Chapter 34: Unexpected visitors

The gate activated and Sam checked the schedule, things had been running smoothly for the past couple of weeks, there had been a lot of infighting between the wraith meaning they had been distracted and their off-world teams had been relatively unscathed with the exception of SG-15 who had minor injuries after getting caught off-world in an earthquake.

The lull had been welcome as the military personnel on Atlantis worked out the teething problems of the transition of Lorne to military commander. The man had been Sheppard's second in command for years and was the logical person to take over but there had still been a few things to work out. There was still hope that Sheppard would return but as time progressed that was looking less and less likely as there was no indication of what had happened to the 1037 people who had disappeared from earth.

Sam sighed, McKay was rarely seen outside his lab these days and Sam was seeing a strong resemblance to the man she had first met at the SGC years before. Keller had taken to going for regular visits to the lab to ensure McKay remembered to eat and wasn't able to cut off all forms of human contact. Teyla hadn't been seen by Atlantis personnel for two weeks now. When it had become apparent that they were not going to be able to do anything from their corner of the galaxy she had opted to take Toren to New Athos so that he had the chance to spend time with other children. The disappearance of half their team had been difficult on both of them.

When Sam saw that the gate was not scheduled to open she moved through to the control room. "IDC from New Athos has been received." The technician on duty told her "Lowering the shield."

Sam nodded; perhaps Teyla had decided to return to Atlantis. Three people stepped through the gate and it took Sam a minute to process what she was seeing. She didn't recognise two of the men both of whom were gaping unabashedly at their surroundings, although one of them did have some familiar features that she couldn't place. It was the man standing in between the other two who drew her attention; it was undoubtedly Ronon but he was wearing grimy jeans and a shirt that might once have been white but was now a brownish colour.

Looking back at the other two with him she took in their clothes, the one who looked vaguely familiar was wearing what looked to be expensive pyjamas whilst the other wore clothes that had almost as much holes as fabric revealing an emaciated frame.

The gate shut down and Sam realised that the gate security team had reacted much faster than she had and now had weapons trained on them. Before anyone could say anything however she saw one of the men turn to Ronon, apparently unfazed by the weapons and say "This is where John works?"

She didn't hear all of what Ronon had said but it certainly looked like Ronon was indicating an affirmative but also that now was not the time to talk about it. There was an increase in the murmuring from around her and she realised that all the gate-room personnel were now stood around her looking down into the main gate-room whilst people were filtering in from all the corridors the led off of the room, word was spreading through the base like wildfire. Regaining her composure she said "Ronon how did you get here?"

The third man who had yet to speak, and seemed emaciated under his torn clothes, shifted from foot to foot looking nervously at all the guns pointed at them. Ronon looked across at him briefly to reassure himself that he wasn't going to do anything stupid before replying "Our captors sent us down to a planet to collect supplies, they don't bother to guard us as they assume that we can't escape. I recognised the planet; it was one I hid on for a while whilst I was a runner. There were more of us but the other two returned to their planet already."

"What about John and the other missing people from Earth?" Sam asked the question everyone else was thinking.

"They are still on the ship that we were being held on, they need people with the ATA gene. The others that were taken were only taken because they were in physical contact with a gene holder. I think we might be short of time though; I overheard some of our captors talking about the fact that they needed to start preparing for the next intake. There aren't a lot of planets in this galaxy with gene holders." Ronon didn't bother elaborating they all knew what he was talking about.

Sam turned to the group of technicians that were gathered around her. Locating the individual she was looking for she said "Parker, pull up the long range telemetry and see if you can identify the ship Ronon is talking about, I want a trajectory and timeline as soon as possible."

Parker nodded and he and the other two technicians moved off to pull up the required data. Sam turned back to the scene in the gate-room. "Ronon you know we need to keep armed guards on you until we can confirm you are who you say you are right?"

Ronon just nodded, he knew the drill "Ok then why don't you head for the infirmary, I will meet you there to debrief you when we have confirmed where the ship is."

