I ever seen a Genii this large. They are usually of average height at best. And that weapon he carries – I have never seen anything like that."

"Looks vaguely like a staff weapon," Major Lorne, the survivor of the one or other vicious Goa'uld attack, judged. "And it's retractable, too, it seems," he added, as the man on the record squeezed the middle of the staff, after which it snapped together to a foot in length or so. "Very practical – and nothing I have ever seen before, either. What about you, Doc?" he looked at Kavanagh.

The scientist shook his head. "It seems too light to be an actual staff weapon anyway," he said. "And it doesn't have the typical head, either."

"This might sound ridiculous," Kirkitadze said slowly, "but considering that Goa'uld have modified Ancient tech for their own purposes for millennia, could we be looking at the original version of the staff weapon?"

"You mean that this guy might actually be an Ancient?" Corrigan asked, fighting very hard to suppress the urge to guffaw.

Kirkitadze shrugged. "Dr. Beckett has told me that the Ancients were the first… edition of the human form. They surely looked human enough on the records."

"True," Corrigan replied, "but I seriously doubt that the big guy's one of them. He very clearly had no idea what the shield generator was, and besides, why should an Ancient ally himself with the Hoffan militia and some strange bugs? Not to mention the local equivalent of a trained monkey?"

"Are you sure that the furry creature isn't sentient?" Theresa Weir asked.

"It could be," Corrigan admitted. "We were too far away to hear them talk, and didn't dare to go any closer, in case we were discovered."

"Couldn't it be one of those, you know, Furling things?" McKay asked. "They used to be buddy-buddy with the Ancients, and that guy is certainly furry enough."

Corrigan rolled his eyes. "Rodney, Furling is an Ancient word and has nothing to do with what it sounds like in English. Besides, I hate to burst your bubble, but we do know what the Furlings were like. They were huge beings – ten feet or so – of pure light or energy that existed in a parallel dimension, at least partially."

"Oh," McKay nodded. "The creature on P7X-377. The one with the crystal skull device. The thing that used lepton radiation to teleport people to great distances."

"Exactly," Corrigan agreed. "The only other place we know they'd certainly lived is Utopia, but that was just a small outpost. We don't really know what happened to the Furlings or why they've left our galaxy almost completely, but one thing is certain: they were not furry little creatures, friendly or otherwise."

"So, if the furry thing isn't a Furling and the big guy isn't an Ancient, what the hell are they?" Michael Naseband, the German security chief of Atlantis, asked with a frown. "And what about the bugs?"

"I haven't got the faintest idea," Corrigan admitted. "The only sentient bugs the SGC had on record were the Re'etu, but they are, well, a lot more bug-like. Besides, they're extremely xenophobic and would never willingly cooperate with other beings. These must belong to some Pegasus galaxy species we haven't met yet. I mean, this is a whole galaxy out there, and we've only visited a few dozen planets or so."

"Could the bugs be native to M85-393?" Theresa Weir asked.

Ford shook his head. "We don't think so, ma'am. After the little grey man who looks like he'd be a distant cousin of the Asgard had examined every single inch of the device, they all left together through the Stargate."

"And you've followed them to see where they were going, of course," Major Lorne grinned at him.

Ford grinned back. "Of course we have, sir. If one knows the arrangement of the keys on a DHD by heart, one doesn't need to actually see the symbols to know which address is being dialled up."

"That makes sense," Lorne nodded. "And where did they go?"

"Back to Hoff," Ford answered. "Considering the presence of the Hoffan militia, it wasn't really surprising."

"Perhaps not," Major Vogel said. "It's strange, though, that the Hoffans would be looking for uninhabited worlds to settle on. After having sacrificed half their people for the chance to remain exactly where they've always lived."

Ford shrugged. "Perhaps they're looking for their own Alpha site, in case the Wraith would react badly to the fact that they've become inedible."

"That would be a wise precaution," Vogel agreed. "And where does all this leave us?"

"If the Hoffans have staked their claim on the planet, we can't do much," Theresa Weir answered. "We might not agree with the methods they've chosen to fight the Wraith with, but ultimately, it was their decision. We have no right to deny them their own place of escape. We've a debt to all Pegasus galaxy humans, after all. A debt we won't likely be able to pay any time soon… if ever."

Kirkitadze nodded. "We need to give up M85-393, at least for the time being. We'll see what we can do about it later. Perhaps the Hoffans don't even wish to move there. But first and foremost, we need to establish our own Alpha site to begin with the evacuation. We're running out of time."

"Do you have a suggestion?" Theresa Weir asked.

"I suggest M1K-439, the planet with the many waterfalls," Kirkitadze replied. "Major Sheppard's team hasn't found anything harmful or suspicious in the first survey, and Sergeant Stackhouse's latest trip was successful in locating areas with fertile soil. Halling here says that it's well suited for agriculture."

"Good, let's begin the preparations immediately," Theresa Weir looked at Bates. "Sergeant, I leave this in your capable hands."

Bates nodded simply. There wasn't much to say. After all, everyone knew that he was the best man for that sort of job.

"Lieutenant Ford," Dr. Weir continued, "I want you to make another short trip to M85-393 before we leave Atlantis."

"What for, ma'am?" Ford asked in surprise.

"We need to know whenever the Hoffans and their new allies return to the place," she explained. "I'm sure that Dr. Zelenka can mcgyver together something similar to the Wraith marker. Something that will send a signal whenever someone – anyone – opens the Stargate on that planet."

"Wouldn't it alert the Wraith as well?" Ford asked in concern.

"Not if I set marker to send signal on frequency Wraith don't use and we place relay unit hidden among orbital debris," Zelenka replied. "Is minor problem. I'll solve it in a day."

"Good," Dr. Weir said. "In that case, this meeting is adjourned. We all have a lot of work to do and very little time to get it done. I'll see you tomorrow in the next staff meeting."

The others filed out of the conference room slowly, leaving her alone with Kirkitadze. The lawyer looked at her in askance. They'd worked together on several international projects during the last decade, but never had he seen her so grave before.

"Is something wrong?" he asked. "I mean, beyond the obvious?"

She shrugged with an uncertainty that was not at all characteristic for her. Usually, she was a determined woman with clear goals before her eyes and with at least two ways planned in advance how to achieve those goals. "No… yes," she said, rubbing her eyes in frustration. After a moment of silence, she asked. "Sevarion, have you ever thought about… have you ever asked yourself whether we were right to abandon the Hoffans?"

"Not really," Kirkitadze replied with a shrug. "What else could we have done? They've committed genocide on their own people! Are you second-guessing our decision?"

"Sometimes," she admitted. "I mean, what right do we have to judge them? We've just arrived in this galaxy, and the first thing we did was to wake up the Wraith!"

"That wasn't deliberate," Kirkitadze said.

"I know," she answered, "but what do the best intentions have to do with the horrible outcome? Whole planets are culled every day all across this galaxy, and regardless our intentions, we've started it. Before, the people had generations between cullings. Now the entire galaxy has become a slaughterhouse, and we are not without fault in that development. What does give us the right to judge the Hoffans for being desperate enough to take horrible risks? We're new here. Who knows what we'll be willing to risk… what we'll be willing to do, after we've been here long enough and become desperate enough?"

"I don't know," Kirkitadze replied thoughtfully. "I can only hope that we've learned from the Hoffan disaster that the end results don't always justify the means."

"I wonder," she said slowly. "I mean, we're just a small expedition, isolated in a foreign galaxy. Our homes, our people aren't immediately threatened by the Wraith. We're willing to destroy Atlantis and even ourselves if we have to, just to keep Earth safe. Is there really such a big difference?"

"The difference is the number of the dead," Kirkitadze said.

"They all volunteered," she reminded him. "They all knew the risks. Sometimes I feel that we should be less patronizing with the locals, just because we have better technology at our disposal. That we should try to understand them better, to learn from them instead. Even if we decide that we don't agree with them, after all."

"That might spare us similar mistakes," Kirkitadze agreed and wrapped his arms around her as she turned to look out at the balcony. "I'm sure you'll eventually find a way to do so. You're a smart woman… and a determined one."

She sighed and leaned back against his solid bulk. His presence, his friendship of many years helped her to ground herself in times like this.

"I'm so very tired, Sevarion," she admitted. "When I accepted this position, I didn't expect to have an all-out war on my hands after the first week or so."

"You'll manage," Kirkitadze replied simply. "You are stronger than you think. I trust your abilities; you should trust them, too."

"I'm trying," she laughed without true mirth, "but it's not easy, you know."

"I know," the lawyer said. "Come, I'll make you tea; real tea, not that Athosian stuff. I might put the brass kettle of my great-grandmother to good use as long as we still have the time."

TBC