Ronon began to move off followed by his two companions and their phalanx of armed soldiers. Sam heard the familiar looking of the two say "Why do they have to confirm who we are, surely they know you?" Ronon told the man it was a long story and just before they moved out of hearing range Sam heard the other man make a frustrated sound before saying "I have heard that explanation far too many times in the last month."

She couldn't help but smile as she heard this but she made sure to compose her features before she turned back to the control room. When she turned around she saw the display showing all the ships in their local area of the galaxy. Having a thought she decided to seek out one of the technicians not currently doing anything "Please contact the Deadalus and ask Colonel Caldwell if he can wait a couple of days, he doesn't need to come back here but it would be nice to have them nearby in case we need them."

The Deadalus had only departed the day before and so they were still well within reach. She was about to have a closer look at the display of the long-range scanners when the gate activated again, moments later she was informed that Teyla's IDC had been received. The Athosians must have let her know that Ronon had passed through.

Waiting until she saw Teyla step into the gate-room she then looked back to where Parker had identified what he thought was the ship Ronon had been talking about.

Ronon watched the reaction of the two men walking beside him as they walked towards the infirmary. At first Jaume had spent much of his time cowering away from the armed guards, watching them suspiciously, but even he could only hide his wonder at their surroundings for a short period of time before he was doing the same as David; staring around and drinking up all of the sights they passed. Ronon had to admit; even by Ancient standards Atlantis was pretty spectacular.

Keller and her team were ready and waiting for them and it took only a short time to draw blood and get them under a couple of different scanners to confirm that they were who they said they were and they weren't carrying anything that could damage the city and its inhabitants. Keller smiled at Ronon as she came back into the room carrying some papers that he assumed had the test results "It's good to have you back Ronon, we might be able to drag Rodney out of the lab now. I ran David's blood against samples we have from Colonel Sheppard just to be on the safe side, how did you manage to get a gene carrier out of the ship?"

Ronon was confused, he had been explaining what he knew about why they had been taken to Sam and Jennifer as he had been checked out "we didn't, only non-gene carriers were taken down to the planet." He watched as Keller checked back through her papers before she spoke again "We ran the tests twice, David is definitely a gene carrier."

Ronon didn't know what to say to that; "They scanned everyone on the ship as we were processed, their scanner definitely indicated negative when they scanned him."

"Ok well we will explore that at a later date." Sam told them "the ship is on a trajectory that will hit this planet tomorrow; we need to come up with a plan to rescue the captives before that point."

It was at that point Rodney came rushing into the infirmary puffing as he looked around before identifying their small group and heading over, Teyla was close behind him. "Thank heavens!" Rodney exclaimed "Teyla just told me that you had returned, why did it take so long for someone to think to come and tell me? Where's Sheppard? "

Ronon looked at Sam and Jennifer; it was obvious that Teyla and Rodney had only been told part of the story and he was hoping that he wasn't going to have to tell them what was going on. He was relieved when Sam stepped in "Colonel Sheppard is still a captive, Ronon was able to escape with several other captives including Colonel Sheppard's brother David." Not pausing long enough to allow Rodney to ask any of the questions they could see flitting across his face she continued "They were taken for the ATA gene and were separated from the gene carriers, there seems to be some confusion with Colonel Sheppard's brother and whether he is a carrier at the moment."

"Where is he?" Rodney asked already rummaging in the pockets of his trousers. Sam indicated the other end of the infirmary where two sectioned off beds had guards posted by them.

Rodney set off down the infirmary the others trailing behind him, wondering what exactly he was planning on doing. He reached the two beds and, glancing quickly at the two individuals, recognised the resemblance between one man and Sheppard. He called "catch" and chucked a small device at David.

David barely had time to register what was going on before his reflexes took over and he reached out to catch the device flying towards him. "No confusion at all, he's a gene carrier." Rodney declared.

Sam peered at what David was holding in his hands and recognised the glowing screen of a life signs detector, Rodney was right; the life signs detector didn't function if you didn't have the gene. "Ok well we will explore that further at a later date but right now I have a plan for how to deal with the uninvited guests we are about to have but I need to go through a few things with you Rodney and Ronon. I also need to brief Major Lorne."